Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

In my study of Calculus, I delved a bit into the pre-calculus era and I came across a very interesting concept by Zeno of Elea.

The most famous of Zeno’s paradoxes is a race between a tortoise and the legendary Achilles called, appropriately, the Achilles. Zeno contends that if the tortoise has a head start, no matter how small, Achilles will never be able to close the distance. To do so, he’d have to travel half of the distance separating them, then half of that, ad nauseum, presenting the same dilemma illustrated by the Dichotomy.

No matter what!

A (above) fractal used to explain the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea — a movement can become impossible if its distance is recurrently divided into smaller pieces. The girl is assumed to walk three times as fast as the turtle, but whenever she turns a corner the turtle will, too. Even though she is faster, she will not see the turtle within a finite number of turns.

The Kenyan Coder’s Paradox

As we strive to make it to MkwanjaVille via code, we face a path that is finite, buy has infinite snooker points. As with any journey one takes, Before one can get there, he must get halfway there. Before he can get halfway there, he must get a quarter of the way there. Before traveling a fourth, he must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth; and so on.

In essence, the journey can never ‘really’, get started!

Every step has a snooker

A client will not give you a job until you propose in their desired format, even if you have the right solution. The proposal will not be accepted until the price is right (favoring the client), the price is right and the proposal is OK, but you must ona mtu kando or kiss the deal goodbye. You have betrayed your anti-corruption mantra and done that evil thing but you now must wait for 1 month for a response. After one month, your well-research proposal is given to a competing company whose MD is a friend of a friend of the project managers.

If you get the deal, you must wait for 60 days to be paid, if you are lucky. The clients never have any qualms authorizing the job but GOD help you if you dare suggest you might need to be paid. And then what? Downpayment? Are you nuttz?

And the best goes on.

More Info on Zeno here.

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One API to rule them all...

Great day today for Kenyan coders. Ok, let us say, EastAfrican Community coders, for political correctness. I don’t even know how to break this news, so I will just do it my plain no-beating-around-her-bushes method. No, the Octopus has not predicted that Safaricom, MTN and Zain will start supporting local innovations. No. The octopus would rather die than err. To err is to human; not to octopus.So, the hustle continues.

As a CSR, being  head of a team of very gifted coders at Symbiotic, I had committed to head the Pay.Zunguka Gateway and API development team and see to it that the Pay.Zunguka API was out before Mid May 2010. But one thing did not lead to another, and we had to inevitable delay the launch.

Well, here it is now. The API. The EuberAPI. One API to rule them all.

Download the API NOW!!

So first things first. What is an API, you would ask? Huh? You are having a larf if you expect me to answer that!! The API has been developed in PHP, jQuery and MySQL and the documentation provided with it makes it totally idiot-proof. Anyone and everyone can use the API and start earning from their hustle, Immediately! All transactions from Mpesa/Zap/yuCash will hit your system, via the API in 5 seconds. Anyone who can copy-paste, can use the API.

Safaricom have indirectly played ball this time round, so flawless end-to-end mPesa support is the first feature of the API. I hope this will not make them Mad. My QA team is still testing the ZAP and yuCash modules, but jump to it. Play with the fully working mPesa support and share your thought on the approach, the model, the logic and the illogic.

If you are a ‘BIG’ fish (read a big corporate with a lot of sensitive transactions) and don’t want to use our API as a payment aggregator, we can license the actual product. This would apply to guys like DSTV and KPLC. So instead of waiting for 48 hours for the transactions to hit their backend system, we can guarantee KPLC customers that their bills paid via Mpesa/Zap/yuCash will be reflected in their account within 5-7 seconds. Cute huh!

Like all my friends will tell you (real friends, not facebook jokers), I believe in seeing, showing and action. Si mdomo mob. So dive right into it! Visit http://pay.zunguka.com/ NOW and have a blast !!

Wazi.

-Salim, Idd

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Coditta Continua!

And so it came to pass. Internet on Mobile in Africa, in Kenya, in ZIMMERMAN… is actually a reality. The jokers and Idlers and those whose life is on a mental plateau can now poke on FB at 2 MBPS. These will be the losers of this new digital age. Coders and integrators cant even stand up properly because of the mighty Erections these possibilities bring with them. These will be the WINNERS and MINTERS of this new digital age.

As I take this code-break from my Netbeans 6.8 IDE as I am currently debugging Tubonge Version 1.0 (More about this on an Internet near you soon), I hastily share this as a warning to all businesses, SMEs and Corporates wishing to engage Symbiotic in their mobile applications development.

