Remembering Ravi

This spring, we ran into a familiar Indian looking guy by the pool bar at the Jacaranda Indian Ocean Beach Resort, one of the dozens of resorts on the Kenyan coast – after many awkward glances back and forth, we realized and were excited to see that it was Ravindra Ramrattan, known to us as Ravi.

This June, in the second week of my summer internship based in Upper Hill, Nairobi, I was sitting down at the Java House alone one morning, when the same familiar face walked up – Ravi and I were again both surprised and excited to see each other, and had breakfast together. We shared many more meals over the course of this summer, and in particular, shared an interest in exploring some of the more local eateries in Upper Hill – Meladen Club, a place which serves great tilapia, with beans, sukuma-wiki (well-cooked greens), cabbage and chapatti, was one of our big discoveries. I was lucky that my office was right next to his.

Some of our meals were planned with long strings of e-mails inviting our other friends also working in the area, and some were spontaneous – frequently we would just run into one another. I would sit down at Java, and a minute later, an Indian looking guy sitting two tables down from me would turn his head around, and turn out to be Ravi. I think he spent more time at the Java House than his office, and I pulled his leg about this whenever I ran into him there. He would then start ranting a little bit about his office and his work, in a quirky, self-deprecating sort of way – he was really good natured, and always meant it in good, entertaining spirit.

We knew Ravi socially in Nairobi – he was well known and loved across the young expatriate community, particularly for his open, fun, easy-going and quirky personality, but also for his intellect.

One of my lasting memories of Ravi took place over one of our several lunches this summer. Ravi is an economist and a solid econometrician – we were arguing about something in the development space (which he was really knowledgeable and passionate about), when he claimed that we were “omitting variables”. What he meant is that we were confusing correlation for causation, and using something that was merely correlated to an underlying driver or explanatory factor, and misconstruing it as the actual driver.

He was clearly extremely smart, and often framed his arguments as an academic would, which made conversations with him even more “fun” and unique (especially since you could make fun of him for his style, and he always took it in a nice, good-natured way) – it was always interesting to have someone like him weigh in on anything, but he was never arrogant or condescending, which is perhaps why people felt so comfortable and open around him.

In another “fun” conversation this summer, he quoted Sherlock Homes – “Data, data, data – I need bricks in order to make clay”. He took such pride in this quote that you had to be there and see his smile as he said it, in order to truly appreciate how he meant it. Not only did Ravi live and breathe his triple degree in Econometrics, but he was also truly passionate and absorbed by his work in the development space.

But my favorite Ravi story is from another set of interactions this summer – at one of our lunch meals he complained that he was suffering from a hangover. When I asked him how he got the hangover, he told me that he had gate crashed the cocktail party at the GSMA Conference in Nairobi the previous evening, and had too much to drink. He complained, in his usual stating-first-world-problems, self-deprecating sort of style that the wine was good, and completely free, so he had no choice but to drink too much of it, and that he now regretted his actions. Later that week, he attended or rather gate crashed many other GSMA Conference events.

The GSMA Conference is a big deal in Nairobi, and Ravi worked in the mobile money space, so it wasn’t too unusual for him to attend these events uninvited – and to be fair, many of his colleagues were invited, so he wasn’t entirely uninvited. But in one of our following lunches, he asked me randomly if I knew anyone at the IMF. When I asked him what he wanted specifically, expecting that it might be to look for a job, or help with a research paper or a report he was writing, he told me that he wanted to attend the IMF Conference in Washington D.C. later this year.

This is when I started pulling his leg – he clearly had a conference gate crashing habit. After a little bit of pushing, he confessed to many more such activities, and unlocked his secrets. He actually frequently gate crashed conferences – his methods included walking up to a conference welcome table, where often the name tags of invitees are pre-printed and on display for pick-up, and picking up the first name tag with an Indian sounding name. He got away with most of this gate crashing – one such event was for lawyers who had just finished the bar in London, and he had to pretend to be a lawyer at Lincoln’s Inn for an entire evening. But he also shared stories of the couple of times he got caught. He was so good natured that he had no trouble making fun of himself for getting thrown out of these conferences

These memories of Ravi highlight two things about him. First, his intelligence and insatiable intellectual curiosity ran to the point where he took a little bit of pride in being an academic and a researcher, and this made him an extremely interesting person to interact with. And second, his quirkiness, and easy-going nature made him popular among so many in our community. Perhaps we share a lot of common personality traits, or I might be projecting my own likes and habits on his personality – but still, I have met few people like Ravi who have made me feel so at ease, and with whom I have connected so early on in our friendship.

On Saturday we heard that Ravi was caught-up in the attack at Westgate Mall, and that no one had been able to hear from him. He had gone to the supermarket at the mall, to buy supplies for a BBQ, one of the many which take place across the young Nairobi expatriate circle on a typical weekend. On Sunday we got the news that everyone had dreaded – they found his body in a morgue.

