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Google Setting Up a Presence In Kenya
Reader wana forwards the news that Google is establishing a base in Sub-Saharan Africa. What advanced infrastructure exists on the African continent is mostly in South Africa, and a blogger from there speculates on what Google might have been thinking in choosing Kenya over SA.
Food or water? I'm racing to get my ads up.
I believe the lyric is "forget norway"
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
liqbase
You beat me to it. That video was the first thing that I thought of when I saw the headline =]
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Because it's better than Norway!
where can you see Google?
only in kenya
come to kenya we've got Google!
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I don't have a link to the article infront of me, but they are also opening up a 1200-1600~ acre shop in Council Bluffs, IA as well. There hasn't been any details given on the type of development being done there, but this new Google expanding is deffinitely getting interesting.
The fact that, if played right, Google could effectively control the country?
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
I know Google is going to build the space elevator to go to the orbit. Kenya is better than SA for that purpose.
Possibly but I'd say you are less likley to be murdered in Kenya than South Africa. Have you ever been to Johanesburg? Every home is like a small prison with high walls and even security services that come on alarms... just recently a noted photographer was critically injured when a head sized piece of cement was thrown through his windshield, something they apparently wish to reduce the instances of down there around Capetown.
I went to a hotel there and we were advised not to walk on the street at any time, night or day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
..Nigeria, but the Nigerian Prez rejected Google's offer via email which said "Eric Schimdt would like to invest millions of dollars in Nigeria, but first, send $500 to our Western Union"
Kenya is in the middle of the continent -- does that make any difference?
Google is simply moving into a country that is on the technology curve, but behind enough that they can have MAJOR influence over new policy. Imagine having your own government to run. Who wouldn't do it?
... Seriously though, what other search / advertising players have taken the 2nd and 3rd world economies seriously at all? If this "test" goes well for them, they could have a major head start at monetizing the internet in the rest of the world (Where most of the population is). Remember for a lot of people, AOL *was* the internet. Now imagine in 10 years that 4/5ths of the worlds population thinks that Google is the internet. Everything else will cease to be relevant.
One of the biggest exports of Kenya is (decent) coffee. Google is staffed by geeks. Do I really need to connect the dots here?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Dumbass attempt at social engineering with that fake informative tag. It's useless on Slashdot, nothing social works on nerds.
That would make Kenya an even better place for a big corporation. The government officials they buy are likely to survive for a while, which will save them money. And, minor issue of course; the employees are likely to live till the next work day too.
And what does Iowa and Kenya have in common? Apart from being located very centrally on two different continents, of course!
I had to read the whole summary and all the way to the second paragraph of the linked article to find out that SA = South Africa (not San Antonio or Santa Ana) or any other SA location.
..."
Even there, it was very ambiguous. It says "They have advertised for South African personnel so the chances
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
GPO Official: Ankwat i odr inkerat Gobi Desert dot com...
SUBTITLE: 'THIS NEW SERVER COMPLETES THE ENCIRCLEMENT OF THE GOBI DESERT'
GPO Official: Ik artwar, hyaddin... (etc.)
SUBTITLE: 'GOOGLE.COM IS NOW IN A POSITION TO ACHIEVE COMPLETE WORLD DOMINATION'
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Kenya is currently in negotiation with UAE to build (FINALLY) the first Fibre optic line ($110 million)(which will connect Kenya to Oman and the rest of the world ushering in a new era of cheap high speed internet...as opposed to relying on expensive vsat technology. Only then will data centres, voip ect... become universal. Perhaps Google is anticipating the next stage of the ICT revolution in E.Africa that will happen when the government finally (hopefully) builds the line in a year or so (negotiations are still being held up for the time being). More info here http://allafrica.com/stories/200706251543.html [p] I'm in Dar es Salaam ATM using the so called 'free' wireless' in my hotel room and its dreadfully slow (atleast it works). The fibre optic line will be heaven!
