Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Let us get innovative

One of the good things about philanthropic efforts if that they gather support pretty fast. There is always the element of  human weakness/strength that makes one want to help those who are less fortunate, afflicted, down, struggling etc. This is a good thing. Kenyans are now doing what anyone would do. Help the hungry.

I am a very vocal and active supporter of the #KenyansForKenya initiative and so it gives me great pleasure to share with you (BizMinds, Thinkers, Bloggers, Techies, The Salim-amesema-nini-tucritisize crew and the lets-find-faults-in-everything-everyone-else-does-because-we-are-doomed-losers brigade.) some few ideas to scale the initiative.

Slowly, we are reaching the end of what The Media, Bob, Twitter etc can do. We are at 121.6 M according to The official #K4K site, which represents 24.32% of the target aimed at. User fatigue is checking in. Slowly but surely. As a friend of mine would put it, ‘wasee wanaboeka na hii story’.

A few positive things make me glee with hope, nevertheless:

• End Month – It is finally end-month/Start Month. A few checks are clearing this week. Bars like K1 are already getting all creative on this and are donating KSHS 50 for each bottle of beer bought towards the #k4k. People finally have some loose cash to spend 100 bob per day to #K4K is not such a BIG ask anymore.
• Corporates – EABL will donate KSHS 10M tomorrow according to a rumor Bob shared on twitter. We just need 9 more Corporates to do that and we will reach 50% of the target. The challenge falls to The Big Wigs.
• Ramadhan – Shari-Ramadhan is here. No indulgences to the non-strict conformist Muslims. More money is thence available and can be channeled here. Also, it is the Month of harvest of rewards from Allah. Anything good done in the Month of Ramadhan is rewarded 100-fold. This is a challenge to the Muslim community.
• Media Push – The media is still unrelenting. Pushing the initiative like they can and should. In as much as some dont-know-any-better presenters from stations like Kiss FM insult Arsenal fans and try to make it funny when talking about donations (Ignoring the fact that gunners run this country and hence compromising the initiative), it is all going on well. Kudos the media!!  On the flip-side It is seen as hypocritical and vain at times when some corporates donate, not out of heart, but for Media Mentions, photo-ops and New headlines.

“So,”,  you ask Batiatas-esquely, “what is this user fatigue thing that you speak of?”

User fatigue is a condition/situation where users of a service/product get tired of routine. Simple as. Facebook changes their site layout, wordings, CSS etc every 48 hours so as the give the impression of an evolving real-estate.

Wazi.

Persistence: No matter what!

Word of the day: ‘Persistence‘. And you will eventually get there. One thing will eventually lead to another.

I got the right model to talk to a BIG corporate without seaming weak and needy, while AT THE SAME TIME, not insulting people and seeming confrontational, from Books like The 33 Strategies of War, The 48 Laws of Power and my personal best: As a Man Thinketh.

As James Allen says :

“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.”

This is a story of a coder’s journey through the mashes. Misunderstood and denied of a business opportunity, but choosing the right channels to air your reason for grievancies.

Being mature about conflicts and resolving them amicably. Sometimes, writing a blog post and looking for a mbugua, too, muendo, kachwanya, linnet or linda to read through before posting. Listening to one telling you : “Hii ni personal insult that will lead to nothing. Toa. Phrase it like this.”. Not hoarding blog traffic by hurling insults to people you WILL need in your life; and making your miserable life even more miserable. Making big enemies in a small town.

My journey with Safaricom Mpesa and my alleged ‘Hacker’ tag has been a torrid one. The details are public. I won’t dwell on them. But finally, the issue is being resolved. Call it finally getting the attention of the right people. Call it banging the door politely until it opens or breaks. Call it respecting the fact that you are dealing with humans with emotions (and not robots) on the other end and NOT insulting people. Not making everything a personal personal attack and bitching online like a menstruating prostitute. Not using your blog to castigate and slander upon people trying hard to make a change in the society, whilst you have done NOTHING of note, to-date. The internet is a MEANS not an END.

If you use the Internet to make enemies, to start a one-man army, To report baseless facts and numbers based on pure Sicilian vendetta and conjecture, then surely, yours is a path of doom. You find yourself alone. You find yourself now needing to create multiple-email accounts and commenting on your own blog so as to make your posts credible and seem to be getting traffic. A sad little, lonely, impactless meaningless life. All your efforts, even good and genuine ones will ‘fichiwa white’.

Allen Tells us:

“If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, pride.

I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innocent face of a girl. I know a man well under middle age whose face is drawn into inharmonious contours. The one is the result of a sweet and sunny disposition; the other is the outcome of passion and discontent.

As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of thoughts of joy and good will and serenity.”

Coming soon to an Internet near you:

• A final and conclusive Free Mpesa Paybill API for everyone.
• Moca – Reloaded.
• More value add for developers and content owners.