The thought of what he might have gone through in the final moments of his life is extremely distressing. He was separated from his girlfriend as they were shopping at the supermarket (she was able to escape unhurt) – words will probably never be able to fully describe the shock and panic he probably went through as he saw the militants go through their rampage; and most disturbingly, as someone from an Islamic background, hearing their demand that Muslims in the mall state the Shahadah, or Islamic declaration of faith, so that they (the militants) don’t make the mistake or commit the sin of killing fellow believers.

Ultimately, I have never been this shocked and devastated by a terrorist attack – having known someone who has been killed makes it so real in so many ways that it is otherwise impossible to appreciate, at least for me personally.

I must be really honest here. Years of attacks have desensitized me to terrorism – my hotel was close to the bombing of the CID building in Karachi in November 2010. Not only was I caught in the middle of the events, especially the ensuing panic which lasted for a couple of hours, but I also walked past the pools of blood, and saw the horrifying white sheets with red stains at the scene afterwards. The smell of human flesh, and some kind of powder that they use to cover it up was shocking and I will never forget it – but all of it somehow faded in my memory.

The fact that an estimated 36,000 Pakistanis and many thousands more around the world have been killed by terrorists since 9/11 has almost just become a statistic. I have been desensitized to it all, so much so that the threat is just not real anymore – sometimes, I have even compared it statistically to the chances that one will die in a road accident, trying to make the case that it can be safe for foreigners to travel to Pakistan.

But it’s time that this issue became real, at least for me. In all the sadness and good wishes that we have shared across friends from Nairobi and more broadly across the world, I do not want to bring any anger in – but I am angry, partly for my own inability to be an effective part of the solution.

I think we need to understand terrorism better, in order to eliminate it – and terrorism simply cannot be allowed to become a new constant in our world, which we might eventually learn to live with and become completely desensitized to.

But I genuinely fear and foresee that this is how it might actually play out, and that Ravi may not be the last friend or family member that we will be remembering and mourning.

And while it’s a deeply complex issue which I do not claim to understand myself, I feel that we have a tendency to understand it only in terms of clichés, empty words and our own (often narrow and biased) beliefs. The “usual” words can be powerful, and obviously have their time and place – they help ground our own values and make us feel better in such times. But maybe it’s time we throw out what we want things to be like, or what we find comfortable to hear, and especially in such hard times, ask some really tough questions.

The people who carried this attack out are definitely “cowards” in the metaphorical or greater philosophical sense, but did it not take a serious ideological grounding and lots of guts to pull it off on their part? Were they not true to their strong beliefs, however misguided, and did they not perceive themselves to be (at least ultimately) doing good and something much larger than themselves?

It’s also easy to dismiss them as crazies – but just how common or uncommon are their views across the world? How many sympathizers do they have, and why are these people sympathetic towards them? Is it that they just attended madrassas, or are there real political grievances underlying their actions, in addition to the crazies? Will the crazies alone ever achieve something this significant, or are the political grievances a necessary part of their recipe?

Are these events of a narrow geographic scope, or are there broader and more peripheral pieces in the puzzle which we might actually be part of? Are the fairytales we read, or the beliefs we hold deeply, actually true or is there value to subjecting them to some skepticism?

And is this simply a problem of poverty and underdevelopment? Or would Ravi say that the causality actually runs in reverse?

Technology has so widened the possibility of asymmetric warfare, that even a tiny group with relatively limited capabilities, but a strong grievance can now cause significant damage – and it does takes a strong grievance for someone to take such a radical step.

It is impossible to eliminate these groups, as if one were eliminating cancer, and much more important to focus on eliminating the root causes of their grievances. What this means is that the room for moral and political error has narrowed far beyond what we have been used to in the past – and while people generally disagree on what is morally and politically right, and those of us who try to understand the world appreciate that it is messy, the perceived political injustices of the past simply cannot be an option any longer. We know where these flashpoints exist across the world, and we have a moral and ethical responsibility to resolve these conflicts in a truly fair manner, rather than persist with some of our own human stubbornness in the (effectively) zero-sum games that we are playing.

Not all is lost – I see hope that we can use these events to build stronger societies and political systems in places like Pakistan. To quote a famous philosopher: “When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher”. It is my vision and dream that several decades from now people will ask us how things turned around so dramatically, given how bad that they had once become – and perhaps our response will be that they had to get really bad, in order for the good to re-emerge so strongly.

“O man, know how disgusting you've become” – Fresh lows of depravity

This week, three different parts of the world – Pakistan, East Africa and the United States – have hit the news in ways that have outraged so many including myself. Read below …

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FEUDALS BUY THEIR WAY OUT OF MURDER IN PAKISTAN SO THAT EVERYONE CAN GET ON WITH ENJOYING RICE PUDDING AND CRICKET

What’s the price of a human life? It’s 10 she-camels, according to pre-Islamic tribal customs in the Arabian Peninsula. In other words, a murderer could compensate for a murder with 10 female milk-and-baby-camel-producing camels and be pardoned for the crime by the victim’s heirs.

Now setting the exchange rate for a human life in terms of livestock seems primitive and tribal – but some of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula weren’t just ragtag nomads. The Quraysh, for example, were settled, sophisticated urbanites, who ran a successful and largely peaceful, trading and pilgrimage center in Mecca during this period.

