It is exciting to see Africans in Diaspora competing amongst themselves in this way.  Like one of the interviewees said:  ”African problems are best solved by Africans.”  I believe we have a lot to offer and we must seek opportunities that challenge us to be producers.

After reading Gasha’s story I could not help but share this video.  Gasha did not wait for the government to take action or ask it to do something.    He took the initiative and begun the project himself.

I intend to begin a similar project back at home.

SAFARICOM in conjunction with a a leading global provider of telecom equipment and network solutions in China,  jointly launched the first solar-powered mobile phone in Kenya.

Simu ya Solar is manufactured from recycled materials and the phone has a built-in solar panel that charges the phone using the sun’s rays.

The hope is to help residents who have no easy access to electricity.  It will retail at about US$39.

Source: China Daily

Engineers installing wind turbines at Ngong Hills (from The Daily Nation)

Sources of this article:  globalpost/The Daily Nation

Kenya has set a goal of producing 2000 megawatts of electricity within the next 3 years.   Part of the plan is to exploit greener or renewable forms of energy.   Kenya obtains more than 75 per cent of its 1,200MW of power from hydro.  The country’s only existing source of renewable energy is geothermal power, which has not been fully exploited.

The United Nations says Kenya has the capacity to generate more than 3,000MW of electricity if it tapped into wind energy in its vast northern districts.  The UN report says that Egypt, another African country,  draws upto 7,520 MW of its energy from wind-power projects while Mexico gets 5,000MW. The UN says Kenya has adequate wind to generate energy for both export and domestic use.

KENGEN, an electricity generating company partly owned by the Kenyan government,  has just installed 6 giant wind turbines in Ngong Hills with a view to harnesing this energy source.  The potential is there for 11 more wind farms to be established elsewhere in the country.

An Astral cargo plane has crash landed at Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International airport blocking the runway. Sources indicate that planes scheduled to land at the airport are being diverted. No details of casualties have been reported so far. Details to follow.

Internet broadband has become a reality in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Uganda for the first after one of the four awaited undersea cables was finally switched on on Thursday.

The privately-funded consortium will be switching on its $760m (Sh59 billion at current exchange rates) sub-sea cable in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda and South Africa with Rwanda set to be linked up in two weeks’ time.

Three unnamed internet players were the first to access the cable following the switch.

“This is an incredibly special day for Kenya and Africa and I am very happy to be part of it,” said Seacom vice-president, Jean-Pierre de Leu said a few hours ago at the launch at the Swahili Cultural centre where the Mombasa landing station is based.

“No project can compete with this for the importance it holds for Kenya and for Africa,” said Haskell Ward, Seacom’s senior vice-president in charge of government relations.

The benefits are expected to be immense with the sub-sea cable expected to provide super-fast internet connections and vastly expanded bandwidth capacity.

The forthcoming Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) Forum to be led by United States Secretary of State is a prime example of what the cable can do. The talks are set to be streamed live to the five countries and will also feature what has until now been the stuff of movies.

Kenya Per Capita Income:
$1,600 (2008 est.)
$1,600 (2007 est.)
$1,600 (2006 est.)
note: data are in 2008 US dollars
(1USD exchanges for Kenya Shilling 76.89)

See clip from NTV below:

Local manufacturers would like the Act repealed and terms redefined as captured in the following video:

Obviously, Kenya has lost a lot of ground in this intiative and needs to be more aggressive in presenting its case at the next forum.

The eighth AGOA Forum will be held in Nairobi, Kenya , August 4-6, 2009. The theme of this year’s Forum is “Realizing the Full Potential of AGOA through Expansion of Trade and Investment.” The Forum will focus on a number of crucial trade and economic issues, including but not limited to how countries can take full advantage of the range of export opportunities that AGOA offers. The Ministerial discussions will be held on August 5-6, and the private sector and civil society groups will hold related events on August 4. Further details will be posted in the near future.

July 6 (Bloomberg) — An undersea telecommunications cable linking Kenya with 21 nations is expected to be operational by next July, said Chris Wood, chief executive officer of the West Indian Ocean Cable Co.

The $260 million East Africa Submarine Cable System will be the third fiber-optic cable connecting the East African country to the outside world. The link, with the capacity to carry 1.4 terabytes of data per second, may slash prices by as much as 80 percent and make connection speeds as much as five times faster, Wood said in an interview on July 3 in Nairobi, the capital.

“We are going to very quickly see a reduction in prices, better quality and improved connectivity especially in landlocked nations,” said Wood.

Kenya currently has 3 million Internet users out of a total population of 37.9 million people, according to the Web site of Internet World Stats. The penetration rate of 7.9 percent compares with 5.6 percent for the whole of Africa, it said.
Source: Bloomberg Press

In a report released last week, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) called for close monitoring of the crop situation in Kenya and eight other countries where prospects point to a shortfall in production of crops as a result of a reduction of the area planted, adverse weather conditions, pests, diseases and other calamities.

In Kenya, the report said: “Insufficient rainfall during the initial stage of the main cropping season (March-April) is likely to have impeded crop growth, increasing the probability of yet another poor harvest.”

However the report mentioned that production estimates are likely to be relatively favourable in western maize growing regions, bordering Lake Victoria, which received near normal rainfall from March to June.

(Source: Business Daily, July 20, 2009)