I am presenting next Tuesday, the 29th of January at a new seminar series at the ihub in Nairobi: ‘The Nairobi Research Buzz’. My presentation will give a brief overview of the Oxford-Nairobi-Butare project to date and delve into some of the wider theoretical issues of the project. 

If you are unfamiliar with our project, I am working with Mark Graham at the University of Oxford, Timothy Waema and Charles Katua at the University of Nairobi and Felix Akorli, Claude Bizimana and Grace Magambo on a project looking at how fibre optic internet cables (faster, more reliable connections) are restructuring the economies of Kenya and Rwanda. In particular, we are looking at value chains and power relationships in the tea, tourism and BPO (outsourcing)/ICT sectors. This session will focus on BPO and ICT. Using the event as an opportunity to sound out some new ideas, I welcome as many comments and questions and queries for participants as can fit. The presentation will start at 5:30 pm. Clicl here is a map to the ihub.

I am also really excited that this ihub series has come to fruition as it will be a great forum for researchers in Nairobi. We had been talking about it since summer and it has finally got the go-ahead. The seminar has two key objectives:

1) To give researchers helpful feedback on their own projects
2) To bring researchers working in disparate fields and sectors together for interesting discussions and collaboration.

They welcome participants from all research backgrounds working in Kenya or East Africa. University students and staff, independent researchers, NGO/UN researchers and government researchers are all welcome to attend and present. They also welcome researchers at all stages of their projects; those seeking guidance at the start of fieldwork, those mid-way through projects wanting fresh eyes on preliminary findings and those whose work is more polished, seeking engagement with other researchers and stakeholders. Government stakeholders, Entrepreneurs, Techies and other individuals with interests in these technologies and communications are also invited to attend.

Themes may include:

• New economic practices and processes of innovation around technological change.
• Impact of Open and Big Data on Research Processes and Understandings.
• Information Communication Technologies for Development (health, education, environment).
• The implications of E-government.
• The implications of E-Learning.
• Past and current aspects of control over and use of new technologies.
• Dangers and threats posed by new technologies.
• New Technologies, material culture and print media.
• The relationships between newly introduced technologies and existing technologies.
• Patterns of communication and imagined social, economic and political identities.
• The role of technologies in the territorialization and de-territorialization of geographic and economic space.

The seminar will be held once every two weeks on Tuesdays at 5:30, at the iHub on Ngong Road. During each session the presenter will have 30 minutes to present their work and then there will be 30 minutes for questions and comments afterwards. The first two sessions have already been planned but we are very interested in researchers for upcoming weeks.

Please get in contact with Gladys at gladys@ihub.co.ke if you are interested in presenting.