Eliud Rugut is the founder of Silo Africa, a company that provides innovative grain storage solutions.
Kenya sometimes seems to live and die by politics. When an election ends today, the campaign for the next one—five years away—will have started yesterday. Small wonder, then, that Kenyan headlines too often dwell on politics—and economic woes.
Yet beneath the noise, a quieter story is unfolding—one of continued home-grown creativity.
Typical of this was a June 3 Daily Nation story, “A candle, a silo, and a revolution: The simple tech saving Africa’s food supply”. It is a tale from the Rift Valley’s edge, about Eliud Rugut, who is changing how farmers store their harvests. His company, Silo Africa, uses a simple but clever trick: burning a candle inside an airtight metal silo to starve grain pests of oxygen.
No chemicals, no complicated tech — just an accessible, low-cost way to save crops.
We learnt that thousands of tonnes of maize and beans now avoid ruin every season thanks to Rugut’s invention. For smallholder farmers living hand-to-mouth, this innovation is a lifeline.
But Rugut is not alone in this quiet revolution. If you read Daily Nation and keep a list of these inspirational tales, this year alone you encountered these good folks:
The nurse who left hospitals behind
Kenya’s healthcare system is stretched thin. Enter Bena Care, founded by Naomi Monari, which delivers nursing and therapy services directly to patients’ homes. This tech-enabled, human-centred approach eases hospital burdens while improving patient comfort.
First featured in Daily Nation on March 1, 2025, Bena Care provides affordable home care and therapy to chronically ill patients in middle- and low-income communities and helps families access care on their terms — a vital shift in a country where health services are often out of reach.
Waste not, want not
Where most see the rotting heaps of discarded vegetables at Nairobi’s Wakulima Market, Richard Mwangi of Organic Fields sees fertiliser—and a future. His company turns vegetable scraps into rich organic fertiliser, helping farmers boost yields and reduce landfill waste. Recognised by the Sankalp Awards, Daily Nation covered his story on March 1 2025 too, highlighting how Mwangi’s work embodies circular economy principles — transforming trash into treasure and nurturing Kenya’s soils sustainably.
Talking shops, literally
Next, enter Dukawalla, a voice-activated artificial intelligence assistant built for Kenya’s small traders — the kind who sell tomatoes in Kariobangi or fix phones in Kisii. For small traders juggling stock and customers, tech can be intimidating. So Kenyan developers built Dukawalla, a voice-activated AI assistant that answers business questions in simple, natural language. Created earlier but reported by Daily Nation in May, it told of Dukawalla’s empowerment of informal sector entrepreneurs in Nairobi’s settlements with real-time insights — no manuals needed.
Solar-powered farming
In Kenya’s drylands, Josephine Kamau’s SunRise Pumps use solar energy to power affordable water pumps for smallholder farmers. Replacing costly fuel engines, these pumps enable year-round irrigation.
Featured in Daily Nation in April 2025, Kamau’s green technology addresses climate challenges and helps farmers grow food sustainably.
Of projectors and possibilities
And then there is Kitale Film Week, which in February 2025 reminded us that not all revolutions are industrial or digital — some unfold on screen.
Set in the western Kenyan town of Kitale, far from the cosmopolitan buzz of Nairobi, the festival is the brainchild of a group of culture warriors who believe rural Kenya deserves more than gospel music and political rallies.
With over 60 films screened this year, including student productions and regional documentaries, the event gave hundreds of children and local audiences access to cinema, art, and ideas previously reserved for the elite. Its real triumph, though, was the “Film in Education” programme: young people learning storytelling, scriptwriting, and media literacy. In a society where curriculum reform is always political, Kitale Film Week is teaching by doing. It’s decentralising not just art, but imagination itself.
As single stories read on the odd day they are published or aired on TV, they might not be head-turning. Their power comes from adding them together to the dozens happening in several places, and to the genius of past productions.
This spirit is no accident. It echoes the legacy of earlier Kenyan pioneers like Dr Wangari Maathai, whose Green Belt Movement planted millions of trees to fight deforestation and empower communities, and more recently Su Kahumbu, whose iCow app revolutionised livestock farming by bringing mobile technology to smallholder farmers, and dozens more.
These stories highlight the power of home-grown solutions to reshape lives and livelihoods. They demonstrate that challenges such as food loss, resource scarcity, and climate change are not insurmountable when met with creativity and determination.
Hopefully, they inspire a new generation to innovate boldly and build a future where no challenge is too great to overcome.
As Nairobi wrestles with the “big stuff” — tax hikes and IMF whispers — in Kitale, grain silos are being lit, compost is curing, vaccines are arriving on motorcycles, and traders are talking to their data. No press conference, no ribbon-cutting. Kenya thrives, because of these “small stuff”.
The author is a journalist, writer, and curator of the "Wall of Great Africans". X@cobbo3