1. Hire programmers.
2. Open facility in place known for making good, strong coffee.
3. Dangle said coffee in front of programmers noses.
4. Move programmers to Kenya
5. ???
6. Profit!
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
When I think of Africa, I think of VERY large areas that, to put it mildly, are miles away from an electrical grid. How does Google plan on powering this? Unless this thing is in Nairobi (which I'm guessing it would have to be,) would they have to use solar power?
On a related topic, maybe Google will actually pay attention to Google Maps for Kenya, and especially Nairobi?
In Google Kenya, Kenya googles you!
Nope, it just doesn't flow right...
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
and?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Gvator
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Possibly but I'd say you are less likley to be murdered in Kenya than South Africa. (...)
I went to a hotel there and we were advised not to walk on the street at any time, night or day.
Well, I've been to Nairobi, and it's quite similar - all homes in Karen and Langata (the rich suburbs of Nairobi) are small fortresses, with alarms, barbed wire, fences and dogs. You see askaris (armed policemen) everywhere in downtown Nairobi, and, when arriving at a hotel, they inspect the underside of your car for bombs. And from what I read, Nairobi and Jo'burg take turns being the crime capital of Africa. Especially lately, because of the war in neighboring Somalia, armed robbery and other attacks have grown a lot.
But except for the crime problem (which is worst in Nairobi), and for the widespread corruption (which you'll find almost everywhere in Africa) Kenya is a great place to visit, and one of the more advanced countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The education levels are fairly high, you see lots of schools everywhere, even in the impoverished countryside areas. So Google's decision to go to Kenya isn't totally unreasonable.
it wasn't until about 10-12 years ago coffee became and indicator of nerd/geek.
until I was 35, almost nobody I knew or worked with drank coffee. I wonder if it is a fallout from the dot com era of everyone working late nighters for start ups.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They don't call it Nairobbery for nothin... ;0)
If you wanted an African base, then South Africa is a lot easier to travel to (more airlines etc) and has far better infrastructure.
WTF does Google want to do in Africa anyway? If they want to access programmers etc, then they should target South Africa which holds probably 95+% of the African programmer talent.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
of how long you'll live. Why? The skew caused by child mortality. According to UNICEF child mortality statistics, a child born in Kenya is over 3 times more likely to die before five years old than one born in China, over 4 times more likely to die than one in Mexico. Plus, AIDS infection rates are much higher in Kenya, resulting in more deaths of people in their 20s and 30s.
Are food and water a problem? Sometimes, sure. But, the bigger problems are child mortality and AIDS. That's what's making the life expectancy a paltry 55.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Actually, there is an undersea fibre-optic cable that runs all the way around Africa, sponsored mostly by South Africa and Nigeria. All Kenia has to do is connect to it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
MAMBA == Miles And Miles of Bloody Africa
Anyhoo, after South Africa and Egypt, Kenia is the most developed country in Africa and also one of the most peaceful and stable.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Will this Kenyan network be on the same corporate network as the rest of the Google offices? If I were a corporate spy and wanted to infiltrate Google this would probably be my point of choice. It's far away from the main headquarters, the society isn't as developed or rich, so if you bribe employees with $10-20k, they would probably let you do whatever you wanted and give you whatever access you wanted.
It's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy though, because if you don't treat the Kenyan employees like full-fledged employees with full privileges, it will probably cause resentment and make them even more likely to take bribes, etc.
I wonder if this is a consideration for them.
1 kenya is probably one of the only "green field" areas left NOT on the south pole
2 Google could buy the IT/Infrastructure
3 Built in security (lions and other savan predators)
4 OLPC start node
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Where can you see google, only in Kenya. Come to kenya we got google. Forget Norway. Kenya...
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
I know what they are doing!
buy it completely. Google cant afford South Africa...it can probably afford Kenya.
The GDP of south africa is 201 billion, The GDP of Kenya is 17 billion, the Net worth of Google 150 billion.
So all they have to do is send a diver out with a patch cable?