All because of mature, responsible, persistent BUT non-pussy blogging.

Tafakari hayo.

PS: Yes, I heard the usual estate dog barking yesterday. But I will hurl no stones at it. It’s life is hard enough already. Thus adviseth my learned crew.

Back to code…

Wazi

Mpesa API - Finally!

I was discussing with some Banking Jamaas on the money-cycle. Take for example, I want to pay fees via my mobile phone.

Currently, I need to get money from Bank-to-mPesa (KSHS 60 charge, 45 to 78 Mins if using NIC Bank), Mpesa-to-the-school-Paybill (Kshs 30 Charge), then it is paid. Simple.

But what if we eliminated Mpesa. Bank to Bank. 10-30 bob. Immediate. Via Secure Web, MobileWeb or Java. An Open inter-bank API to kill the middleman. No. Not to kill the middleman. To SAVE money for the Kenyan. MobileMoney is still too expensive. Food for thought.

But that is not the topic for today. I was honored to be at iHub leo and saw Mike Pedersen’s Pesa API [https://github.com/pluspeople/pesaPi] and I have had the opportunity to test the code line-for-line.

I thought I should write about this.

As you all know, Symbiotic was developing this API over a year ago, but our development hit a snag when Safaricom blocked our PayBill Account and Revoked our merchant licenses because we seemed to know ‘too much’ about how mPesa works.

And that was the death of www.moca.co.ke. Shame really. One-two-maybe-three people’s insecurities and flawed RAV judgement meant the death of a life-changing technology.

But today I witnessed something from heaven. Something I have been praying daily to see. SOMEONE ELSE developing code that saw my dream come to life. A publicaly available, working, object-oriented, open-source Mpesa API. And this is not just a quick-hack ‘HelloWorld’ code. It is well written code.

Get your copy today from the link above.

Have fun.

Back to code.

Wazi.

OTA Goldmine

I decided to stay home today to wade off some pressure I am getting from left right and top.

I wanted to blog about how to handle programmers and how meetings-meetings-meetings KILL creativity and are the worst thing you can subject a developer to, but I will do that on Friday.

So, I started going through my old stuff in my spare (visitors’) bedroom. All stuffed, #pun, in a box labelled ‘POISON’ so that no one touches it.

One of the things that made me smile was my 2003 schematic for an OTA Server. I remember in 2003, Safaricom had a very weak Internet setup. (Mpaka leo anyways).

Sometimes I needed to demo to a client a WAP Content Portal I had created and the only two options I had was to take them to my house in Zimmer and show them from there, ama CARRY the PC to town and show the stuff.

But then came the IDEA. I bought some routers and configured a home network. Then I created an OTA Server whose purposes was to provision the settings one would need to access my HOME lan from their phone. All they needed to do was send an SMS [opensesame123] to a number and my OTA Server would send them the details. And now I could demo.

That was then.

Sasa OTA Server ni nini Salim?

Ohh. My bad. An OTA Server is a service that allows a MNO (Mobile Network Operator Kama Safcom, Zain etc) to remotely manage and configure your phone. Like when u dial sijui *445# from your Saf Line, their OTA Server sends you what they call ‘Internet Settings’. These settings are 1 of the many settings an OTA Server can provision. Some Settings can auto-install themselves while others ask you and give you a yes/no options. Another use of OTA is for remotely installing SIM applications on your phone/Sim. Kama Mpesa, Zap etc. Yeah. TechoLingo.

So, fast-forward to 2011. A friend of mine needed An OTA Server and asked me to get quoted. The best I could get astonished me. OTA goes for the following amount, Quoting a supplier I contacted last week :

Here is the pricing options for the DM Carrier Edition – The cheapest possible.

Product Packages:

Entry level (up to 200,000 devices)

No source code

Lower Server fee – $150,000

Only  Bootstrap,  Provision, FOTA, MO tree (no SCOMO, no DRMD)

Annual support – $30,000

Device activation fee – $1.00/device

Training – 1 week dev level – $15,000

Training – 1 week operations and support – $15,000

Minimal integration – $75,000

AAA Server, FOTA repository, Database integration, No API scripts, no CSS integration No device certification/IOT

My gawd!! Ngoja. Max 200 devices. No API. You depend on them. But, lemmi put things into perspective.

The above means that Kwanza on Install, as a Telco, you pay USD 150k. Then you pay them USD 30k for training and USD 75k for installation and integration. Then every 12 months, you need to pay USD 30k. This is small money and peanuts to most Telcos. But here comes the clincher! Everytime Salim dials *445#, the telco (Saf/Zain/etc) pays the DM Server Developers USD 1.  Fuck!

And this is the cheapest. The lite version.

Tukajam sote 10 M of us and we all dial *445# now, assuming Safaricom is on this model, they would incurr a bill of USD 10M immediately. And this is where most telco revenues suffer.

I am inspired.

Back to code…

Wazi.