The writing is on the wall and the coffee is already hot and aromatic. Those who will wake up and smell it, will realize that if whatever you are selling is NOT mobile, then you are not serious and if I ever meet you in town, I will kick you in the nuts if Male or brutally twist your nipples if female.

Symbiotic are SMACK in the middle of all this. They develop content, content discovery tools, monetizers and mobile social experiences.

Just like many start-up IT firms in Kenya, we meet people who suffer from the dreaded ‘Code ni Mkate syndrome’ . This is characteristic of some guys who normally have :

• Stayed outside Kenya for like 2 weeks and think they have travelled and seen it all.
• Did some obscure IT course in 1981. [Possibly in some satanic language like VB or Cobol].
• Possibly have MCSE.
• Own a Pentium 3 at home and a USB 160 GB Hard and. so, they have a data-center.
• Think they are all that in Code and can lecture at Inoorero.

So, Why not Hire Symbiotic?

• Face Value : We have clients ranging from the shop down the street to international tech companies. The size of your business doesn’t matter to us. What does matter is how seriously you take your business. If you don’t value your work enough to have it professionally presented, well, it was nice speaking with you. Because if it goes out with our name, it is going to be our best. We expect the same from our clients. Hatutaki Aibu!
• Copy-Pasters : If you are just looking to copy what your competitor ‘has just done’ so as to do the classic stupid and mee-too-istic Kenyan way of ‘matching them’ and ‘kuwafikia’, then Symbiotic will not work for you. Symbiotic does Innovation and Apps building from A to Z. Not Mimicry.
• Budgets : If you want a fully capable site with social networking, Integration with the ZungukaPay payment gateway, TumaSMS integration and a mobile client to engage your clients candidly, and your development budget is minuscule, Please don’t. We want your work to be done by our dedicated and skilled pool of IT resources. Not outsource it to Kenya Poly! A good budget is essential. Not BIG; Good.
• Scope-Creep : If you are looking for just a simple product to do step A, then ‘tutaona hizo features zingine baadaye’, then please come back when all the features are decided. We have been if far too many situations where scope is not clear and end up developing a Ferrari on the ToR of a Vitz.
• Value-Add : Many a  times, a client comes to Symbiotic with a RFQ for a product to do A and B, but gets exposed to technical awesomeness and realizes they can achieve more for their business. Open-minded clients work well with Symbiotic. If you have decided what you want and can’t even listen to suggestions, Please click next.
• Dedicated Resource : If your staff is too busy to respond to our emails or phone calls, then we suggest an engagement when they are less busy. Like my big white brother from another mother, Bill Gates, we do business at the speed of thought and canceled meetings and delayed responses don’t help much.
• Client Commitment : If your modus operandi is ‘You start the project then we will discuss finances later’, then we suggest you try hiring Rajamarasapukar Rajdinyar IT Limited from India. We have a very strict Software Development Life Cycle that we adhere to and ‘Client Commitment’ is Item 1c.

So, there you have it!

Symbiotic does not discriminate on tribe, race, pocket-size or country. We just hate mediocrity and time wasters.

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On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of being in the same room with some very influential development oriented people. Meeting was held at ICT board, hosted by PK. Invited were Symbiotic, MobileMonday, Safaricom, Top PRSPS and Developers in then Kenyan Mobile Arena

It was a good meeting of minds and well worth the time and effort. For Once, I was in a room with some guys from Safaricom who had their brains bigger than their Egos.

Present

Paul Kukubo – Head of ICT, Lewela and Kaburo

2 Peters from Safaricom, Sylvia Mulinge,

Salim, Timo from SMC, Wesley from Letti Games, Cellulant, Adtel and IMS teams.

Absent

All other Jokers in the country.

Agenda

• Why Safaricom is seen as a monster by Kenyan Software developers. Perception being that most ideas sent to Safaricom disappear at the Marketing department and and get ‘stolen’ to make Safcom all this BILLIONS, while the real inventors languish in poverty.
• How do we as inventors and developers work together with Safaricom and make a living out of code.
• What are the key failure factors met by developers while dealing with Safaricom.

Mangumi na Mateke

The top 2 issues and responses are as listed below.

