Last night I went to Geek Heaven in Nairobi….and it looked kind of ordinary at first…. except we were in some kind of room in a building, with the skyline of Nairobi as the backdrop. It was the IHub Launch  www.ihub.co.ke in Nairobi, Kenya and [...]]]> Geek Heaven – iHub launch, Nairobi Kenya. 3^rd March 2010

Last night I went to Geek Heaven in Nairobi….and it looked kind of ordinary at first…. except we were in some kind of room in a building, with the skyline of Nairobi as the backdrop. It was the IHub Launch  www.ihub.co.ke in Nairobi, Kenya and the evening was packed full of geeks, super geeks, TEDsters, futurists and a number of possible  “Post humans” – people with artificially enhanced intelligence.

There were people with brains so active that their combined wattage seemed to add heat of the room. Ideas were floating around at the speed of thought, a little surreal and what it brought up for me was the concept of “accelerating change” described below by the great geek Stanislaw Ulam as

”….the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.’

The IHub celebrates the fact that here in Africa we are beginning to value and invest in the power of ideas, as the essential currency for future progress and change. The iHub is a realization of the “Mindstep” or paradigm shift towards the areas where technology approaches a barrier, and new technologies emerge to cross it.

iHub – Nairobi’s Innovation Hub for the technology community – is an open space for the technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in East Africa. This space is a tech community facility with a focus on young entrepreneurs, web and mobile phone programmers and designers. It is part open community workspace (co-working), part vector for investors and VCs and part incubator.

It will have a redundant 20Mbs connection, hardwired and WiFi, and it’s freely available to any tech person in Nairobi to use once they become members. Membership is free; the only requirement is that you are indeed involved in the tech space as a programmer, web designer or mobile application developer.

Data connectivity is the most important aspect of the iHub, but after that comes a fresh design and an atmosphere that is conducive to techies getting cool stuff done.

I’m proud to be associated with the iHub and working closely with other ted fellows www.ted.com/fellows to act as Super Connectors, bringing all our networks into place to give special access to the entrepreneurs and startups who need space to meet with VCs, seed funders and local businesses.

It’s a place where the seed of ideas will find fertile soil to grow and hungry investors can help to bring about the harvest of economic growth in Africa.

Let’s all join the IHub and bring people within the community to design, and create a culture around the innovations that are sure to come out of there.

I bumped into Kwame Nyongo and we talked about Kenya as the Cradle of Humankind that lies across the Rift Valley, my question was, “How does this primordial creative force act upon us in Kenya  today…”

Two billion years of life, six million years for the hominid and a hundred-thousand years for mankind as we know it. Human cultural evolution took a sharp upward path, with ten thousand years for the agricultural revolution, four hundred years for the scientific revolution, and one hundred fifty years for the industrial revolution. Information is the primary basis for new evolutionary paradigm shifts, with artificial intelligence its culmination.

That’s because I specialized in Genetic Engineering…so for me all things come down to a creative, genetic blueprint that is simple and yet beautifully complex at the same time. Perhaps such creative innovation in the DNA of East Africa will succeed in leading the entire continent towards “technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history“.  If the first human came out of Kenya, perhaps the ideas that create the first “Superhuman” in this brave new century will also emerge. Solutions whereby civilization achieves mastery of the resources of its home planet, its planetary system and its galaxy could also come out of Kenya

The evening ended by 9PM and I had talked to so many great people who filled the room:

Jessica Colaco   www.ihub.co.ke

Erik Hersman www.whiteafrican.com

Ory Okolloh www.ushahidi.com

Joshua Wanyama – www.africaknows.com

Lola Odunsanya – www.google.com

Segeni Ng’Ethe – www.mamamikes.com

Liko Agosta – www.pesapal.com

Soud Hyder – www.ubitmo.com

At the end of the night , my head was whizzing, I was seeing emergent strands of these “neohumans” who will usurp humanity’s present role in scientific and technological progress.  The exponential trend of accelerating change to continue past the limits of human ability.

Photo Credit: The iHub team cut the cake during the launch of the iHub in Nairobi.

Pesapal is a mobile payment system rolling out in Kenya while Mama Mike’s is an ecommerce website helping families keep ties far and wide by allowing Kenyans in the Diaspora to purchase products and services for people within Kenya. [...]]]> Liko Agosta (left) and Segeni Ngethe, founders of Pesapal and Mama Mike’s pose for a photo.

Pesapal is a mobile payment system rolling out in Kenya while Mama Mike’s is an ecommerce website helping families keep ties far and wide by allowing Kenyans in the Diaspora to purchase products and services for people within Kenya.

*This is all staged. I can only assume the iHub doesn’t condone violence…