Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

So cool, Chimps will download it.

It is unfortunate that there are 3 kinds of people in this world, as far as conversations are concerned. There are those who will give you all the encouragement you need, those that will give you all the discouragement you don’t need, and those that will not understand what the hell you are talking about, and will appeal the 5th ammendment. I like the 3rd, and adore the first.

The second are the losers in the equation. And in life, generally.

I had a simple brainwave from a personal experience and also from a conversation I had with a friend who was a victim of ‘death-before-a-will’ situation. Because of that, I shared the concept of an inexistent [half-don on my laptop and not online] NikiDedi platform on October 27th. I spent some time discussing the possible algorithms and fail-points for such a system with fellow coders and thinkers. Come 30th October, I get a twit from an e-Troll claiming that I had STOLEN the idea.

My Gawd!!! Unbeknonst to me, someone had spend 3 days of their sad lives trying to invalidate the authenticity of the NikiDedi system. How sad, pathetic and Idle can people be. Instead of eeking every hour of every day trying to improve their lives, people spend endless effort and time and resources trying to discredit others.

Anyway, enough about the e-Trolls. On to todays’ topic.

Overlapping models and concepts.

It is sad. I have attended countless developer contests and the story is always the same. I see apps that compete against each other and see duplication of effort. 2 teams of coders/startups doing the SAME app. Both groups do the app to 70% perfection. Ego and pride making both teams try to out-do each other. Teamwork is only internal. The others are enemies. Ohh, What would it take to join hands and do a super-app together and share the loot?

Think of  e.g. An App to show you what is happening today: We have AroundMe, WhatsHappening, Buzz, Phat etc. Think of Medical concepts and we have AskADoc, mPhysician, MedKenya etc. All concepts that are similar.

I am not participating in the Nokia Create4Millions contest that closes tomorrow, despite all the psyche I had. Let us just say that someone gave me a better deal. Instead of shooting in the dark in a developer contest, I decided to work on a real business app. Not a contest app just for the sake of it. More about this in a separate blog post.

This does not mean that I don’t have faith in what Nokia are doing for our tech-scene. This does NOT mean that people should not do contest-apps. This does NOT mean, in any way or manner at all, that Salim does not see the point of developer contests. No. Not at all. It was just a timing issue. Opportunity cost.

Killer Apps

When someone speaks of killer-apps, in Kenya, you think of an app with its own revenue model and a SOLID business case. We don’t have the clout to do revenues off ads yet. People WON’T pay to download the apps, yet. Hata 5 bob.

Developers fail to think beyond the APP, and can’t visualize the business. That is why most of us will be seen coding late in the night for developer contests with the money as the END to the app. Not the MEANS to the app’s conquest of it niche/purpose. If an APPs sustainability and profitability is what makes one a killer-app, then there are NONE in Kenya. Not yet.

Tuvitu from Shimba has over 750k downloads from the OVI store. It has made KSHS 0. Version 1 of AroundMe from Mwai saw over 300k downloads. 0 KSHS in revenue. Sembuse from Symbiotic has 250, 000 users. 0 Kshs.

I see a great time ahead, especially with AroundMe version 2, Ma3Racer from Akina Jimmy, MedAfrica (formerly MedKenya) from Shimba. If they stick to the models they have taken me through, then we might see the first Killer-apps. Apps that make sense to the users and cents for the developers.

I have always talked to Erik about this. We need a success story. We need a case study of an app/solution that :

• Changed the life of at least 100k users [socially, economically, emotionally, intellectually].
• Made the developer some money. At least an ARPU of KSHS 5 per month from 40% of the users.
• Gives people a reason to use the APP at least 3 times a week.
• Stays on a user phone for at least 6 months.

When will this be? For those who believe, it will be soon.

Back to code.

Na ukidedi kesho? Huh?

The human head. The casing of the cranium. The casing of the brain. The store of all we see, hear, touch, smell, imagine, know and can conjure.

But it was developed with human selfishness as its Achilles heel. We as humans only share what we WANT to.

I might know the answer, but will never share with you. Sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we shouldn’t. Sometimes we JUST WON’T.

That’s us. We won’t change.

