Dr. Ndemo and German Scholar create Kenya’s first management Book with focus on Start-ups

Dr. Bitange Ndemo and Tim Weiss a German Scholar, have come together to work on a book that seeks to enhance and invigorate together with practitioners and scholars the dialog surrounding business environments and entrepreneurship in Kenya.

Dubbed as “Digital Kenya | The new generation of entrepreneurs”The book is strategically positioned to contribute to the international management literature on startups, ICT entrepreneurship, business environments and doing business in Africa. Current publications tend to span the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa thereby omitting the opportunity to study one context in-depth.

“Digital Kenya | The new generation of entrepreneurs” will also allow an unprecedented insight into the dynamics of the most “hyped” ecosystem on the African continent. The editors aspire to establish this book as a central point of reference for Kenyans, Africans and beyond.

“A lot of knowledge been spread about one of Africa’s most active tech ecosystems. Now is the time to document its story and talk about its future! This publication will be the first of its kind to create rich contextual knowledge on Kenya’s entrepreneurs and its business environment. It will be a central reference point and a source of inspiration for what it means to become an entrepreneur in Kenya,” read a statement made in the book’s website.

The book targets to inspire young students, upcoming entrepreneurs across sectors and the diaspora. The target audience stretches from technology entrepreneur to local and international investors, sector experts, international agencies (e.g. supranational organizations, international NGOs and business associations), policy makers, corporates and lecturers. The book will be available as a hard copy in libraries and book shops. We will further add the feature to access the content online as an e-reader. We expect the book to be published by late 2015/early 2016.

Kenya is seen as one of the most important gateways to other African markets. Comprehending the dynamics and peculiarities in Kenya’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) ecosystem is the first step in inspiring a series of publications in the African management and business literature. A book created by practitioners and scholars is a unique opportunity to document past developments and give a future outlook for the generations to come. Practitioners share their best practices and opinions while scholars embed the discourse in important theoretical frameworks. Overall, this book aims to engage scholars,practitioners and experts across disciplines in an examination and debate of entrepreneurship and Kenya’s business environment. The book will be composed of up to 15 high quality chapters together with 10 profiles of entrepreneurs.

With a call for chapters that can be accessed via the homepage http://www.digitalkenyabook.com the editors invite innovative, interesting, unconventional, relevant and counter intuitive chapter proposals that address theoretical and empirical aspects of entrepreneurship and Kenya’s business environment.

Potential authors can submit chapter proposal (up to 1,000 words) until January 31st, 2015 on the themes that include, but are not limited to, the following: History and Future; Entrepreneurial Mindset and Business Ventures; Kenyan Investors and International Investors; Organizational Culture, Strategy Tools and Management Practices; Entrepreneurial Profiles. Detailed information on the call for chapters and on the book can be accessed on the book’s homepage. The book is set to be published early 2016.

Some authors have already been confirmed: Conrad Akunge, Innova &iHUB; Erik Hersman, BRCK, ushahidi & iHUB; Jimmy Gitonga,ArkAfrica; Mark Kaigwa, Nendo.