Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

This poem is about the unending trials and tribulations of a Kenyan Coder.

Monday: Wake up at 5am all psyched up and ready to start this new lucrative project,

Turn on the PC and fire up netbeans and start apache, glassfish and googletalk,

A mail pops up and a client is calling me for a quick 10k job in westlands,

Because my pocket is empty, i run to westlands for the all-day 10k job and the lucrative project stalls.

And so, today, yet again, I will postpone my success…

Tuesday: wake up all fired up. Today I will debug that piece of Java code,

I disconnect the net and shut down all other distractions, even my phone.

BUT, the electricity company decide to also disconnect the power, ohh my god!

I should be all panicky and angry, but I decide to remain hopeful and bold,

Power comes back at noon, and by then it is hot, and no longer cold-code time,

And so, today, yet again, I will postpone my success…

Wednesday: I pick up my call at 5, there are some investors in town who want to see us,

Sometimes it is Safaricon who want a demo of my system and cant stop calling us,

We spend on cabs and lunches and waste coding time hosting the same old vibe,

Our success Project delays because of useless meetings and countless proposals for other solutions,

And so, today, yet again, I will postpone my success…

Going Forward: In the midst of all the hassle and bustle, I decide to watch news,

Mr Politician lectures the clapping crowds on how they bring them development,

And how the government is there to help the vijana kupata kazi,

I laugh and go to bed, thanking God for knowing better,

And so, tomorrow, never again, will I postpone my success…

The time is now.

I candidly remember when we were kids at campus in UoN. We used to always talk about people with money. Not small pocket change like 10 or 20 Million Kenya Shillings, but real cold scrilla. Everytime someone started talking about how rich s/he or someone else was, we asked, ‘Kwani yeye ni Cris Kirubi?’

That was the most common phrase in Campus, relating to a real definition of someone who has made it all by himself.

Typically, a good majority of Kenyans become ‘rich’ (By Kenyan definition of rich) by either stealing from the public, taking heavy bribes or doing drugs.

There are quite a few who have become real self-made billionaires through hard work, smart work, sheer passion and a never say die attitude.

Today, gentlemen, the few ladies in Kenya, my haters and my friends, I had the honor of meeting such a true success story. The one and only, DjCK.

As an entrepreneur, when such a figure avails 5 minutes to meet you, you are always advised to have all your selling points at your tongue-tips. You may never get the chance again. CK gave us 3 hours top pitch, and ohhh, pitch we did!

I was astonished and pleasantly surprised at how switched-on about technology DjCK was. Everything we said was well received and understood and he never shied to ask when he did not understand what the technology did, or where the money was.

We have met quite a number of people who think they are rich, other who are getting rich and some who are actually rich. I must confess that Humbleness, care-to-listen and  the love and passion for technology was not a virtue any of them had. DjCK had these.

Mbugua and I were impressed and encouraged by the prospects of teamwork and collaboration and now, only the proverbial sky is the limit.

Like I said in previous posts and on various Zunguka and Facebook notes:

• It is only those who are awake that shall smell the coffee.
• There are millions of dollars to be made in East Africa and Kenya in Particular with the coming of the fiber.
• The ultimate synergy is the collaboration of old money and new ready-to-sell ideas/products.
• A million put on a development house in Kenya today, will be an easy million in a year (Kenya shillings input; USD output.)
• Doomed and the developers that develop for corporates and individual clients till now. The winner solutions are solutions for the masses.
• Doomed are the Kenya Millionaires who will FEAR to invest in technology for they shall soon be surpassed by time and their comrades.

Habari ndio hiyo.

Back to code.

My daughter’s 5^th Birthday was on December 4^th, 2009 and my SO’s was on December 5^th . Also, due to possibly 72 reasons, my SO’s sister decided to get married on December 5, and So I had to travel to Mbale, being the good father and mpenzi I am.