Obviously they've found the Ark, or some other Forerunner facility.
When Google mentioned the Great Journey on their prospectus & SEC filings, I really didn't think we'd be seeing this as the next Google Datacenter...
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You know, in his defense, for a good while my friends and I also thought it was "We got Norway". It wasn't until I saw the lyrics written that I thought differently.
The fact that Google is setting up in country other than ZA is a very big vote of confidence for the continent. I am not in a position to understand the business aspects of the deal with respect to communications infrastructure or regulatory frameworks but I think that if you want to win the hearts and minds of Africans you have to look into the future and see beyond just South Africa which has been the "safe" choice for western-based international businesses.
For those of you who are familiar with the book and were able to make sense of it, you may recall that one of the plot lines was that a large high-tech company was planning on basically taking over a small African country's economy... and that there were even some execs who were looking at how to let the inhabitants benefit from this as well as the stockholders.
Perhaps Google is looking to, if not completely take over the Kenyan economy lock, stock, and barrel, but at least become a dominant player there... and from there perhaps into the rest of the African continent.
And maybe they might have enough people there who are idealistic enough to want to make sure that the Kenyans benefit from this... and from there perhaps the rest of the African continent.
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
They are also building a data center in pryor oklahoma.... Oklahoma and Kenya are third world countries so they have that in common... hmmmm Oklahoma has cows, Iowa corn, Kenya Coffee??? Don't know, if they open a data center in Wisconsin then they are clearly going to start making their own beef nachos ( corn, beef and cheese) to go with the coffee from kenya...
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
There is currently one fiber cable in Africa. It's called SAT3. It goes down the west coast to South Africa and then over to India.
It's run by Telkom in South Africa. Telkom has close ties with the government to kill all IT development and competition in the country. As a result, SAT3 is only 5% utilities and costs more than satelite broadband. South Africa is where broad band goes to die.
Kenya is opening up their markets and allowing competition. This year and next, they are going to be building 3 or 4 cables through Kenya. Right now the plan is for three down the coast and one through Sudan.
Tanzania has a fiber network. Zambia is building a fiber network. Botswana has a fiber network. Uganda and Burundi are building networks. It's an exciting time for Africa.
Every year African businesses spend $4 billion on Satelite. That money leaves the economy forever instead of paying for univesities and hospitals.
It's about time. Many big foreign corporations Africa headquarters are based in Nairobi. GE recently moved it's Africa office to Kenya from SA as an example. Nairobi is also the host city of several United Nations agencies like UNEP and HABITAT as well as other international organizations. Kenya is also strategically located on the map of Africa unlike SA. Most of the current innovations are truly African driven unlike SA where most of the economy is still dominated by whites. Also SA Blacks have alot of catching up to do education wise. Kenya's Telecomunications sector is exploding. Kenya Airways has been voted consistently the best airline in Africa. Nairobi also has the most airline connections to other cities from Africa than any airline in Africa. It's therefore the ideal hub. Even Richard Branson was in Nairobi last month to launch Virgin airlines from Nairobi to London. Hes also eyeing investments in other areas like telecomunications. Kenya has a huge educated pool of workers. Kenya even sends the most number of students to study in America than any African country. And also Kenya has been a haven of peace in Africa no civil wars and the kind. Kenyans are always in a hurry, friendly and are agressive as this SA website says: http://www.africaalmanac.com/top20townscitys.html Lastly Kenyans love nature Kenya is beautiful and famous for its Safaris and world beating Athletes Even the word "Safari" is Kenyan Swahili for travel. Lastly theres enuff coffee for google geeks so expect some great code. There's no reason why not to choose Kenya.
Guys you come to Kenya for a few months then pretend to be experts about African life. Any idiot can guess theres more corruption in US and Asia than Africa and the numbers are far bigger than you think. Being from UK infact UK is more corrupt and you are the guys who stole from Africa and murdered Africans while building your country. You have the blood of slave traders and murderers and criminals in you. So dont pretend to be the nice guy here. I would rather here crap from an American than a British idiot. Also this post was about Technology and google setting up base in Kenya. What has kenyan food got to do with it? I love Kenya and Kenyan food.
