
It was another working day. Everyday we are busy, as we have daily update meetings with the CEO. We met the Head of Value-Added Services of the biggest telecom services company (Ssafari Com) in Kenya during one of the networking events, and he invited us to visit his office and have a chat with us. It was a great experience to go to the office of a real company (not a start-up). Their campus is really nice, much nicer than average Kenyan office buildings.
It was great chatting with him, and he told us a lot of things about the innovative initiatives they are having in the company. You can’t believe how much innovation there is within Africa. Nothing other parts of the developing world can compare to….Initially I thought they are just aiming at satisfying the basic needs and come up with basic services, but indeed, they all have very innovative ideas, and trying to solve the problem of limited resources. For example, they use a lot of mobile money. As most people don’t have computer or internet or credit card, so you can basically use the airtime on your phone to pay. And also, Safaricom manufactures its own computer. It only costs you $50 for a keyboard – and then you can put your SIM Card inside (with data plan), and connect to the TV as computer!! So innovative!