Innovating Kenya Style

Most people assume that countries like Kenya are not sources of technological innovation. Silicon Valley innovates and Kenya consumes. Wrong! One of my favorite examples is M-Pesa, a pioneer in mobile banking started in Kenya. M is for mobile and “pesa” means money in Swahili.

Mobile banking from Kenya

As one of the editors of Innovations journal, in 2007 I had the good fortune to work with some of the folks who were then getting M-Pesa off the ground. We published their story from those early days. In a nutshell, two telecoms and a Kenyan microfinance institution worked together to figure out how to get “branchless banking” to those who most needed it. Since then, M-Pesa has gone far. Like other “killer apps”it has spawned other start-ups and enabled new mobile apps and models of microfinancing throughout East Africa.

Next time you do a bank transfer on your mobile phone, remember to thank tech innovators in Kenya.