Check out photos from the just completed TEDx Nairobi held at the Leakey Auditorium at the Nairobi National Museum. In the above photo TEDx Nairobi Host Juliana Rotich interviews Nairobi’s X FM
radio host Rabia.

Click for photos from Africa Knows – TEDx Nairobi Flickr Set

Click for photos from Zulu Safari

Caesar Mwangi

He is the Managing Director at Sasini Tea Ltd, where he is in charge of overseeing the operations of this agribusiness which is primarily involved in the growing, processing and marketing of tea and coffee products. They have recently ventured on a small scale in the growing and marketing of dairy and horticultural products in Kenya

Eric Kigada

Eric Kigada is an Architectural Engineer and member of the both the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) and the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors of Kenya (BORAQS). He has worked in Kenya and Germany on various projects. He is currently working with Planning Systems Services Ltd on projects including new factories; real estate planning, high-rise buildings and a fibre optic landing station that will change the Nairobi landscape.

James Nyoro

James Nyoro is an agricultural economist with special passion on food security issues in Africa and Kenya in particular. James is the Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, Africa office based in Nairobi, Kenya. He oversees the Rockefeller Foundation’s work across Africa, strengthening and complementing the foundation’s initiatives around the globe.

Jon Bøhmer

Jon is a serial entrepreneur who founded Scala one of the world’s biggest digital signage vendors. He has also founded other companies in technology space such as Snap TV and Pronto TV AS. Jon has been living in Kenya for the past 20 years and currently runs Kyoto Energy. Kyoto Energy focuses on developing renewable energy system development and manufacturing for developing countries. Its headquarters is in Thika, Kenya and in 2009 one of their products the Kyoto Box won the 2009 FT Climate Change Challenge. It was also featured on CNET.

Julie Gichuru

Julie Gichuru is a TV Host and Group Business Digital Manager at the fastest growing media house in East Africa; Royal Media Services. Julie is also responsible for spearheading RMS’s move towards establishing a global presence through the internet and raising revenue through digital platforms.Julie is the first African woman to receive the Martin Luther King Salute to Greatness Award for Advocacy of Active Non-Violence and Peace. She is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Laila Macharia

Laila holds a doctorate in law from Stanford University and has practised law in the US and Kenya. She is the Principal and Founder of Scion Real one the region’s leading real estate infrastructure and investment firm. Laila has extensive experience in urban development and corporate finance.

Njeri Wangari

Njeri is a multi talented Kenyan poet, performer, IT specialist and arts blogger. She has been running her blog for over 3 years now – a project that she initially started in order to publishing her poetry online. It has since grown to incorporate other forms of art as well as played host other poets.

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou

Su founded an organic farm in Tigoni, Kenya dedicated in serving local consumers. Her company, Green Dreams Ltd later went on to market and certify regional organic produce. She has also been involved in empowering small scale organic farmers through providing them with education and markets for their organic products. Her focus is on developing new marketing models for the farmers by challenging the current bias, business and trade regulations that favour big business locally and internationally.

Yvonne Owuor

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya) plays in the worlds of creativity, heritage, technology, imagination and innovation. She works with interdisciplinary teams in the arts and has been a key facilitator of creative, innovation and knowledge economy conversations and events. She intends to expand the regional stake and play in the global knowledge economy through practical and multi-sectoral strategies. Yvonne was formerly the Executive Director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival/Festival of the Dhow countries (2003-5) after which she joined the, then start-up, Aga Khan University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences planning project as Project Co-ordinator. At present, she works as Programme Specialist (Arts and Digital Media) working with concepts, models and facilitating spaces where proposals for higher education strategies in and proposals for creativity, arts, design, innovation, research in the arts and performative sciences that resonate with East Africa’s ambitions are explored. Yvonne is engaged with different conservation and cultural initiatives that co-opt cultural imagination and life, landscape memory, art, technology, story into futures. Better known as a creative writer who won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story, Weight of Whispers, another of her stories, The Knife Grinder’s Tale, was made into a short film in 2005. She has had several pieces–fiction and non-fiction, published worldwide and is in the process of finishing her first novel, Dust and Memory.

Caesar Mwangi

He is the Managing Director at Sasini Tea Ltd, where he is in charge of overseeing the operations of this agribusiness which is primarily involved in the growing, processing and marketing of tea and coffee products. They have recently ventured on a small scale in the growing and marketing of dairy and horticultural products in Kenya

Eric Kigada

Eric Kigada is an Architectural Engineer and member of the both the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) and the Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors of Kenya (BORAQS). He has worked in Kenya and Germany on various projects. He is currently working with Planning Systems Services Ltd on projects including new factories; real estate planning, high-rise buildings and a fibre optic landing station that will change the Nairobi landscape.

James Nyoro

James Nyoro is an agricultural economist with special passion on food security issues in Africa and Kenya in particular. James is the Managing Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, Africa office based in Nairobi, Kenya. He oversees the Rockefeller Foundation’s work across Africa, strengthening and complementing the foundation’s initiatives around the globe.

Jon Bøhmer

Jon is a serial entrepreneur who founded Scala one of the world’s biggest digital signage vendors. He has also founded other companies in technology space such as Snap TV and Pronto TV AS. Jon has been living in Kenya for the past 20 years and currently runs Kyoto Energy. Kyoto Energy focuses on developing renewable energy system development and manufacturing for developing countries. Its headquarters is in Thika, Kenya and in 2009 one of their products the Kyoto Box won the 2009 FT Climate Change Challenge. It was also featured on CNET.