The core idea is simple – an eye for an eye will make the world blind (1,400 years before Gandhi); or that it is better (magnanimous) to forgive and forget than to avenge. In some cases, the initial murder, the one that sparked it all, can come under dispute and lead to a perpetual cycle of killing, so some form of non-human tradability helps put an end to the blood-letting (think “War on Terror” and who started it first).

Whatever the real reason, Islam adopted the principal of blood money, under the term “diyat”. If the perpetrator and the victim settle on a sum, then the one who committed the crime can be pardoned. And it’s not that Islam opposes the Death Penalty. It’s just one of several alternatives paths to justice available (and I am no expert on which form of justice is preferred or recommended under Shariah Law).

In fact, I oppose the Death Penalty – but my position is driven by some abstract liberal notion governed by some mental short-cut that I sometimes cannot explain, especially when faced with a real concrete situation, where anything short of the Death Penalty seems so blatantly insufficient. One such instance is the Delhi Bus Gang Rape in India, where the perpetrators where awarded the Death Penalty just a few days ago. Another such situation arose in December of last year in Pakistan.

Shahzeb Khan was an Upper Middle-Class youth living in the city of Karachi. One December evening he was gunned down in cold blood by the scions of two powerful, land-owning, feudal families of Pakistan – Shahrukh Jatoi and Siraj Talpur. The causes were petty, but the crime scene gruesome – the murderers lodged multiple bullets into Shahzeb and his car, in the parking lot of his building, an act clearly in cold blood.

The murder sparked outrage and a successful social media campaign which signed up 200,000 supporters. Police were unable to, at first, arrest the feudals. One of them even managed to escape to Dubai, under a botched identity, with his passage through the airport facilitated by public officials. He didn’t even obtain an Immigration Exit stamp on his passport, as required under Pakistani law.

But the UAE eventually deported this feudal, and the other one was arrested after an independent media and judiciary placed immense pressure on the law enforcement agencies (some of the most corrupt and politically manipulated institutions in Pakistan).

Finally, the two murderers were brought to trial. There was all kinds of drama – what should have taken a week (under Pakistani Anti-Terrorism Law) dragged on for four months. Witnesses were intimidated. The feudal kids who are 19, claimed that they were juveniles at 17, and so had to be medically examined. The doctors issued conflicting reports.

Ultimately, the trial concluded in June of this year, and the two main culprits were awarded the Death Penalty, with their two accomplices awarded life imprisonment. For once, Pakistan had proven that no one, not even the kids of two powerful feudal families, are above the law. But our celebration was short-lived, and we recently hit new depths of despondency.

Earlier this week, news broke out that the victim’s family has settled the murder for 350 million rupees in blood money (approx. US$ 3.5 million). A good camel costs around 100,000 rupees, so the settlement happened for 3,500 camels equivalent as opposed to just 10. And it’s not even fully clear whether or not money is involved, so let’s set aside direct greed and material convenience, as considerations in this whole saga.

What is important to understand here is that the family and the witnesses who were instrumental in the prosecution of the feudals have a social obligation to uphold justice, and fight for it until and even after it has been delivered. This is easy for me to say from the sidelines, but I am not just saying it because it helps me score moral credentials without any skin in the game. This is no longer just a private matter that can simply be settled out of court. It impacts everyone when a feudal can simply gun down anyone they wish to, with the understanding that they can buy their way out of it afterwards.

I spent 40 minutes last night listening to an interview with the victim’s parents, trying to understand where they might be coming from. Because even though this is a social issue now, their loss has been the greatest and their views must be sought out and understood in a respectful manner. But I came out with much less respect for them than I had when I went in.

Their first argument is that the sentence will probably never be carried out, so they might as well settle. This is an incorrect assumption – even fatalistic. The civil society and the media are behind them, and will ensure that the sentence is delivered. Why have they jumped to such a conclusion?

Their second line of reasoning is that they are doing this, not for themselves, but for all the witnesses and supporters of the victim – more specifically they want their lives to be normalized, and do not wish to place additional burden on them. This is a combination of not wanting to owe and not wanting to make them, the witnesses and supporters, feel that they owe anything.

While this second argument is somewhat abstract, underlying it are two premises. The first one is that the feudals can continue to harass them, and make life difficult for them, unless they settle amicably – this may not be far from the truth, unfortunately in a country like Pakistan. Justice and truth is not going to come without cost here.

The second premise is that the victim’s family, and its supporters seek a “normal” material life over and above justice for Shahzeb and all of Pakistan, with the potential price of justice being the harassment from the feudals. This assumes that they value their material conveniences over and above their ideals. This again is quite possibly a false assumption and I will come back to this at the end.

Their third and final set of arguments is faith based – the first sub-argument being that God likes those who forgive. So they will score “sawaab” or brownie points for their magnanimity, which in a purely rational, self-interested, value maximizing world, is in fact the right thing for them to do. But not only does it smack of quasi-material self-interest, but conveniently ignores the longer-term social cost of not standing up against the “zalim” or aggressor.