And I must say, it's pretty obvious that where ever you look, you will find that most of the advertising is for telecom and mobile phones. The local potential for distributing communications goods is great. But even more obvious is that the only places where you will find electricity and running water (appart from a few average size towns) are where the tourists hang out on safaris.
While travelling there with my wife, the first thing that came to our mind was how wonderful it would be to have a proper computer map of the areas we were visiting. We had a GPS unit but no map! Considering that tourism is much more profitable than coffee, you can imagine that Google, with it's satellite mapping technology, has a nice card to play here.
Population: crab.
that's not true... The SAT-3 Cable does not go 'all the way around Africa' It's on the west coast of Africa, thus Kenya does not connect to it There ought to at least 1 Fiber Optic cable within 1-2 years connected though. There's a race to see who'll deploy this cable: TEAMS EASSY is being deployed by Alcatel-Lucent - http://allafrica.com/stories/200706050685.html FLAG - being pushed by KDN which is a party to the other two cables :)
In Kenya, the incumbent telco - Telkom Kenya (http://www.telkom.co.ke) and KDN (http://www.kdn.co.ke) are racing to put up Fiber all over the place, and connect to Uganda.
Soon enough communication infrastructure won't be a bottleneck to development
I call BS on this one. While I'm sure the $$ figures are higher in the west, it affects the rich who want something done that isn't quite above board. In Kenya the common people have to pay bribes to get the simplest government work done. Drivers expect to pay bribes at every police check (every 5km or so). You pay bribes to pass a driving test, to get a title deed. You name it, it costs money "under the table".
There are three ways to get things done in Kenya, have a friend in the right place, pay some money under the table, or wait -- and wait and wait.
Corruption is not just rife, its a way of life. Police are the worst. However, one can avoid most corruption by learning how to work the system. Particularly it is possible to get things done by getting to know the right people.
Nairobi has a growth rate of 5% a year, perhaps more. It will be a mega city in 20 years. The fact is that you can either look at IT competence, lack of safety, or rampant corruption as a negative, or you can look at it as an emerging market that has tremendous possibilities. The risk is great, but the potential payoff is equally so.
And yes the fast food does suck, why would any sane person eat fast food in kenya? They have the freshes vegetables (many are exported to europe), some of the best coffee, and excellent locally raised beef/chicken.
There are a few Asians who appear to control most things at first glance, but it is the political puppet masters who pull their strings (majority of which are Kenyans from the old regime. Of course, its kept hush hush for obvious reasons...
Google has to be very risk averse so I can't see them settling in SA. There is an issue around recruitment in that there are quotas that have to be filled by black candidates (not too sure of the details) and there just aren't the candidates to fill the jobs. Many companies work around this by being based in the Maldives or somewhere and hiring in 'contractors' but this isn't a solution for long term operations. In addition, while the general political situation is nowhere near as bad as Zimbabwe, SA's cities are viewed as being increasingly lawless and unstable, something which is also not in Google's (or any big company's) interest. A technologically savvy, cheap, flexible employment base must be a number of ticks on Google's shopping list as well as good infrastructure or potential for good infrastructure, stability and those emolients that bring business in. This could make Nairobi a key location on the communications map.
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
May all of your days be ruined by repetitive music:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
Dinomite.net
It is easy to explain why they chose Kenya - they will have a lot of code-monkeys available for hire there.
http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/med ia/google-150806.htm
Doesn't seem like Google is setting up in Kenya as opposed to South Africa. They're simply setting up in Kenya. I think they're already in South Africa.
As far as "Why Kenya?" Kenya is an obvious choice for setting up in East Africa. Nairobi, while a bit of a crime ridden hell hole, is the central point for anything in East Africa. If you set up in Nairobi, you get Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and probably Ethiopia, malawi and northern mozambique.
