.co.ke

By Janek Stroisch

With the arrival of the fiber optic sea cable, coffee houses have spread throughout Kenya and American pizza has become established as part of the country's middle-class food culture. The social innovative character of the start-up movement has brought forth companies such as AB3D, whose 3D printers are partially assembled from recycled electronics. In the area of education, a company called ENEZA offers virtual school lessons for remote regions affected by a lack of teachers, and the start-up, BRCK produces the required hardware: cheap and robust tablets and routers, which can be charged by solar power.

This work portrays young entrepreneurs in Kenya and its capital Nairobi. It is an attempt to provide an expanded perspective on the established image of current African reporting, which is predominantly shaped by images of crisis, corruption and illness.

The Malawian writer, Shadreck Chikoti describes the phenomenon as follows: "a story in international competitions only has a chance of being accepted if it meets the expectations that the West has towards Africa. AIDS, civil war, corruption, bush and huts - that works out. An escapist, visionary or real-life-descriptive literature, on the other hand, has no chance. And worst of all, most of us have already internalised expectations from the outside."

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Two software engineers look at the spot where the submarine fiberoptic cable reaches the mainland in Mombasa

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Workshop of the startup AB3D. The startup produces 3D printers, which consist of about 30% electronical waste

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Software engineer in the coworking space Nailab in Nairobi

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Marabus resting in the Central Business District in Nairobi

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Backyard car workshop

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Web developer Kevin Barasa having his lunch break. The arrival of the submarine cable has established an increasing coffee culture in the Kenyan middle class

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3D printer manufactured by the startup AB3D

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Saturday evening in Nairobi: Three Kenyans founding a coding school, because the Facebook Foundation’s coding school Andela is “too low quality and outdated”

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With the arrival of the submarine cable, the pizza culture in Kenya is increasingly establishing itself

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Like many Nairobi startups, AB3D had many more student interns than usual: During the heated election period of 2017, state universities were shut down. The government shutdown lasted almost eight months

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Scene of a Nairobi blogger community meeting

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3D printed prosthesis in the rental workshop Gearbox

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Classroom of the programming school Nairobits. The school in Nairobi offers programming lessons, mainly for young adults from less privileged neighborhoods

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Employee of the BRCK, one of Nairobi’s leading startups. They are active in the field of social innovation and e.g. produce solar powered routers to connect rural areas to the Internet

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Nairobits student Hashim is looking over the Central Business District in Nairobi for the first time