They continued their faith based argument by postulating that God will bring these individuals to justice on The Day of Judgment, anyway, so why not be patient until then? But if all we’re doing is waiting for the Day of Judgment, then we might as well give up right here, right now, and take a back seat in everything until the real show begins.

Unfortunate as it was, the day this incident took place, the lives of those involved changed forever. Now they must stand-up, above and beyond themselves, for all of society, and help ensure that nothing like this happens ever again. The alternative is to settle so that they can enjoy a “normal” life eating rice pudding and watching cricket. I cannot force them one way or another – but they do hold the burden of the choice which will impact us all.

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EAST AFRICAN LEADERS FAIL THEIR STATES IN BLATANT ACTS OF DEGENERACY

The two highest public office holders in a certain East African country, namely Kenya (also known as Silicon Savannah and hailed as an example of leap-frogging, and home-grown solutions to development like M-PESA), have been accused of crimes against humanity, and summoned to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. They have been accused of organizing criminal gangs and death squads to intimidate rivals following the disputed 2007 elections in Kenya, which were clearly rigged. In fact, they were so blatantly rigged, that the individuals who rigged them didn’t even bother to cover their tracks properly.

What ensued left 1,200 dead and over half a million homeless. Kenya, a regional African hub, and darling of the west, for its relative stability and supportive role in the War against Terror, jumped from 34^th rank in the Failed States Index to 16^th in just a year. No one had recognized or taken seriously, the tensions that were simmering underneath a seemingly calm facade.

Kofi Annan, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and former UN Secretary General, mediated a solution to the conflict, which among many things, included a new constitution for Kenya, and demanded that those responsible for the crimes be brought to justice. But even two years after the mediation succeeded in bringing back peace, Kenya failed to provide any traction towards justice for the victims, amid political wrangling, and general malaise and dysfunction across the public institutions within the country.

Kofi Annan was left with no choice but to hand the cases over to the ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo in 2009, so that proceedings against those accused could take place in The Hague under international institutions, and justice could be dispensed. He recently wrote an article on this in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/opinion/justice-for-kenya.html?_r=0

The accused were not in power at the time that the cases were initiated, but were elected into office in the recent elections of 2013 – again these elections were mired by irregularities. It’s not even a question of voters not being able to select the right candidates (anyone with even so much as a blemish, let alone accusations of Crimes Against Humanity, ought to be rejected), but of the voting process being high jacked for the second time in a row. But this time no one spoke out too loudly for the sake of peace and stability. Everyone’s trying to ensure that the symptoms don’t aggravate, without addressing the root causes.

But even as they stepped into public office, they decided to comply with the court – in fact, they are the first serving public officials ever to comply with the court. Sudan’s President, Omar Al-Bashir, has repeatedly shown the court the finger.

But this was only to last until this week when the Kenyan Parliament decided to exit the Rome Statutes which created the International Criminal Court – in effect, it has finally decided to show the ICC the finger. Here’s an article by the spokesperson for the political party of the two accused individuals:

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/eblog/2013/09/10/kenyas-withdrawal-from-icc-long-overdue/

The arguments include words like neo-colonialism, sovereignty, race-hunting and chasing-Africa – it’s dirty old political rhetoric, and it is so clear that these individuals are absolutely devoid of any integrity. And most of this political non-sense actually does not sell, but what is frustrating is that Kenyan’s have become so apathetic, that they do not even seem to care. This could be their downfall.

So forget M-PESA or toilets which turn human waste into energy. As long as the ruling political elite remains entrenched, taking “turns to eat” (one must read the book, “It’s our Turn to Eat”, by Michela Wrong, which documents anti-corruption efforts by one whistle-blower in Kenya), with no one willing to stand-up for what is right, Kenya risks becoming a Failed State.

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BIGOTRY LIVES LARGE IN AMERICA, BUT IT’S ALL TOO CONVENIENT TO DOWNPLAY IT OR ASSUME IT AWAY

The recently crowned Miss America is of foreign or more specifically Indian origin (oriental or Eastern Indian, not native American Indian). Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss New York, before being crowned Miss America. It’s a triumph for a country whose greatness is built upon attracting and integrating generation after generation of top quality immigrants from all over the world. And it turns out that one of these immigrants is quite pretty too.

But following this news, Twitter exploded with racist and ignorant tweets, some of which have been retweeted thousands of times. I won’t detail these out myself – you can see for yourself here:

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/61388585374/americans-call-first-indian-american-miss-america

And here:

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/61428932482/racist-americans-whine-that-first-indian-american-miss

Initially it was about being Muslim, Arab or Al-Qaeda. Then they found out her actual ethnicity, but were still racist. The 7-Eleven and Gas Station jokes started. See them here:

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/61639541662/americans-figure-out-new-miss-americas-actual

Then I found other Tweets on 9/11, here:

http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/61085700917/remembering-9-11-just-makes-these-patriotic-bigots-want

As I shared these with American friends, I heard two types of defensive responses.