But what if the answer is something that affects more than one person? What if the answer is the difference between LIFE and DEATH. Between lost savings vs inheritable savings. Between ‘He died with the passwords and PINs’ and ‘The NikiDedi platform continued being the virtual brain of the dead and now we have all his passwords and PINs.’ Between, ‘Dad died last year and we are still chasing the bank for his money’ and ‘we got all the money in a week’

In a world of necessitated secrets and PIN controlled lifestyles, there is a need for post-death continuity. There is need for a secure, reliable and intelligent way to pass information from the dead person, to the living beneficiaries.

I have been mulling over this concept for a while, and I now feel it is mature enough to be shared out as an actual product.

How it would work

NikiDedi would be a simple but robust repository for people to upload documents, enter memos and strings of text (PINs Passwords etc). The system would have a ‘Vault’ where the information is stored and an ‘alert list’ containing names, email addresses and phone numbers of people to whom the information would be passed over if the system detects that the person has died.

“Aiii, Salim. How would a cumputer detect that someone has died?”, you ask. Confused. But happy. U know I will demystify it for you. Read on.

Part of the death-detection algorithm will be a behavioral study. The system will keep track of a user’s ‘Aliveness’ by tracking facebook posts, twitter feeds, linked-in accounts and logins to NikiDedi. Periodical ‘Are you alive?’ emails sent to the user’s email address with a read receipt can also be used. Each ‘aliveness’ tracker will have a weighted score and system triggers will be set off based on the score.

For example, if a person has not tweeted for 3 weeks (+25 points) and has not FB’d for 6 weeks (+20) and has not responded to the last 5 ‘Are you alive’ emails (+45 points) and has not responded with his secret ‘I am alive’ code to the system SMS warning about the next trigger (Send an email to his beneficiaries with all uploaded data), then this person IS DEAD. The system will hand over his e-Loot to their next of kin.

I can’t trust NikiDedi staff with my data!

I hear you. Neither can I. That is why NikiDedi is just a vessel. Provided to you will be a suit of the most crack-safe and strongest encryption tools. No one, even the NikiDedi staff can decipher your data. You will be required to encrypt your data and generate a secret-and-one-time random decryption key offline (on your PC) BEFORE sending to the Vault. Your beneficiaries will have the secret Key, but will only get the data once your e-behavior has reached the ‘he must be dead’ threshold.

And these, boys and girls, are the things super-brains think of.

NikiDedi is a toy project I have been working on and is somewhat complete. Talk to me if you want to take part in the project.

Tafakari hayo.

Back to code.

Wazi.

Cloud. Yes. Tuko juu.

Well, I could easily have had the title of this blog as ‘Safaricom launches Cloud Service’. But that would be an insult to those who know this already and those who know how to use google. More insulted would be the 3000+ people who were at KICC last night. The lack of originality and literary profundity on the blog-scene always leaves me cacchinnating.

I believe you have come here to read about the intricacies of this new service and get an abstruse insight. You are seeking the answer to : “How does it work for my business” and, more importantly, the answer to eternal question business people ask, “How do I make money off it?”.

Today, I also wanted to talk about “8 ways local developers could harness the Safaricom cloud”. But then I realized two things. 1 – No body gives a fck. 2 – No body gives a damn. So I will keep that to my self.

Step in, Safaricom Cloud

Well, I could NOT wait for the launch to start. I was getting bored of being surrounded by loud talking, thunderously laughing, suit-wearing (yikes!!) people. How fast can I get to iHub, home. Where people are simple, free and real?

Then started the presentations. QnA from RamahNyang to Bob, Macharia, Hamdan and a ‘Mr Smith’. The presentation from Mike and Bob was, as expected, idiot-proof. Even my cat would have understood what cloud computing is and why we needed it by just listening. More here.

The service offers Storage-As-a-service, Backup, Archiving and Software-as-a-service. Google those if you don’t know what they mean. They are below the context of this short post.

Then came the PS. Described by Bob as the Kenyan IT Sector Demi-god. And finally, someone was talking to ME.

In the last paragraph of this blog post, I recommended that Google should NOT host Kenya government data and suggested we setup a local setup to manage that. Google would shut down their cloud in a blink and years of our history would be lost. I made some few enemies at google, ofcourse. I mean who is this 3rd World blogger that thinks Kenyans can setup a world-class cloud? We are google. We know how to do all that stuff. Well, 3rd world country, A1 1st world brains. End of. Moving on.

