It's my birthday! 🎂
and all I want is freedom in Kenya.
If you were wondering, “gee, I wonder what to get Kyle for his birthday…” ponder no more. We are hosting HakiHack, a hackathon for government accountability in Kenya.
If you feel that reading AfricanAccelerationism was worth more than $0 zero dollars, please consider making a donation.
Donate here: Your donation would be appreciated.
Update on Weekend fundraiser: we had 222 supporters and raised $5,000 (Ksh 477,000 on the platform and some off platform). This is a huge success, especially for the first year running HakiHack and only having 1 month to go from idea to hackathon. We are more than half way there.
Why is this important?
Kenya is at the tip of re-creating an “Arab Spring,” but this time in Africa. See my earlier posts on the magic of 80% literacy and citizen-led accountability transformed the US.
In addition to the in-person protests, Kenyan techies have created apps to encourage government accountability. If protests v1.0 were in person, what would protests v2.0, leveraging digital tools, look like?
This ain’t your grandma’s protest. Let me share a few examples:
Kenya Kwanza Promise Tracker
President Ruto made promises. How is he doing against them? After 2 years in office only 18% are complete.
Corrupt Politicians GPT
Type in the name of a politician and get a list of the corruption schemes for which they are responsible.
Citizens of Kenya
A list of projects financed by taxpayers that have stalled and an estimate for each of how much money was stolen.
Lost in Kenya
Missing persons who are suspected to have been abducted by the government for protesting.
Wall of Shame
Politicians who voted for the 2024 Finance Bill
If you love the idea of Kenyans creating tech to support government accountability, if you love the freedom you have in your own country and you want other people to also enjoy freedom. If you just wanted to give me a birthday present🎂…
Kindly donate here. All donations go directly to Kenyans building civic tech for a better country.
The HakiHack hackathon will award prizes to new innovations and some of the innovations you see above. So far, these civic builders have not received the recognition they deserve for the work they have put into building tech to support government accountability.
I know most people make monthly contributions to causes they care about. If you care about freedom, growth and equality, please include HakiHack in your donations this month.
PS: If you feel like you can’t make a difference, please read here to see why even countries like the US have relatively low corruption because of initiatives like this one.