1. Don’t pay attention to anything on Twitter

2. There are bigots in every country

Ultimately, America needs to recognize that it does not always live up to the ideals that it espouses and strives towards. Everything from drones to Guantanamo, to these bigots are alive and well in America. Large segments of the education system have utterly failed to create knowledge of and respect for anything outside of America. These things are inexcusable in a country with such a self-perception of greatness.

And it’s all too convenient for Caucasian upwardly mobile urban professionals to assume these issues away or downplay them. But not only does it fail to solve pressing problems, but they do not even recognize that these issues are real because they are not directly impacted by any of them – it’s ultimately individuals like myself who are sent to the side room in SFO every time we have to clear US Customs and Border Protection.

If you can, I recommend watching a new film, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”. It’s pretty good cinema, and will help bridge these two worlds.

Adventures in rural Kenya - building an agri-inputs and livestock-servicing Social Enterprise

Here's some eclectic, and somewhat mundane, yet interesting thoughts and happenings from my time out here in Kenya. I am spending my summer supporting SIDAI Africa Limited, a for-profit social enterprise which seeks to set up a franchise network of agricultural input retail stores tied to veterinary service providers, to transform the way farmers take care of their livestock in Kenya.

I am back in Nairobi, sitting on the balcony of my apartment on a chilly evening, staring at the Yaya Twin Towers in Kilimani - a nice (and wealthy) suburb just 10 minutes away from Nairobi's Central Business District. The Yaya Twin Towers are part of a large high-end mixed-use real estate development, one of the dozens which have sprung up in Nairobi, and pay testament to the city's growing prosperity. What is odd though is that while one twin tower is complete, occupied and fully lit up, the other one is structurally complete, but unfinished and abandoned. In fact, it is an eye sore with its hollow windows and raw grey concrete walls.

The story I've heard is that the contractor had a dispute with the real estate developer, and it got so serious that the contractor poured concrete down the elevator shafts, rendering the entire building unusable. It takes a lot of spite and emotion to do something like that - it just does not seem economically rational at all, no matter how serious the dispute. We're talking about incurring quite a bit of "concrete" cost yourself in order to impose a cost on someone else. I suppose some things are just settled emotionally. Another version of the story has to do with building permits, zoning regulations and regulatory troubles. Whatever the real issue, it reminds one just how risky (and irrational) doing business here in Kenya can be.

I have just spent 3 days "out in the field" - social sector jargon for anything that is outside of an office in a major city (it's seldom an actual "field"). I was in and around Eldoret, one of Kenya's 10 or so large towns, with a population of 200 thousand. Eldoret is right in the middle of the (Great) Rift Valley, and Kenya's agricultural belt, which makes it significant for any agriculture focused enterprise. It was SIDAI's first distribution hub, and in spite of setting up another three distribution hubs, Eldoret still accounts for two-thirds of the company's turnover.

In Eldoret, I was leading two of my four "Strike Forces" - a fancy, action oriented title we have decided to give to the teams I am working with on my four projects here at SIDAI. Just as an example, one of these projects helps SIDAI build systems and capabilities for stock reordering. At the moment everything is done manually and on "gut feel". And while the human gut (or brain) generally does a good job, it has a basic tendency to forget, and misperceive things - and who can blame it when the organization is stocking 1200 or so SKUs (stock keeping units - retail industry jargon for product and pack-size combinations) - that's a lot to manually manage and keep track of! Plus the folks here at SIDAI responsible for stock reordering have never formally learnt lean inventory management principles, even though they intuitively understand and apply many of them. So I get to put into practice some of the real sciency stuff that I have learnt in Base Operations class at Stanford GSB. The MBA's hard learnings do come in useful, after all.

This morning we drove 280 kilometers (175 miles) North-East of Eldoret, to visit and interview 4 of SIDAI's franchisees. That's a lot of driving considering that several stretches of the road were absolutely terrible. It's a beautiful part of Kenya and what made the drive even more pleasant was the inspiring company and interesting places and happenings along the way. Dr. Odede, SIDAI's Operations Manager was in the driver's seat - and our travel companions included Kellen, SIDAI's Store Manager for Eldoret, and Kandia, SIDAI's franchisee from a beautiful little place called Kerio Valley.

Kandia is an incredibly inspiring person. In Kenya, one's status is determined by one's size - both weight and height, but especially weight. The heavier one is, the more presence and importance one typically garners. But Kandia is not particularly tall, and in fact quite lean - yet he has an incredible presence and strong gravitas. He is quite smart and well educated, and when he speaks, people listen. We had rich conversations in the car about everything from his adventures with bee-keeping (he seems to be a self-trained expert), to Kenya's New Constitution and devolved Governance structure - especially what it means for the country's development. We even talked about the social sector and broader development in Kenya, and how some of the Government and social sector projects can be counter-productive, and create dependence rather than sustainable development. I was pleasantly surprised to hear terms like "hand-outs" and "non-market actors" being thrown around. In spite of the country's myriad problems, many smart and educated Kenyans do actually seem to understand what is happening around them very well.

