Wireless Wednesday at the Mlab

Yesterday I attended the Wireless Wednesday held at the Mlab on Wednesday(dah!) lunchtimes. I arrived thirty minutes late so I missed the beginning. The speaker was Gustav Praekelt, the founder of Praekelt Consulting and the Praekelt Foundation. The Praekelt foundation is an incubator for mobile technology which improves the health and well-being of people living in poverty. From his experience in mobile technology these are a few things he has learned:

Plan for failure whenever you deploy a mobile system

In Africa, language is important. If you can reach people in vernacular it will have more impact and response.

Understand profiling of users

When hoping to create a discussion around an issue, find interesting stories to trigger reactions from the audience. Find a topic that people want to talk about.

And don’t bother with a product as a business if:

You can’t talk to 25 people about it.

You can’t target 1 million people

You can’t break even

We ended the meeting with pizza, soda and networking with the attendees

The next Wireless Wednesday will be next week on Wednesday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the mlab (third floor, Bishop Magua Center opposite Uchumi Hyper Ngong Road).