Finance: Kenya’s Banking Revolution

To meet the future of retail banking, cross Moi Avenue into the rougher part of downtown Nairobi, pass the Chicken Spot restaurant and squeeze between four stalls selling counterfeit mobile phones, and you’ll reach a door — and behind it a tiny room containing a hat stand, a wall calendar, a strip light and a desk. Patrick Maina’s offices don’t look like a bank, his bank — Safaricom — doesn’t sound like one, and Maina doesn’t appear at all like a banker: 38 years old, he likes his suits iridescent and his head shaved; his manner is friendly and modest

Share

Eric Kim: Global marketing chief of Samsung

Just a few years ago, Samsung was the brand you bought if you couldn’t afford Sony or Toshiba. Suddenly it’s the name that consumers all over the world–especially young ones–seek out for the most fun and stylish models of everything from cell phones to flat-panel plasma TVs.

Share

Solar cell phones take off in developing nations

Peter Gathungu walks more than a mile to a shopping center, where he pays a sizable sum to charge his cell phone. That’s because electricity is nonexistent in Gathungu’s hometown of Njoro, in northwest Kenya. Landlines and other forms of communication are not as efficient, so Gathungu and millions of others in emerging nations rely on mobile phones.

Share