Kandia set-up his franchise store only two years ago, after retiring from a long career in the private sector, working for an agricultural inputs manufacturer. He found a location on a stretch of road, which does not have another agricultural store for at least 30 kilometers in either direction - he literally picked-out "white space". And while he is currently only turning over US$2,000 or so a month (not a lot - an average SIDAI franchisee can turn over US$5,000), he has a bold vision and sees his store's sales multiplying as he helps develop farmers around the area. He claims that the soil and conditions around his store location are perfect for some very high value horticulture crops, like mangoes and watermelons - and he is willing to invest his own time and capital to help farmers learn to plant these crops. It's a great example of how one smart, educated and enterprising local individual, with a bold vision, can help change the destiny of an entire community. And as a pure private sector player he will likely develop a sustainable and mutually beneficial long-term relationship with the community, and is thus likely to be more effective than any non-profit, especially the likes of Technoserve.

One of the other topics of discussion was the Watermelon seed shortage in Kenya. Kenya is a big producer of watermelons. Three fruits - bananas, pineapples and watermelons - are served in large quantities in any Kenyan hotel buffet. But apparently the East Africa Seed Company has only managed to import 600 kilograms of watermelon seed this year, and is struggling to source more from its global suppliers. And as the planting season approaches, the demand for the seed is in the tens of thousands of kilograms. It's an extreme situation which necessitates strict rationing - and SIDAI is struggling to source these seeds. Perhaps next years' hotel buffets will be missing one of the three fruits.

But Kandia managed to get hold of some seeds using his connections, which left our SIDAI colleagues dumbfounded, and even impressed. It just underscores the importance of building networks and informal connections in order to be successful in this market. In a similar story, one of SIDAI's suppliers was being difficult, refusing to deliver to SIDAI's Eldoret hub (there's a lot of competitive dynamics with SIDAI's model which make such interactions not uncommon). But SIDAI's CEO had worked at the supplier before, and simply made a phone call to an old colleague there. Within minutes a phone call came back from the supplier and everything was in order.

I often wonder whether foreign or expatriate social entrepreneurs are at a serious disadvantage in places like Kenya because they lack family, and broader social networks which take years if not decades to develop. And this problem is compounded when expatriates stay relatively insulated in their own communities, rather than making an effort to get to know and relate with Kenyans. The problem almost certainly exists, but is perhaps not particularly noticeable from their vantage point. After all, an expatriate entrepreneur would have figured that there were no watermelon seeds to be had, would have played by the rules and constraints, and would have ultimately been plugged out of or ignorant to the kinds of things someone like Kandia could achieve.

Kandia's store is also an M-PESA agent. M-PESA is a mobile money platform which serves as a virtual bank account and a domestic money transfer or remittance service. In fact there are twice as many M-PESA users as there are bank account holders in Kenya, and by some estimates, almost 25% of Kenya's GDP is being transacted on M-PESA. He claims that the M-PESA agency helps complement his core agricultural retail business, by helping provide fresh money or liquidity to his customers. They come and withdraw money from the M-PESA agent, money usually sent by their kids or relatives working in the towns, and immediately spend it on agricultural goods and supplies at the store. Absolutely brilliant!

Kandia also stocks M-KOPO solar lanterns, an innovative new solar solution which combines mobile money with solar, to break down the upfront investment that is required in any solar system. It's sort of a pre-paid solar system that can be topped-up on a running basis using mobile money. In my view, it's the most refreshing of the 100 or more otherwise virtually identical solar products which are now out in the Kenyan market (they're literally all generic - even sourced from the same suppliers up in Shenzhen). He says that they're moving fast (i.e. selling a lot).

But I was surprised to hear of the generous trade and credit terms which M-KOPO has extended to him (at least SIDAI is not that generous - but to be fair, SIDAI's product value chains are much better established). I guess it is important for them to do so in order to help move their products. Yet I see so many social entrepreneurs making the mistake of being too stingy with the terms they provide to their distribution channel partners - and then they complain that their products don't gain any traction. It's a very simple story of push vs. pull driven by channel incentives - there are real and important lessons to be learnt from players like M-KOPO and their distribution outcomes on the ground here in Kenya, which fresh social entrepreneurs often fail to tap into.

As we drove along the winding roads, the landscape was quite scenic. We passed by Torok Falls, a tall waterfall on the edge of a lush green mountain. What was particularly great about this waterfall was that it appeared out of the blue, and was visible from across a long stretch of the road. It was at least 100 meters tall, if not more, and double storied (i.e. it fell onto a ledge or terrace, and then fell again) - a refreshing sight for the eyes. There were many sign boards around it offering guided treks along the hill - when I am back next time, I am definitely setting aside time to hike around.

Some of the views from the hills looking down onto Kerio Valley were absolutely stunning. The middle of the valley is home to a small-sized lake and a game reserve. The lake is home to hundreds of crocodiles - and it is possible to lodge on its edge and spend time with the crocs. From another stretch of road, we could see the absolutely massive and serene Lake Baringo, with its giant island hill in the center. Lake Baringo is one of the dozen or so "Rift Valley Lakes", pools of water gathered up at different spots in the depressions of the Rift Valley.