Julie Gichuru

Julie Gichuru is a TV Host and Group Business Digital Manager at the fastest growing media house in East Africa;  Royal Media Services. Julie is also responsible for spearheading RMS’s move towards establishing a global presence through the internet and raising revenue through digital platforms.Julie is the first African woman to receive the Martin Luther King Salute to Greatness Award for Advocacy of Active Non-Violence and Peace. She is a fellow of the African Leadership Initiative and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

Laila Macharia

Laila holds a doctorate in law from Stanford University and has practised law in the US and Kenya. She is the Principal and Founder of Scion Real one the region’s leading real estate infrastructure and investment firm. Laila has extensive experience in urban development and corporate finance.

Njeri Wangari

Njeri is a multi talented Kenyan poet, performer, IT specialist and arts blogger. She has been running her blog for over 3 years now – a project that she initially started in order to publishing her poetry online. It has since grown to incorporate other forms of art as well as played host other poets.

Su Kahumbu-Stephanou

Su founded an organic farm in Tigoni, Kenya dedicated in serving local consumers. Her company, Green Dreams Ltd later went on to market and certify regional organic produce. She has also been involved in empowering small scale organic farmers through providing them with education and markets for their organic products. Her focus is on developing new marketing models for the farmers by challenging the current bias, business and trade regulations that favour big business locally and internationally.

Yvonne Owuor

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor (Kenya) plays in the worlds of creativity, heritage, technology, imagination and innovation. She  works with interdisciplinary teams in the arts and has been a key facilitator of creative, innovation and knowledge economy conversations and events. She intends to expand the regional stake and play in the global knowledge economy through practical and multi-sectoral strategies. Yvonne was formerly the Executive Director of the Zanzibar International Film Festival/Festival of the Dhow countries (2003-5) after which she joined the, then start-up, Aga Khan University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences planning project as Project Co-ordinator. At present, she works as Programme Specialist (Arts and Digital Media) working with concepts, models and facilitating spaces where proposals for higher education strategies in and proposals for creativity, arts, design, innovation, research in the arts and performative sciences that resonate with  East Africa’s ambitions are explored.  Yvonne is engaged with different conservation and cultural initiatives that co-opt cultural imagination and life, landscape memory, art, technology, story into futures.  Better known as a creative writer who won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story, Weight of Whispers, another of her stories, The Knife Grinder’s Tale, was made into a short film in 2005. She has had several pieces–fiction and non-fiction, published worldwide and is in the process of finishing her first novel, Dust and Memory.

Photo Courtesy of Africa Knows - www.africaknows.com

Well over 100 years ago, a patch of marshland about half way between the planned East African Railway between the seaside town of Mombasa and Kampala, Uganda was a place referred to as ‘Enkare Nyorobi’  by Maasai herdsmen. It simply meant a ‘place of cool waters’ and was an area they frequently visited to water and graze their cattle. It provided an ideal resting place for the railway engineers and workers building the Lunatic Express to recoup and reenergise.

Nairobi soon became a major commercial and administrative centre and later grew into Kenya’s capital city. The pleasant climate and green leafy neighbourhoods surrounded by virgin plains of savannah gave it the name ‘Green City In The Sun’. In the early post independence times, Nairobi was the envy of most of Africa and the developing world as it rose to prominence and held lots of promise. Somewhere along the line this promise faded and the city wallowed its way amongst the challenges of the times.

Today though, the promise of a shining city beams clearly from the not too distant sky. Although wounded from previous battles and growing pains, a 21^st century Nairobi is in the works.  Everything from really smart people, technology and urban infrastructure is being rejuvenated. Very few cities in the world have access to efficient, affordable and effective world class mobile communication facilities that converge everything from commerce, to voice and data communication.

You could say that Nairobi today is a petri-dish of ‘Development 2.0;’ a new paradigm that seeks to inculcate inward oriented sustainable development. Success stories such as Safaricom and Equity Bank have defied many development theories and theorists. This year’s theme; ‘Green City In The Sun’ seeks to inspire Nairobi’s thinkers and doers to jump on to the ‘Green’ mantra and work towards building a city of ‘Green’ excellence on all fronts from technology, science, social science, art and design.

So what exactly is ‘Green’? Well, it is a term that has heavy connotations to environmental activism and politics. We at TEDxNairobi view it from a more macroscopic perspective, whereby we seek to enthuse a culture that is environmentally friendly and to chart out positive development of clean technology and innovation that will sustain ecosystems and economies for many generations to come.

The hullaballoo of Nairobi’s development comes at a pivotal time in world history. Upstream innovation from the developing to the developed world is now being accepted as a norm and there is also high diffusion of cutting edge technology to the developing world as can be seen with mobile communication technology which furthermore lead various innovative business models and services. One does not have to venture far to realise that the ‘Green’ bug has hit town, walk past Parliament Way and you will see solar powered street lamps, on a clear day look towards Ngong Hills and you will see a couple of windmills, Safaricom also has some its base stations running on green energy and the Turkana Wind Farm project is poised to be sub-Saharan Africa’s largest wind farm in terms of capacity.

Kenya certainly has its own challenges but also has a unique opportunity to leap frog and emerge as a leader both in industrial and micro innovation of the ‘Green’ economy. This year’s event is certainly worth attending and will without doubt bring together  Nairobi’s leading minds who will definitely craft and co-operate in creating a sustainable, prosperous and promising ‘Green’ future for Africa’s one and only ‘Green City In The Sun.’

Registration is now open and places are limited, so blank out the afternoon of September 18^th 2010 on your diary and book a place right away to avoid disappointment.