Silicon Valley’s tech giants have been eagerly taking stock of the growing numbers of motorbikes speeding through the streets of Kenya. When Google launched a ‘Motorbike Mode’ on its Maps in Kenya last October, the company noted on its Africa blog how “over a million Kenyans use motorbikes as their preferred mode of transport.” Accordingly, ridesharing apps like Uber and Taxify have also both tailored their products to the Kenyan market — offering motorbike pickup options to help commuters weave through traffic or find nifty shortcuts through otherwise barely accessible backstreets.
In similar traffic-dodging fashion, motorbikers armed with smartphones are revving-up agri-tech innovation in this swiftly developing East African nation. In particular, the Kenyan startup Sidai Africa has been deploying an expanding fleet of motorbikes as a quick and easy way to dispatch specialist farming products and services to livestock farms in remote areas.