Acacia trees and shrubs lined the roadside, a quintessential part of the African landscape. At one point we saw a runner dressed in tights, and somewhat proper looking athletic gear running along the road. He was not a school boy returning home, but a proper looking athlete in his 20s, wearing some fairly high end running gear. The first runner was interesting to see, but then runner after runner kept showing up. In fact, there were even Caucasian runners, running along the road.

We were near a town called Iten, which is home to the International Athletics Federation's high altitude training facility. This is the place which tends to produce many of Kenya's marathon World Champions. In fact, all of Kenya's marathon champions hail from a single tribe, the Kalenjin Tribe, which is settled in this part of the country, and is one of Kenya's 14 larger tribes. Kandia is in fact a member of this tribe - and the joke goes that there can never be a heavy Kalenjin because of their athletic genes, which perhaps explains why Kandia is also so lean (in spite of the massive blob of Ugali he ate for lunch - Ugali is a maize cake, which is absolutely tasteless in every way, and heavy enough to induce a comma). And it's not just genetics - the high altitude and rolling hills in this part of the country build breathing capacity and stamina from a young age. These are perhaps the best training conditions in the world for long-distance runners - right in the middle of this part of rural Kenya. Fascintating stuff!

Dr. Odede, SIDAI's Operations Manager was another inspiration. As we were driving down a stretch of road, he suddenly pulled over to the side and reversed back towards a field where a girl in her teens, and dressed in a school uniform, was sitting down. He postulated that she was menstruating, and because she probably could not afford a sanitary pad, she was staying away from school, and hiding out there. It's a really depressing state of things - so many girls drop out of school because of this issue. We drove up to the next store along the road, bought some sanitary pads and brought them back. By the time we got back, the girl had disappeared, and the local community had gathered up and asked us to leave. Apparently girls are forced to sell their bodies, just so that they can buy sanitary pads, and the community suspected that Dr. Odede was interested in taking advantage of the girl. It's a really sad misunderstanding - in the end we could not actually help the girl. Sometimes there are real structural trust issues which hamper good efforts in the social sector. Separating the good from the bad is non-trivial.

Another heart-warming Dr. Odede moment took place in a small market town called Mogotio, where we were visiting another SIDAI franchisee. Now lots of interesting things happened in this town. A massive convoy led by the self-proclaimed Kenyan Prophet, Dr. David Owour made a huge racket as it passed by the store, and preached its message. I had never heard of this prophet before - as I inquired about him, Dr. Odede and Kellen shared stories of people they know who were persuaded to sell all their assets and hand them over to the Prophet's Church in the hope that they would be rewarded with even more. Superstition is by far the most successful Base of the Pyramid business tactic.

But coming back to Dr. Odede's moment - we got back into our car and were ready to leave the town as several kids between the ages of 5 and 10 ran towards us, asking for money. This is not uncommon across Kenya and I have developed a habit of ignoring these kids, because whatever money I might hand over to them will not help them in any structurally sustainable manner, and may in fact incentivize them to ask for more, the next time any foreign visitor is in town. This cycle of dependency and even entitlement is ultimately harmful.

Dr. Odede seemed to follow the same policy - I assume that everyone with experience in this part of the world ignores the kids. But there was one particular kid to whom Dr. Odede handed over 10 shillings, which is a little more than 11 US cents. When I asked him why that kid in particular and not the others, he responded that the kid was actually hungry, and that he could tell this from the way he looked. The rest of the kids, according to Dr. Odede would have just wasted the money on chocolates or Bubble Gum, but this kid in particular really needed the money.

So while the rest of us would have put in place a blanket policy across all these kids, and not even bothered to look directly at them, perhaps out of guilt and perhaps out of the frustration of having to deal with them, Dr. Odede still had the perceptiveness, energy and courage to try to find that one kid who might in fact really benefit from the money. Now some part of me is skeptical of Dr. Odede's ability to pick the right kid out, but his gesture still makes me feel a little ashamed of myself.

As we rushed back to Eldoret Airport to make it in time for my flight back to Nairobi, it was pouring rain. Traffic was slow, and the road was muddy - but all this just seemed to add to the charm of the experience. We made it to the check-in counter literally seconds before it was about to close. And Eldoret has the cutest little airport - the fact that it is so small makes it so refreshing to use - just one little hall divided up into all the little things an airport needs, like check-in counters, security check-points and lounge areas. If only every airport could be like this.

The 35 minute flight to Nairobi was prolonged by another 15 minutes, because Nairobi Airport's runway was congested. The Government wants to invest in a badly needed 2nd runway on land that was originally ear-marked for the airport's expansion, but squatters have settled there. Evicting them will create a huge uproar, and the squatters have an incentive to hold-in and resist eviction as much as possible. I guess, there's a price to pay for democracy, a free press, and societies which value distributive justice - literally in the extra fuel and time spent up in the air. And airlines, which are a critical enabler for economic development, will be less likely to serve the Nairobi route because of these issues - overall output, in the utilitarian sense, will be sub-optimal, which is again a depressing state of affairs, especially for such a poor country.

