Unlocking True Productivity: Why Funding Must Evolve Beyond Activities
Across the globe and especially in developing economies like Kenya, a quiet but profound failure persists within development efforts: the inability of traditional funding models to catalyse systemic productivity. Despite vast injections of capital into agriculture, health, education, and manufacturing, value chains remain fragile, fragmented, and underperforming. In this article, we propose a new perspective […]
Rethinking Kenya’s Blue Economy: From Catch to Value Creation.
Why Kenya’s waters hold more than fish — and what it will take to unlock their full potential Kenya’s Blue Economy has been hailed as a flagship of sustainable development — a vision where the country’s lakes, rivers, and ocean generate livelihoods, promote conservation, and spark innovation. But as investments pour in and projects multiply, […]
Kenya’s Looming Opportunity: From Fiber Supplier to Sustainable Fashion Leader
The global fashion industry is undergoing a profound transformation in a world increasingly demanding ethical production and environmental responsibility. Fueled by growing consumer awareness and reinforced by regulatory frameworks like the EU’s sustainability laws pushing for greater accountability, this shift presents a unique opportunity for countries rich in natural resources, particularly Kenya. With its abundant […]
Kenya’s Mango Paradox: Growing the Fruit but Importing the Juice
Kenya, a country renowned for its abundant mango production, paradoxically remains a net importer of mango juice from countries such as Egypt, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. This surprising disconnect highlights a fundamental issue in the nation’s agricultural industry: the processing and branding of mango juice. The narrative revolves not around the cultivation of more […]
Do Your Operations Feel Stuck? Welcome to the Way My Brain Works.
You Can’t Fix What You Can’t See Many African value chains aren’t broken because we lack ideas, ambition, or funding. They’re broken because no one has taken the time to trace the flow, spot the friction, and redesign the process for performance. Over time, we’ve normalised systems that are held together by workarounds. A delivery […]
The AI Field Guide: What to Use When, and Why It Matters
AI means many things these days. What we call “AI” often refers to a mix of very different tools — with very different purposes. If you’re building, improving, or rethinking how things work in your organisation, you need to know which tool fits which kind of job — from decision models that have been around […]
Whatever Happened to Operations Research? The Silent Engine Behind AI’s Shiny Façade
There’s a question that’s been nagging at me for a while now: whatever happened to Operations Research (OR)? In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), OR seems to have quietly faded into the background, forgotten amid the deafening hype around machine learning, large language models, and generative AI. And yet, as I reflect on the […]