Ndemo spoke of the need for the cloud. The government was spending SO much on hardware and storage and labor to sustain a core business necessity that was NOT their core business. IT infrastructure. That money could be used to empower other IT needs. Safaricom and SST were now heaven-sent. The government will be the first customer for the cloud. I smiled. Kenyan critical government data hosted HERE. By us. Another big FU to those who said it could not be done in Africa.

Ndemo spoke about something everyone was, until this time, ignoring. IaaS. Or as I love to call it, Computing Power as a service. He spoke about  once talking to Rabaa of homeboyz and hearing him speak of having a handicap in terms of computing power. I talked about this earlier. We need to create a monster of a computer and call her I.S.I.O.L.O. [Immanently SuperCharged Infinitely Omnipotent Limitless Operationator]. A computer that can render HD+ videos for homeboyz in seconds, serve all government data in real-time, perform complex maths in micro-seconds. We have the knowledge and skills to develop one. And we will be showcasing one at @iHub in 3 months, if everything goes to plan.

All in all, I see the stars aligning.

I await to see what they will offer developers and innovation hubs.

I hope top techies will be consulted on this, as the potential is limitless, if harnessed properly.

Back to code…

Wazi.

Kabooom! Panic!

Yeah. I write this as I munch on some junk food at the iHub. Call me Al-Kebab. Terrorizing a burger and some ketchup. I am sure if I am seen masticating shamelessly, as I am, Our Citizens and KTNs will report :

Dangerous Al-Kebab Militia spotted at iHub. Areas to avoid are iHub and AppleBees. Explosive coders and strippers spotted.

Isn’t it ironic how selectively xenophobic we Kenyans are? Tunajipenda na tunajichukia.

We worship the white man in hotels, bars and airports, but castigate our own at the slightest provication? Do we suffer from an inferiority complex?

First of all, I do not support the Kenya vs Somalia ‘war’. We can’t beat them in football, and we challenge them in a cat-and-mouse game they play EVERY day? But that is NOT the reason for my lack of support. Somalia Militia (From Somalia, Not Kenya) have been killing Kenyans for years in the North Eastern parts for ages. Nothing major was done. But as soon as they Kidnapped some Europeans (Our gods), a full-scale war is waged. Where is our sense of national pride? Why are we valuing tourists’ lives more than our own? Aren’t all humans equal?

The Media

The media has not done the whole OTC bomb issue justice. My friend was there last night waiting for a Matatu to Kiambu and his EYE withness report was that of a person in the crown throwing the grenade towards a matatu FULL of passengers, which hit the window and fell outside the Nissan Matatu. The grenade was aimed at INSIDE the matt, but hot the glass window and exploded outside the Matatu. God be praised. More would have died.

The media reported 2 Somali men in a Saloon car throwing the Bomb. So hungry to be sensational and quick to be ‘FIRST with the NEWS’, they report what they hear without verifying.

The same way KASS FM was used to fuel PEV, the media houses like KISS, KTN and CITIZEN are now being used to fuel FEAR and paranoia. The media houses should be taken to court for spreading un-necessary panic.

Have we had peace and tranquility for SOOOOOOOO long that we crave death and war? Must every small fire be treated as a national disaster? Don’t get me wrong. Every human life is invaluable. But chill the f*ck down. You are scaring everyone.

If you have lived in Isiolo like me and seen what I have seen, then you would know that we ain’t seen nothing yet. Save the sensationalism for when a real attack happens.

Tweeps

“For every bomb they blow in town, we should blow 3 on Eastleigh”, said someone on twitter yesterday night. I had no response for this. I don’t respond to idiots. Ask gutter-press. Moving on…

General public

I just heard a story about 2 somalis who entered a Matatu today and everyone else alighted the matatu. Kenyans, ni nini? Relaxini. Why hate on your brothers because of fear on the in-existent?

Do we now walk all over town fearing that every bag, car, lorry or Somali will explode and kill us all? Do we hate on innocent Somalis and muslims and search them and their cars, while Al-Shabaab just needs to buy an Al-Kebab for Kamau and Kipng’etich and they will ferry the bomb for them? It is all about money, remember? U don’t look like a Somali or a Muslim, you don’t get searched. Why are muslims and Somalis in particular being targeted?

Tafakari hayo.

Back to code.

Wazi.