"Often, when I see what the boda boda have done to our traffic, I feel as though we are back to the age when humans walked on all fours before we evolved into modern Homo Sapiens," is what @makaumutua thinks of boda boda drivers. He goes on to recommend that we ban all 2.5 million boda drivers. WOW! If you think the economy is bad now, take one billion shillings a day out of 2.5 million drivers' incomes and see what will be worse for you. This is precisely why we started @oyeapp_ke. The unique insight we had was that there was a mismatch between the perception of the boda and its reality. A few simple fixes would solve and empower the boda. When was the last time you heard of an accident involving a boda ending in a violent outcome? Did you know that various stakeholders have worked extremely hard to reduce those incidents? Look around you, for every 10 bikers, more than half now wear helmets, and at least 7 out of 10 wear a reflective jacket. Oye alone has distributed over 5000. If you are keen, you have probably seen our trademark orange reflector jackets and helmets. The National Helmet Coalition, led by @ntsa_kenya, has distributed tens of thousands of helmets. Stephen Kimakon, who consumes over 1,000 litres of fuel per month, recently won a brand-new TVS 125 CC (a magnificent machine) from our partners at @CarAndGeneralGroup. He plays a very critical role in his society by providing logistics solutions for smallholder farmers in the Kiserian area. His entrepreneurial prowess allows him to provide for his wife and children. #TheFutureIsHere #BodaDrivers #Entreprenuers #FinancialInclusion #FinancialHealth #Fintech #DigitalFinancialServices

Proud of today's inaugural Futures Ocean forum in Newport, Rhode Island put on by @CommerceRI with leaders, investors and researchers from around the world. A few takeaways:

David Munyua has booked his place at Alexandra Palace ✅

Coffee Pump and @couchconnectpod live podcast Dec 19. Get your tickets: tikko.co.ke/event/0a16ec18-f…

Be mindful of the pedestrians kwa roadi, give them space to cross safely #OYEKenya #TheBodaCompany

MIT published a brutally honest report on what AI is doing to students. A committee of professors and students spent five months studying how AI changed learning on campus, and the findings read like a warning to every university on the planet. Study groups are disappearing. Office hours are emptying out. Problem sets and take-home exams no longer prove anything, because AI can produce credible solutions to almost any written assignment in the undergraduate curriculum. Students who lean on chatbots lose mastery and confidence, and some slip into what the report calls cognitive surrender, reaching for AI at the first hint of struggle. The numbers are rough. 46 percent of surveyed MIT undergrads use LLMs daily. 90 percent worry about their own overreliance. Undergrads who feel AI makes them replaceable now outnumber those who feel it makes them capable. The committee's answer surprised me. They refused to fight AI with surveillance. The report calls AI detectors unreliable, says lockdown browsers feel like spying, and warns that policing students builds a classroom atmosphere of mutual distrust. Instead, MIT wants to rebuild education around the things AI can't replace. That means oral exams, semester portfolios, in-person project work, and a required social component in every subject. The report even floats the idea of rethinking grades entirely, since without a GPA to optimize, much of the incentive to cheat with AI evaporates. The committee warns professors against replacing undergrad research assistants with AI agents just because they're cheaper, because a university exists to grow people, not output. The most famous tech school on earth admitted the machines broke its way of teaching. Its answer is more humans, not more software.

South Africa bought a lot of wheat from Poland between October 2025 and early September 2026. In total, South Africa has imported about 1.8 million tonnes of wheat from the world market. About 23% came from Poland, 15% from Russia, and 14% from Lithuania, amongst other suppliers. In general, South Africa imports about half of its annual wheat consumption. For folks wondering why South Africa imports half of its annual wheat usage, here goes: South Africa began importing over 1 million tonnes of wheat from the 2003-04 marketing year onward. Before that, wheat imports averaged 458,518 tonnes between 1989-90 and 2002-03. The import surge resulted from increased consumption and a decline in area plantings. From the 1997-98 season, South Africa’s wheat plantings fell below a million hectares, the norm in seasons before this period. This decline is better explained by the profitability challenges farmers have faced since then, particularly in the Free State and amid non-conducive climatic conditions. The key point is that before 1997-98, South Africa’s agricultural markets were regulated, and commodity boards played a major role in setting prices, including wheat prices. Thus, after deregulation, South African farmers had to compete in the global market. As a result, Free State production areas came under financial strain, leading farmers to switch from wheat to other profitable crops. Other provinces of South Africa don’t have large areas with climatic conditions conducive to high-quality wheat milling for human consumption. Hence, we speak of a few major wheat-producing provinces: the Western Cape and, mainly under irrigation, the Northern Cape, Free State, Limpopo, and North West. A significant development over the years has been improved productivity in South Africa’s wheat farming. In 1997-98, South Africa’s wheat yields were below 2,0 tonnes per hectare. Yields were 3,8 tonnes per hectare in the 2024-25 production season. Still, the wheat industry is under strain this year as drier weather conditions and higher input costs, among other challenges, continue to weigh on the domestic wheat industry. -wandile

Fuliza disburses trillions of shillings yet contributes less than 6% of the top line. The distinction is mechanical: disbursement measures principal moving through the product; revenue captures only the fees and interest earned. Volume and value accumulate at different rates.