Obvious reasons to set up in East Africa are the ones given in the article: improving maps and localized content. They'll hand wave at providing local content for East Africans but let's be honest: There's no money in that. It's about tourism. East Africa is a huge tourist destination and a damn difficult place to get info on. Having lived, worked and travelled there extensively, I know there's a huge market for mining information OUT of the region to supply to the world and that's all google really does anyway. They want to connect the world to the region. If they happen to connect the region to the world as a byproduct, then that's a happy secondary result.
And lastly, I'm sure they want to influence local legislation. They have serious issues in China. East Africa isn't a rapidly growing economy, but it is growing. I'm sure they'd like to be proactive about avoiding political issues in an economic region they will want to eventually focus on more heavily.
If any company did this out of the goodness of their heart, I'm sure it would be google. But every corporation is a slave to the bottom line and Google has shown that they have to be too. The business model here is providing maps and targetted ads to potential safari goers both back home and while they're in the region. Anything else that comes out of it will be a happy secondary benefit.
I've been there as well, and that's not quite my impression. I stayed a couple nights at a house in Karen. There were fences and dogs, yes. (Big dogs, but not the kind that would tear an intruder to shreds. More the kind you'd have on a farm anywhere in the world.) No alarms or barbed wire, though there might have been if a nearby military base didn't make it largely unnecessary. However, my hosts told me that was more to prevent theft than violent crime.
We went through poorer (supposedly insanely dangerous) areas as well - my host took us along in a Land Cruiser as he looked for car parts in the Industrial City, and my friends and I biked through Dagoretti Market on our way out of town. Again, our hosts warned us about theft but told us we'd be safe enough. And we made it. There was one guy who yelled obscenities as we went by, but almost everyone was friendly and curious about the three wuzungu with fancy bicycles. (Actually, that held for my entire trip through Kenya and Tanzania, which was rather off the beaten path.) In fact, we saw a lot of genuine hospitality and kindness.
As for the armed policemen...yeah, I saw those, too, and I heard stories of widespread small-scale corruption. My host described a typical one: a policemen told another guy he needed to pay some ridiculous made-up-fine. The other guy let the policemen talk himself out, handed him half the claimed fine in cash, said "fuck off and go have lunch", and drove away.
I went to Egypt and Kenya on vacation last year. I took a GSM blackberry with me. I had better data service in Kenya watching elephants walk by than I get here in alabama in the US. I was literally walking down the street in Mombasa googling for the e-bay price of various stuff I wanted to buy in the tourist shops: Specifically, Indian made replicas of sextants. It's a strange experience to be admiring the great pyramid in Egypt or a group of giraffes in Africa and then get e-mail from texas about the woes of your software architecture. I had identical experiences to Mombasa in Nairobi also getting better GSM service than in Egypt. The kenyans have a long way to go but they have been so far behind for so long that they have skipped several generations of technology that we are cursing but can't get rid of because they haven't depreciated to zero yet. Incidentally, in the nicest part of Nairobi, the shopping mall is just like the ones anywhere else with the exception that the shelves seem very slightly less well stocked and the fact that it is guarded by kenyan army personnel with automatic weapons. They also have atm's from 5 different banks, newspapers, movie theaters, fast food, etc. While I was there in Nairobi, I stopped by the local office of Fisher Scientific since they had their office across the street from my hotel. I saw invoices for a local brewery on the desk there as well as a nice display of lab glassware. In short, while the Kenyans do not effectively maintain roads, or sidewalks, and they've had to effectively sell the train system to the South Africans (Rode on the train with two guys from Rift Valley Railroads, the SA company that had just taken over the railroads), they do grok technology. While the power grid in Nairobi and Mombasa is a bit flaky and the rural areas have nothing, the kenyans are working towards industrialization. I saw some interesting factories being built on the train ride between Mombasa and Nairobi. I suspect that one could get very rich over there buy starting a factory to do technology because there is a lot of labor available and most of the Kenyans I met seemed to work very hard. My friends from Rift Valley Railways said that the kenyans worked hard when they knew what to do but if there was a lapse of leadership, they'd just come to work every day and sit at their desks doing nothing even if the mission of their department had ceased to exist decades ago. At any rate, I've gotta get back to signal analysis.
