1/n #Burundi If you are a "start-up" Burundaise let me give you practical solutions that can help you last in this #Bujumbura quagmire. Trust me, I have years of making the same mistakes in here. First you need to understand the mindset here :
2/n Try not to seek funding for your idea if you don't even have an MVP( Minimum Viable Product). The Burundian funder will surely want the ownership of your product since he will consider that he funded your idea! Your idea unfunded was shits 🤣! #Burundi
4/n 4/n Cost of a MVP: you need a server, internet, electricity, an IP address and a domain name for hosting your application just for the first client to use your product and get you the funding you need to finish honing your services #Burundi
5/n Why ask your foreign friend/relative for a Netflix subscription instead of requesting to pay for you just 15milles balles par mois of a server for $5/m on Linode, DigitalOcean, Vultr. Available online 24/7, an IP address! #Burundi . A domain name is $12/y.
6/n As I said earlier a subscription on Lumitel data bundle cost BiF30k/month for 45G. Plenty enough for you to connect to your remote server and launch your MVP product. Everyone is using it to binge watch Netflix in #Burundi . Let's try to use it efficiently.
7/n So Bif45k/m + $12/y for launching your MVP product as a Tech startup. Roughly $200/year. I know plenty of peoples outside of #Burundi have been asked more money than that for futility (ibiyeri and shits). A lot of young are lying about lack of funds to launch their business.
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Guys let's discuss a little... It's really difficult to get your business up and running when you are foreigner here in #Burundi if you do not take time to understand that we are a conservative society. 😊
I remember back in Kampala how I was stupidly acting like I wanted food to taste like in Buja
which is a common behavior for human but more acute for Burundian. Every foreigner would ask me :"Since you have been to this country X, have you eaten X?"
Countless burundian that wouldn't dare eat local when in another country. Fact is, foreigners ask me "What's the speciality of a Burundian dish?". I don't know 😂! So I have made a task for tasting other countries dishes, starting with local restaurant in #Burundi
Apparently the Mobile money agents in #Bujumbura are more reliable than ATM 😂. They work 24/7 with all banks... Imagine. #Burundi
Considering ATM branches are closing in some neighbor countries... I am eager to see the change that will happen soon in #Burundi once Bi-switch is operational
Plus till now you need to sign papers and beg mobile money operators to use their API in your products (app, website...). Very unpleasant for young developers in #Burundi
8/n #Burundi After yesterday's thread, a lot have asked me my take on "mentorship/accompagnement" for youth in this IT industry and I have my bit of opinion on this. Again, as I said, you need to understand the mindset here: a young trainee will come to you the Burundian way
9/n We @UbuViz have been running a program for over 2 years where we take in interns from different universities of #Bujumbura and teach them the basics of professional programming. Most of them never come up with their own ideas 🤷. That's the #Burundi-an way 😎 😂.
10/n We are accustomed to be told what to do by our parents, teacher, priests/pastors, gov ... we forget that in IT, Innovative ideas are kings. How do you mentor future young developers/entrepreneurs to think outside of the box in #Burundi ?
1/6 #Burundi last week I met umupoil wumujeune twize hamwe qui fait du Wasili. Sur le trajet il me dit comment soir avuza muri live band, le matin agakora Wasili. Akibitangura aba homies bamutwenga, but always drunk from his money. Turatwenga how stupid youth can be sometimes
2/6 #Burundi but aussi we laughed kuko twibutse ukuntu bivugwako abapoils bambere batanguye gukora dans les sociétés de gardiennage ont été copieusement injuriés et moqués à l'université du Burundi mais maintenant uronse n'ako kazi hoho urashimira Imana. Burundian are jugemental
3/6 #Burundi et puis se have a lot of friends outside of the country bakora akazi ka Uber pour arrondir le salaire 🤷. Why is it laughable in Bujumbura ? We were like 👇
1/3 It's just that there is not enough training material to make it "fair". In general, since 2014, I personally participate in most online surveys so that as a Black person I can introduce our perspective in those polls for balancing their stereotypical views. Especially...
2/3 on all sorts of Machine learning bias against peoples of color, you can get a summary on how to address that with @DataSciBae
3/3 But again, the important thing is we have a responsibility to engage, develop, create Face recognition systems because the other side doesn't know all of the aspects of the question as we do! It's one thing to cry discrimination. It's another thing to fight discrimination!
In Roma, we line up 1 meter between one each other to enter a supermarket. This rona is teaching us civility #Italy
Then a brother come along wearing a Chernobyl make 😂😭 like this one👇. I looked up in his eyes and we clearly understood that this nigger was trolling. We laughed 😂. Why do black people always do something extra?
Bigger problem is I met elderly people shopping for themselves and you got to remember Italy has the eldest population of Europe. That's why this rona is wreaking havoc in here😭😔