Transcript of Audio Clip Recorded September 22, 2020
Angela Okune 17:17
I think a lot of the optimism was also this sense that like, we can solve so many of these problems with tech, with just the right tech. And then I think we realized, like, no, it's not just about tech, it's the whole system that needs to also be shaped...it's not just about having the best app, it's about you know, remember when we were going from like, m-vitu [Sheng that loosely translates to "mobile-things"] and then we started, I think, we started telling people like, oh, it's not just about building the best app, you also have to address the systems around it, whether it's like infrastructure, whether it's like the road transport network for m-farm, for example, like they couldn't just have a really good app, they needed to also help growers to link their products to market. How do they do that? They have to tackle transport, you know, broken transport systems, blah, blah, blah. So I think that's when also some of the initial optimism wore down, because it was like, oh, actually, we have to deal with all the same issues that we were depressed about "pre-tech," and like we still have to deal with those. Like tech is not going to actually fix all of the governance issues, etc, etc.
Leo Mutuku 17:56
Agree. Yeah, I've just put here the quotation, the one what Ory [Okolloh] kept on saying, "We can't entrepreneur ourselves out of basic problems."
Angela Okune 18:36
Exactly.
This transcript is part of the source data for the article "Becoming an African Techpreneur: geopolitics of investments in “local” Kenyan entrepreneurship" by Angela Okune and Leonida Mutuku, published in the journal Engaging Science, Technology, and Society.
Find the full associated data here.
Explore other data published as part of the STS Spaces and Places Thematic Collection
Leonida Mutuku and Angela Okune, 27 June 2022, "2020 Sep 22. Transcript of Audio Clip on Shifting Tech Optimism in Silicon Savannah.", contributed by Angela Okune and Leo Mutuku, Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS) Journal, STS Infrastructures, Platform for Experimental Collaborative Ethnography, last modified 15 January 2023, accessed 16 April 2024. http://www.stsinfrastructures.org/content/2020-sep-22-transcript-audio-clip-shifting-tech-optimism-silicon-savannah
Critical Commentary
This is a transcript of an audio clip recorded during a Zoom call between the co-authors Angela Okune and Leonida Mutuku which took place on September 22, 2020. As part of conceptualizing their paper, the co-authors were recalling the shifting optimism about technology in Nairobi's Silicon Savannah (between 2010 - 2015).
Find the audio clip associated with this transcript here.