Silicon Elsewhere

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Presss Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Heralded as Africas Silicon Savannaha cradle of innovationNairobi has become a technology and innovation capital for Kenya and for the continent at large. With a national strategy that has prioritized digital technology for the last two decades, many Chinese digital champions, smaller startups, and investors have since chosen Nairobi as their African landing pad. Mapping the interface between Nairobis innovation scene and Chinas digital presence there,Silicon Elsewheretells a unique story of ingenuity and adaptation, failure and speculation, and hopefulness and pragmatism. Andrea Pollios ethnography draws on interviews with cautious venture capitalists, renegade entrepreneurs, dedicated bureaucrats, and ambitious data scientists to explore the competing meanings of contemporary techno-capital. Moving between leafy coworking spaces and the temperature-controlled rooms of brand-new data centers, Pollio locates Nairobi among the experimental capitals, not peripheries, of technological change in the early twenty-first century.