world view - Al Kags — Strategist, Social Entrepreneur, Writer

September 15, 2023

Citizen-Generated Data must be kept true to its essence: for citizens by citizens

In an ever-evolving world, the dynamic between citizens and governments is taking new forms. One such development is citizen-generated data, a concept becoming pivotal in the socio-political space. It's essential to think about its true essence. While it has gained traction with the established structures, ...

August 15, 2023

The Worldcoin deception in Kenya

Crypto aside, this was extraction of Kenyans biometric data for profit Over the past few weeks, I have had a bee in the bonnet. As were many Kenyans, I was intrigued that there were queues of people in Nairobi who were having their irises scanned in ...

July 19, 2023

It’s hard to be a progressive (or optimistic) lately

This is likely to turn out to be one of the worse written blog posts. I am writing it while having experienced many highs and lows in the last couple of days, and I have yet to process them fully. Being progressive or optimistic today ...

February 28, 2023

Administrative Data and the end of Government Statistics as we know it?

On the sidelines of the UN Statistical Commission meeting in New York, at the Collaborative on Administrative Data for Statistics, I saw the government of the future coming ever closer and faster. Here is my prediction. Yesterday, I attended a lunch meeting on the Collaborative on ...

November 28, 2022

Reflections from IGF2022: Digital Inclusion

Listen to the blogpost The Internet Governance Forum was one of my first global conferences to speak back in 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and I have attended the conference almost every year since. I am happy that my first conference since the COVID-19 pandemic is The ...

October 25, 2022

Nostalgia, technology and other thoughts

Today, I listened to my friend David Sasaki talk on his substack about technology and nostalgia. He sent me down a nostalgic path of memories of how I engaged with media and technology from my youth and the impact that had on me. For the ...

September 28, 2022

Quiet Quitting is the worst move for a growing professional

Quiet Quitting is not a new phenomenon. For generations, there have been professionals who have chosen to do no more than is required of them at their jobs and to only work the hours stipulated in their contract. They leave promptly at 5 pm and ...

March 9, 2022

We have not innovated our institutions since colonialism

Recently, I sat down with an old classmate of mine, MaqC Eric Gitau on his Youtube Channel, Development Dynamics. The channel is designed into go through the autobiography of leaders in the social sector - essentially from birth to date, while in the course of ...

March 8, 2022

The barriers to citizen engagement

The Open Institute works in two main ways as regards government - citizen relations. First, we promote proactive government transparency and second, we work with citizen groups and CSOs to foster active citizenship. Government transparency has in the past decade been achieved, to some level of success, by ...

September 3, 2021

On the realities of farming and the challenges of funders

I have been a farmer for about eight months, having moved to Malindi my home town at the beginning of the year. Before that I was a typical city dweller in Nairobi. I was fortunate to be living in a nice neighbourhood and had an ...

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