Finally, as I landed in Nairobi and was waiting for Benson, my taxi driver, to come pick me up, I heard a loud roar and cheer in the adjacent international terminal. Apparently the President, Uhuru Kenyatta, had arrived back in Nairobi. As Benson pulled in to pick me up, we scrambled to try to beat the President out of the airport. Benson told me that if we fell behind, we would be stuck there for a long time, as roads are typically completely blocked out for the motorcades of important public officials. Ultimately we did beat him, and my taxi driver who is generally quite jolly, was especially elated this time. Not only had we avoided "the jam" but we were also taking advantage of open signals, which were being used to clear the roads for the President's approaching motorcade. I guess we were lucky which was a good reason to be happy, but I was more angry that public officials have to be so privileged in this country.

Just another day here in Kenya! I suppose that the little mundane things one experiences here can be quite interesting. These are some of the benefits of living in an emerging market!

It’s all about the politics – Mexico’s monopolies

This is the fourth and final post in a series of four blog posts from my recent study trip to Mexico, with the Stanford GSB. Here’re some facts and tid-bits on the trip which provide a bit of an overall flavor:

§  The people: 35 Stanford GSBers and their partners, hailing from 14 different countries –backgrounds as diverse and unique as Air Force Officers, Social Entrepreneurs, Finance Ministerial Analysts, Film Makers, Start-up Starters, Seismologists, Sports Analysts, Chemistry Teachers, Family Businessmen … and of course … bankers & consultants

§  The places: 3 different cities over 10 days, including Oaxaca, Monterrey and Mexico City – each with a very different and unique character

§  The experiences: Discussing Mexico’s challenges in meetings with business and public sector leaders; watching Mexican soap operas being filmed, including meeting the most charismatic man in the world (not to be confused with the most interesting man in the world, whom we also met); exploring ancient monuments; eating good food and drinking giant margaritas; and of course, shouting and cheering like mariachis.

Those of you who know me also know that I love to have a good argument – I am a contrarian, and I will take any opportunity to pick a bit of a fight. There’re complex personal drivers behind this – when I give my “Talk” at the GSB, I will elaborate upon and connect them. Now don’t get me wrong – I almost always keep these fights polite and civil. And while I do often loose potential friends in these encounters, sometimes these debates can be eye-opening, providing a window into a perspective which I previously under-considered. One such fight took place between myself, and two of my fellow trip participants. The argument was over Carlos Slim Helu, Mexico’s telecom monopolist and the richest man in the world.

Now, at first, I found it downright shocking that my two fellow participants viewed Carlos Slim as an inspiration. Of course everyone has an opinion, but this one was just too far beyond my acceptable range for me to stomach. But as a result of this discussion, I now see where they are coming from, and why Carlos Slim has enjoyed political support in Mexico. Not only does Carlos Slim run philanthropic organizations which make him a popular father figure, helping support the masses in Mexico (somewhat like a Rockefeller or a Carnegie in the United States), but he also gets a lot of respect for what he has achieved. There’s some national pride to be had in having the richest man in the world be your countryman. Also, it may not be entirely inaccurate to attribute much of his success to his wits and talents – even though I clearly disagree with the ethical merits of the ends to which these wits and talents have been deployed. As one of our speakers put it – “he (Carlos Slim) has used every trick in the book to hold onto his empire”. In fact, each of our speakers, all of whom belong to a highly educated business class of Mexicans, opposed Carlos Slim. Perhaps their education shaped their ethical compass, or perhaps they are natural opponents of Slim’s interests, since as business people, high telecom costs are not good for them.

When monopolies are discussed, everyone in the room holds these sad half expressions

But either way, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Carlos Slim’s telecom monopoly has survived for as long as it has in fact survived. The average person either supports him, or cannot connect the dots, and thus takes an ignorant, perhaps even an apathetic stand. Oh, the virtues of democracy!

But this might all be changing due to two factors.

i) As I described in my previous blog post on the media:

“The recent re-election of the PRI (The Institutional Revolutionary Party), the Left leaning party which has governed Mexico for much of Mexico’s modern history, has led to a series of tangible reforms which significantly change Mexico’s fundamentals and prospects …

… the PRI has legislated to make broadband-access “a universal right” within Mexico. While this might sound symbolic, and even vacuous, it’s a very clear first step in dismantling the telecommunications monopoly of Carlos Slim Helu. With telecommunications being a key input factor in the information and service economy, having pricey telecommunications services, because of a regulated monopoly, is a huge burden on business and development. The new Government clearly understands this, and the legislation actively begins to politicize the problem, which is an important first step towards addressing it.”

ii) The other crocodiles are circling and want their share:

In a meeting with a media broadcasting monopolist, we learnt the terrible things that Carlos Slim is doing to Mexico – perhaps the speaker feels that they aren’t obvious, and needs to altruistically push the right political agenda. Or perhaps the media broadcaster wants its own share. He criticized Carlos Slim, but also repeatedly suggested that his firm should be allowed to enter the market, and that things should be left “cushy”. This is where Democratic governance can be very powerful, and the people and their elected legislators can make the final judgments. And it’s an amazing form of poetic justice, how one crocodile can neutralize the other.

This post ends my four part series on the Mexico GSB trip.