cesarharada.com/blog

About Me

Cesar Harada (28) is an French-Japanese inventor and entrepreneur.
Cesar invented a ground-breaking sailing technology, a boat that changes shape, “Protei”. Originally developed to clean up the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Protei is an Open Hardware project now developed by an international community of scientists, engineers and designers for many other applications such as nuclear radiation sensing off Japan, plastic sensing in the Pacific garbage patch, red tide studies in Mexico and much more.
Cesar is also the general coordinator of the future International Ocean Station. Former Project leader at MIT, Cesar teaches Masters in Design & Environment at Goldsmiths University in London. Cesar graduated in 2009 from the Design Interactions course at the Royal College of Arts in London, his collaborative project Open_Sailing received the Ars Electronica Golden Nica award for the [NEXT IDEA].

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World Environment Action presentation at Strathmore University, Nairobi Kenya 2010/05/12

The 2010/05/12 I presented the World Environment Action (http://w-e-a.org) at Strathmore University, Nairobi Kenya. We had technical difficulties to start with (no video projector) I had to draw with chalk on the board (memories!) but in the end it was all good. Thanks Everyone!
 

Filed under  //  Nairobi   Presentation   Projection   Slides   Strathmore   Talk   University   cesar   harada  
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There is no such thing as leadership

I'm starting to understand that there is no such thing as leadership. Or may I be more clear : leadership is an illusion. You can get someone to do something with surprise and force, but on the long run, authority cancels its own effect, so seems the rebellious human soul. All empires have fallen. New ones have arisen and this is happening faster and faster, multi-million start-ups go bankrupt as a hundred others bloom. Still, I feel there is a force inside me that goes against this volatility, this inconsistency...

I'm not saying this out of disillusion, to the contrary, I understand  that there's only individual passion and fascination that works. People may have a boring job they do for money, because money feeds their passion, their dreams. Many other people are passionate about what they do. I can bear to work only with the latter, people who are living their passion, they are one with their work, ethics and dreams.

The situation mirrors the one of worshippers. I identified 2 types of worshipping : 
- the worship of things, and 
- the worship of the idea of things.
When I am asked to explain the difference between shinto (japanese traditional religion) and christianism, I tend to explain : the christians praise the beauty of a tree because it represents the beauty of god ; a shinto person will praise the god-tree, not only this one tree but all of them, one by one, each being a god itself. So the christian would be more attached to the mental image of the tree than to the existence of the real tree itself. Thousands of people have commented about this parallel to the mind-body dissociation and its disastrous consequences (on nature for example), modern civilization being self-destructive based on this fundamental negation.
To link to the previous paragraph, I feel I can only work with the worshiper of things, because he does not respect the image of what he is holding, but what he really is holding, he values his life and time, not as an expense for something else, but conscious it is the only thing there is, being a part of this whole. Passionate people are what they do, they refuse to play double or worship the image of what they hold. I appreciate more and more the beauty of commitment, self determination and see the word "integrity" under a new light.

I am having these thoughts because I am in Nairobi, Kenya, and I feel this culture clash going on, traditional people (worshipers of things) and modern people (worshipers of money or the power of technology). I'm baffled by the violence of the conflict and the culture of exploitation and humiliation between the "tribes", and I find myself stuck in the middle as a very technologically enabled primitive person. I feel lonely in this chaos. I know I am not. We are all... Are we? I know I will meet these people that share some similar passions and somehow we'll walk together for a while. Propaganda is a temporary state of control, you cant fabricate consent. You cant fabricate conscience. There is no such thing as leadership.

Filed under  //  Cruelty   Enterprise   Leadership   Nairobi   Philosophy   Society   Solitary   Thinking   Wise  
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Nailab : Nairobi Incubation Laboratory

 

Just made a video today for my friend Tonee Ndungu and his great project the Nailab (Nairobi Incubation Laboratory) an incubator straight across the corridor of the *IHub_ for which I officially work. So the video says it all, but it will be much more a "start-up farm" more than an "innovation laboratory" to my sense. One of the greatest challenges of the Nailab is going to define its strategy to complement - and not overlap - with what the *IHub_ (that was built before specifically for innovation) in order to establish a symbiotic relation. Best luck to both sister projects !!!