ISSUE: The current locus standi is grim and really pathetic. Wesley argued that Apple Automatically gives the developer 70% shares and keeps only 30%. This encourages the developers to innovate and pays them immediately. Safaricom and the PRSPs take over 75% leaving the developer with a measly and satanic 25%. As if that is not enough torture and an abuse of human rights, the developer WILL NOT get paid until after 4 months. A Kenyan Mobile developer CANNOT live on code, unless they decide to follow the path of the weak and prostitute themselves and get employed

RESPONSE: Safaricom expressed willingness to shift the revenue shares to the favor of the developer. Developers will get as high as 90% of the money they bring. Systems that bring DATA traffic and thus bring residual income to Safaricom, e.g. Sembuse from Symbiotic, will also attract special treatment and revenue share models from Safaricom.

ISSUE: There are SO MANY requirements from Safaricom before a developer can get to the platform where their services reach the market. CCK Licence, PRSP Licence etc.

RESPONSE: This challenge fell to the PRSPs. It is, obviously out of the Safaricom domain. Adtel and IMS expressed willingness to incubate developers and their systems [Apps, Games, Ideas] at a very sexy revenue share.

There is a positive vibe from Safaricom at last which might indicate the following:

• The actual problem and cause of the ‘Safaricom ni Madogi’ movement in Kenya by coders is due to the red-tape between the entry-level marketing department and the upper tier. I remember going with a proposal to SafCom and Evah from VAS asking if we were read to accept 5% revenue share while SafCom kept 95%. I felt like crying. Maybe she was Joking. Meeting people higher up makes you realize that SafCom aint all that bad.
• Safaricom have started to realize that Voice and SMS are dead! The next frontier for MSP Mkwanjalization is DATA and DATA driving solutions. Step in Java Developers!
• Safaricom have started to smell the coffee. Which is good. Of late, they have just been inhaling the AC!

Lemmi go back to code. Mbugua is giving me that ‘you have not coded for 12 minutes straight’ eye! And No, Deno, Safaricom have not ‘onad me kando’ to do a positive blog about them. Good stuff is happening.

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My 5 year old daughter, Nuria, came to my coderoom, on the morning of Jan 1, as I was debugging the jQuery bits of the Hot96 Fm Website that Mbugua decided I should do personally. She said, ‘Happy New Year Daddy!’…. Hmmn, I look at her suggestive smile deciphered the stenography on it.

I remembered, ‘Ohh, it is Baby Shazma’s 1st Birthday!!’.  Shazma has now made 1 year and even though she has Flu, it has not stopped her from walking with support and saying ‘Baba’, ‘Mama’, ‘Java’ and ocassionally, ‘Gog’ when the Dogs outside Bark. Nuria wanted a big cake bought ‘for the baby’.

So I asked myself, ‘Salim. New year. Same stuff?’. Nooot! And I came up with a few resolutions. The resolutions are nothing as drastic as ‘I will start using IE’ or ‘I will code in VB’. They are now as sacrilegious as ‘I will start Support Man Urinals’ or ‘I will Insult a server by Installing Windows on it.’. No! They are well calculated steps and decisions based on advice and lectures from well-wishers that I am sure will make me a better Coder, Daddy, Gunner, Haxor, Business man and person.

• Do What PO told me. Stop Selling technology. Sell Solutions. Adapt the ‘you tell me what you want and i will build it’ approach. Ditch the ‘We have these solution that you might need’ approach.
• Do What PO told me 2. Wake up every morning hungry for more! Don’t celebrate Jana’s success today. That is the past. Break new grounds every day. Day! Not Week.
• Do What PO told me 3. Stop learning! I already know enough to develop any web/desktop/mobile solution. learning and meeting investors kills my time. Focus on the solutions and fine-tune them. Make them user friendly.
• Do What PO told me 4. Stop working from home! Kids, TV, Pool, Neighbours. Too much distractions. Until my Kitisuru home is complete, I will go work from office everyday. wake up daily at 4am and sleep not ater than 12am.

• Do What Daniels told me 1. Business Acumen. I am good in technical stuff, but I sometimes leave clients more confused when I throw some terms like MiTMA or NMAP in an explanation. I need to find a business writer for alot of my paperwork.

• Do What Rashid told me 1. Salat! I missed alot of prayers last year and even my Fasting was flawed. I need to become more religious this time round. Allah’s blessings come to those who seek them.
• Take my pool professional. Will actively participate on all pool tournaments in East Africa. Will enable me travel more and also meet new people on a social setup.
• Do what Jude/Rashid Told me. Get married. make everything official.
• Do what Kelly Told me. My hacking skills are good and natural. We need to setup an organization to legally and ethically offer serious security consultancy to willing banks, corporates, ISPs and individuals.

That’s  all folks.

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