This is what they were thinking, http://hellkom.co.za/ . It Rand/$ is at 7.22. These are the typical costs. 30GB International and Local (512k account) R989 incl VAT 30GB International and Local (1024k account) R1399 incl VAT (Both accounts allow for 1 concurrent connection, and have a hardcap at 30GB's) These accounts work out to less than R50 per GB! The ADSL line is R413 for a 1Mbps. So it works out at $250 per month for 30G. Now there are some accounts, where you can get uncapped for R1400 a month in total, that is $193, but these accounts were a limited offer. Internet costs are very expensive, thanks to a monopoly telecommunications industry. Keep in mind these uncapped accounts, will give you about 40kbyte/s on torrents with enough seeds. Think a prison break episode on Pirate Bay seeds.
This is my sig.
South-Africa is number 1 for homicide in the world, it is safer in Iraq, than in South-Africa. Go figure why so many South-Africans flee the country.
This is my sig.
No silly. It's "In Google Kenya, Safari browses you!"
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
SAT3 has two parts, one going along the west coast and another on the east, so in effect it does go 'all the way around Africa', but the east part goes nowhere near Kenya - it would still be a big mission to connect to it. The other problem is that SAT3 is heavily controlled by the South African Telkom company, a horrible monopoly that gouges as much as they can get away with - this is one of the reasons Kenya wants to build EASSY in the first place, to not be dependent on the INSANE gouging by a South African company. In other words the problem isn't just a technical one that they're trying to work around. If I recall correctly some of the delays in EASSY are being caused by Telkom (who obviously don't want it built unless they also have a lot of control over it).
"Soon enough communication infrastructure won't be a bottleneck to development" -> no, but economic/monopoly forces will continue to be. It's not just enough to have multiple cables, you need market competition too. Bandwidth in South Africa is ridiculously expensive because the government protects a monopoly (corruption, crony capitalism etc.), so most of the capacity on SAT3 isn't even used. It wouldn't take much for something similar to happen in Kenya. I hope not though. If Kenya can get EASSY going in a way that is competitive with Telkom then it will have positive knock-on effects for large parts of Africa, but I'm not holding my breath.
Jambo, mzungu!
:)
;) ), and nothing bad happened. The only complaint I may have was the hard sell here and there, for touristy stuff. And even that wasn't as bad as you get in other places, like Egypt or Turkey
I biked through Dagoretti Market on our way out of town
You're a braver man than me, Gunga Din!
I went through Dagoretti too - but in a Land Rover; scary place, but we didn't get attacked either.
In fact, we saw a lot of genuine hospitality and kindness.
I have to agree; I had very good experiences in Kenya (and got some great photos); I took the reasonable precautions (don't run at night around waving wads of banknotes
I call BS on this one. While I'm sure the $$ figures are higher in the west, it affects the rich who want something done that isn't quite above board. Please white people crap. If you follow the trails of corruption in Africa it always poins to a white dude or white corporation. whites are the most corrupt people on earth. For example Recross pretends to be saving sick african children while all that money goes into expatriate salaries and stealing. In Kenya the common people have to pay bribes to get the simplest government work done. Drivers expect to pay bribes at every police check (every 5km or so). You pay bribes to pass a driving test, to get a title deed. You name it, it costs money "under the table". There are three ways to get things done in Kenya, have a friend in the right place, pay some money under the table, or wait -- and wait and wait. Just look at your post for a supposedly intelligent guy. I lived in Kenya all my life and never payed a bribe. Which Kenya are you talking about? All you posts have nothing related to the above topic. just social garbage. Google is far much better of in Kenya than SA.