 

Filed under  //  3D   Ada Zanditon   Advertising   Africa   FIlm   ICT   IT   Ihub   Kenya   Nairobi   Tonee Ndungu   Video   technology  
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M-PESA


People queuing at the supermarket to transfert money via mobile phone using M-PESA (Safaricom) :

http://www.safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=745
M-PESA is a Safaricom service allowing you to transfer money using a mobile phone. Kenya is the first country in the world to use this service, which is offered in partnership between Safaricom and Vodafone. M-PESA is available to all Safaricom subscribers (Prepay and Postpay), even if you do not have a bank account. Registration is FREE and available at any M-PESA Agent countrywide. The M-PESA application is installed on your SIM card and works on all makes of handsets.

Amazing. Told you, the future is here in Nairobi. 

Filed under  //  Africa   Banking   Ihub   Kenya   M-PESA   Mobile   Mobile Banking   Nairobi   Phone   Safaricom  
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*IHub_[under_construction]

The *IHub_ is now at full speed under construction, it is quite impressive to be in the middle of so many computers, metal and wood works, dust, ideas, sweat, sketches, phewww! Energy! I'm proud to be responsible of this construction site, fingers crossed it goes well until the end.

Filed under  //  Africa   Architecture   Construction   Design   Fabrication   Ihub   Kenya   Nairobi  
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Akirachix Logo blast video

 
LOGO-BANG-BANG

Design : Cesar Harada
Music : HIFANA + Lexxus
Client : Akirachix

As promised in the previous post about the compugalz here is the logo in HQ! 
video also on flickr | facebook | youtube

Filed under  //  Africa   Akirachix   Design   Graphic Design   Hifana   Japan   Kenya   Logo   Nairobi   Typography  
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The future is in Nairobi Kenya

Right here. 
Gear  up.

Filed under  //  Advertising   Africa   Future   Graphic Design   Happiness   Nairobi   Typography   open  
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World Environment Action (WEA) website pre-release


http://w-e-a.org

The World Environment Action (WEA) has now a website. Soon there will be an Ushahidi app hosted here and an alpha release of the WEA for mobile device should follow. 
Yesterday I presented the WEA at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in Nairobi and had very interesting feedbacks. Download the presentation (.pdf 6mb).

Filed under  //  Africa   Environment   Ihub   Kenya   Nairobi   Release   WEA  
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Camping, making the World Environment Action prototype

Camping at the *IHub future HQ, now under construction. Sleeping under a drawing board + mosquito net.
Patiently building the WEA (World Environment Action) http://w-e-a.org (just got the domain wouhouuu!). Thanks to Joshua Musau for the pictures!

Filed under  //  *IHub   Africa   Camping   Carboard   Indoors   Inside   Mosquito   Nairobi   Net   Outdoors   Sleeping   Tent  
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AkiraChix in da house

The geekiest girls of Kenya is right under your eyes (+1 lucky stalker heheh) meeting @*IHub. Here you got Angela Nicole, Lillian Nduati, Linnet Quamboka, Judith Adem Owigar, Muthoni, Jessica Colaco. I must soon do their logo inspired from Carol hairstyle (!!!). The group is called Akirachix (Akira + Chicks) and is under construction too, but the idea is to empower Kenyan tech-ladies to take over and help each other. Nice initiative of the fantabulous Jessica Colaco (TED Fellow 2009), meeting once every 15 days or so. Pretty nerdy round here O_O ;p

Join the Facebook group and follow them here:

 http://www.akirachix.com
http://www.youtube.com/group/akirachix
http://www.vimeo.com/groups/42402
http://www.flickr.com/groups/akirachix/
http://twitter.com/akirachixs

 

 

Filed under  //  hot   Africa   Akirachix   Chicks   Girls   Jessica Colaco   Kenya   Nairobi   Nerdy   Pretty   TED   Techie   fellow  
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