On my last trip to Uganda, My 3 boys flossed about how they could now to talk to their 16 campus girlfriends all day and all night for just Ugx 1000 (KSHS 40), thanks to the new Warid talk plan dubbed, ‘pakalast’ or ‘pakarasiti’ in luganda. It is said that Warid has all the other players in the Ugandan Market Worried, no pun intended. So I decided to test her and see if she is as versatile, portable, satisfying and hot as the guys claim.

Being a heavy mobile Internet user, I needed to access my Gmail, Sembuse, FaceBook, Zunguka and LinkeIn accounts, lest I become as old as VB6.

December 5^th 9am. I buy a Warid phone line. I get about 13 SMSes in a space of 2 minutes. Some welcoming me to warid, some promising to make me Ugx 25M winner and some promising me a ‘Kikompola’!! Whatever that means. For a moment, ‘Kikompola’ sounded like a homosexual invitation.

So I read the pamphlet and it stated ‘Call 100 for Internet Settings’. I call 100 and the IVR nearly bored me to death. ‘To change language, press 1. To Do x press 2.. blah… blah… to topup press 132… to topup another number press 133.. to speak to a customer care rep, press 0.’!! Damn!! Why didn’t that ZERO option come first. So I press 0 and speak to Rena. She asks the normal stuff about the phone make and all then promises to send the settings in 2 seconds.

3 Minutes later, the phone beeps and alas!! Warid Web Settings! I click on Open, but the settings had a PASSWORD!! ‘Please enter the PIN for the Internet settings’. My Hacker mind started buzzing. ‘Try 1234’, ‘Try 0000’, Try ‘6666’ since Warid is a Muslim company. I decided to act a fool and called 100 again. This time, before the IVR voice could reach 2, I pressed 0 and presto, I am number 125 on the queue. After 2 minutes of waiting a Patrick comes on line and tells me to enter the code 1234. groan!!!

Warid charges Ugx 2.00 per KB of data. Sounds nice and fair, BUT when you consider it is an EDGE connection and convert the per MB rate to KSHS, you realize the deal is not as good as it sounds. Extrapolate that to Per MBs and then to Kenya Shillings and it makes Safaricon look like an angel.

Safaricon charges a maximum of KSHS 8 per MB of data. That is Ugx 196 per MB. For 1 MB of data on Warid, you pay Ugx 2, 048. Warid is 10.4 times MORE EXPENSIVE than our local leech, Safaricon. With Ugx 500 bob on my phone, I cant even poke 100 people on Facebook, leave alone send 2 Kgs of e-Miraa on Sembuse.

The uptake on Internet in Uganda is 4.5%. You wonder why? Even a retarded kid with the IQ of a dung beetle can see it is because EVEN the BEST rates for Internet, make it look and feel as a thing for the rich! Simple AS!

Sadly, even MTN and UTL are on the same 2/= per MB madness.

And here I am complaining about Kenya Data Rates. This was a good lesson on Humility. It still does not mean I am suddenly going to jump to bed with Safcons offer or Zains 250 bob per day unlimited internet rate. Still Bloody Expensive.

Even as we approach 2010, Mobile Service Providers are fighting the voice and SMS battle. This, ofcourse wins over some promiscuous customers who hold more than one line at a time, but in the long run, the primary sim card war is WON by the holistic provider. In Uganda, there is NONE!

Data and Content infrastructure is set and ready to go [Warids EDGE feels like 3G, SuperFast! Possibly because it is too expensive for the average user to log in and clog the small pipe] but lethargic and 2002ish thinking make people do this new thing the OLD tired way.

I believe the clear winner for the Primary SIM war, especially with the advent of Mobile Social Networks like Zunguka.com, Sembuse, CM, CN and CC plus mobile web social networks like FaceBook etc will be someone who will charge the user KSHS 10-40 per day for data. Come on MSP, you have NOTHING to lose!!

Back to code!

-Salim, Idd.