🏆 The 2026 UEFA President’s Award goes to Thierry Henry! 👏 The honour recognises professional excellence and exemplary personal qualities, on and off the pitch.

TIME’s new cover: Announcing the 2026 TIME100 AI, the world's most influential people in artificial intelligence time.com/collection/time100-…

In 2002, Daniel Kahneman received the prize in economic sciences – not as an economist, but as a psychologist. His groundbreaking work brought psychological insight into economics, challenging the idea that humans are purely rational decision-makers. In his bestselling book 'Thinking, Fast and Slow', Kahneman breaks down how we think using two systems: System 1 – fast, intuitive, emotional System 2 – slow, deliberate, logical He revealed how systematic cognitive biases – not just emotions – shape our everyday decisions. From money and risk to leadership and policy, his research changed how we understand human behaviour. This book didn’t just explain the mind – it reshaped economics, finance, healthcare, and public policy. Read more: nobelprize.org/prizes/econom…

FTG Holdings Returns to Profit in H1 2026 as Revenue Grows 12% and Operating Profit More Than Doubles

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS WORSHIP. And worship is jealous. It demands sacrifice. It demands purity of focus. It hates divided attention. It has little patience for fleeting pleasures. Everybody wants the blessing. Very few want the altar.

Aliko Dangote started a telecommunication company and failed. He also started a textile company and failed terribly. He started a Dangote Airlines and failed a few months later. He then started a tomato sauce factory that also failed after a few months of operation. Aliko Dangote this time started Dangote Millers which he failed to maintain and ended up selling it to South African company for $200m before buying it back at half the price he sold it. This time Dangote started Dangote cement which became his first successful business. Sugar business followed and so did oil refinery. Failing doesn't mean you won't succeed, it means you're learning.

My house now runs a homebrew energy monitor: a Raspberry Pi reads the electricity meter + solar inverter, and an iOS app I built with Claude shows live power, solar, battery — and exactly how much money the sun saved me today. How it works 🧵⚡☀️

In a recent study, pupils using AI saw their average homework score rise by 18% across all subjects after six months. But come exam time, the same students scored 20% below their classmates who had not called on AI’s help. We analyse the data: bit.ly/4cyDMAf

“During June 2026, South Africa exported 1,637,699 kg of pork products to 22 countries, a 10,4% increase in volume compared to May 2026. The top three destinations for pork meat exports from South Africa by volume were Mozambique, Namibia, and Botswana.” -- South African Pork Producers’ Organisation (SAPPO)

Kenya's cement production reached 5.54 million metric tonnes in the first half of 2026, up from 4.86 million metric tonnes a year earlier, while consumption rose to 5.46 million metric tonnes, according to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics data. Nairobi's approved building plans totaled KSh18.5 billion in May 2026, up from KSh14.7 billion in February, with residential developments accounting for nearly 80 percent of that month's approvals. Full-year 2025 cement production reached 10.44 million metric tonnes, an 18 percent increase from 2024, while building approvals peaked at KSh40.5 billion in December 2025.

SOUTH AFRICA’S CONSUMER FOOD PRICE INFLATION SLOWED TO ITS LOWEST LEVEL SINCE 2010 We are seeing the benefit of the ample agricultural output of the 2025-26 season in the inflation data, which has continued to decelerate. The figures released by Statistics South Africa this morning show that the country’s consumer food price inflation slowed to 0.6% in July 2026, from 1.4% in June. This is the lowest level since 2010. Grain-related products, fruits and nuts, and vegetables remain in deflation, all due to large supplies on the back of an excellent harvest necessitated, amongst other things, by the La Niña rains in the season we are closing. Also positively, meat price inflation has slowed from recent levels, as slaughtering continues and supplies recover. The meat supply had been a concern due to foot-and-mouth disease in cattle and African swine fever cases in the pork industry. While these challenges remain, vaccination is gaining momentum across the country.

Dangote Refinery’s planned IPO has secured $1 billion in support from Marob Strategies and Lilium Capital. The funding includes $600 million in private placement and a $400 million commitment to support the IPO. (The IPO could become Africa’s largest).