I call BS on this one. While I'm sure the $$ figures are higher in the west, it affects the rich who want something done that isn't quite above board. Please white people crap. If you follow the trails of corruption in Africa it always poins to a white dude or white corporation. whites are the most corrupt people on earth. For example Recross pretends to be saving sick african children while all that money goes into expatriate salaries and stealing. In Kenya the common people have to pay bribes to get the simplest government work done. Drivers expect to pay bribes at every police check (every 5km or so). You pay bribes to pass a driving test, to get a title deed. You name it, it costs money "under the table". There are three ways to get things done in Kenya, have a friend in the right place, pay some money under the table, or wait -- and wait and wait. Just look at your post for a supposedly intelligent guy. I lived in Kenya all my life and never payed a bribe. Which Kenya are you talking about? All you posts have nothing related to the above topic. just social garbage. Google is far much better of in Kenya than SA.There's more tech talent in Kenya.
Kenya is actually a decent country. I mean if you go to Africa every country has it's own issues with poverty and this is not restricted to Africa at alone. I mean i have seen worse cases in places like India and the numbers there are worse because of the huge population. Even US has it's own problems with poverty there are several hundred thousand homeless people in LA alone. I was in Nairobi and Mombasa and Malindi recently the cities were fairly clean. Nairobi infact amazed me. It's developed so much since the lasttime i was here and it's more organized. Nairobi has most of the stuff you will find in any major city the west only thing they don't have is a subway. There are slums in Kibera & Mathare but they have started to build new houses to replace them. There's a plan to actually do away with them so i'm sure the nexttime i visit Kenya they might be gone. I met a few of the current leaders and they seem determined to change a lot of things. There also seems to be lots of new investments especially in Telecommunications, agriculture and construction. Tthe economy is also doing good. I was there when Sir Richard Branson launched his Virgin Airlines. If you look at the statistics Kenya looks like the place to be in Africa. The Kenyan Airline Kenya Airways is the best in Africa. Kenyas cellphone sector is crazy. Companies are making crazy profits. They even have great Cell Apps you can now transfer money on your cellphones even read newspapers i know his is not new in the west but i was impressed. Kenya is the biggest exporter of horticultural products like fruits and flowers to the European Union. It's also the biggest exporter of tea in Africa 2nd in the world. Its Also one of the biggest coffee producers in the world. Infact Kenyan coffee has one of the best blend in the world. You can confirm this at starbucks. Many countries use Kenyan coffee and tea to blend theirs. Losts of big world corporations Africa headquaters seem to be in Nairobi. Even UNEP is based in Nairobi. Even GE is shifting to Nairobi from SA. They have probably the best educated pool of professionals in Africa. English is also spoken widely in Kenya. Kenya sends the most number of students to study in US and UK than any other African country. You can check the statistics at the state dept. Kenya also has the best Athletes in Africa. Theres just great drive among Kenyans and they are smart and suave. There's also a good mix of locals and foreigners in Kenya. Kenyans are enthusiastic and seemed more knowledgeable than the people i met in other parts of Africa. Kenyans know more about other countries and are more aggressive and friendly. There's also a good mix of both modern and traditional plus its a beautiful country with good nature. . On the otherside if you go really deep into Kenya theres still alot to be done. Hopefully the new leaders will work hard and build their country. I will definately visit Kenya again I love Safaris and Mombasa. I would urge most people who view Africa as a wasteland or hot place or por place to visit first hand and not just stay in their hotels but go deep and talk to the regular folks thats how you will learn about Africa. By the way my Kenyan colleague tells me that Nairobi is near the Equator so it's not hot at all the weather is always nice. Like now it's cold in Nairobi because when its summer in Europe it's really cold in Kenya. S Africa by the way is great too. Google should be fine in Kenya.
And children are not human or what?
If you have a one year old baby and my 99 year old great grand dad hit by a bus tomorrow, the average life expectancy is still 50 between both of them.
What you are saying is stating the bleeding obvious....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You take your time, you need to adapt to the ways of the locals...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.