Why we love Nairobi, and why you should too
Nairobi, we all know this city and what it has to offer. It has both good and bad, like any large city, but there’s something about our Green City in the Sun, an energy that’s always buzzing in the air, something that makes us love it for all its imperfections. And hey, what could go wrong if you can live here AND have a Nairobi office space in Nairobi like ours? 😉
During our interview with Catherine Gicheru, Country Lead of Code for Kenya, for her #ZoomIn feature that you can read here, we let her talk about what she loves about Nairobi. Read below to see if you agree.
“I was born in Nairobi, I was raised in Nairobi, I schooled in Nairobi, hopefully I’ll die in Nairobi, maybe get cremated in Nairobi, get spread out over Nairobi, make sure everyone knows that I was here.” When somebody goes this far when talking about the city, it doesn’t leave you much room to question their love for the place.
“You’re not far from anything when you’re in Nairobi, 10 minutes out you’re in the rural areas or in a coffee farm, 15 minutes out you’d be just about anywhere. People in Nairobi are weird, everybody is a hustler, people are always thinking outside the box, and what might look like the plain old 9-5 person is a totally different human being after 5 o’clock. There’s always a surprise in the city, a nice place, a nice pub, an interesting food joint, there are hidden gems that people just coming in won’t see. You need to be wired with all the different kinds of weird people to be a part of that. Also, what other city do you know with a national park, or a protected forest with over 600 bird species, right near the centre? Nairobi is a nice city. It’s crazy, it’s messy, the traffic is horrible, and we’ve been doing a lot of expanding without following the original plan, but it is uniquely US, and nobody can take that away.”
As Nairobi Garage, here are a few reasons why we love Nairobi and why we think you should:
Innovation: Kenya’s profile as a technology hub has over the past few years received major boost attracting technology giants across the world, especially being the home of M-PESA. Nairobi being the capital city is home to a number of innovation and tech hubs. From Innovation Hubs run by Universities to those run by tech giants. i.e IBM Research Lab opened first hub in Africa in Nairobi and in May, Deputy President William Ruto also launched a Sh100 million Software testing center in Nairobi, the first in Africa. As if that’s not enough CIsco also plans to open an innovation centre in Nairobi. Giving us more reasons.
Home for Fortune 500 companies: There are many Fortune 500 Companies headquartered in Nairobi such as Shell, General Motors, Barclays, and many others. Fortune 500 Companies are top public corporations ranked by their gross revenue. Similarly, many technology companies have also set their regional offices in Nairobi including Huawei, Asus, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle SAP just to mention but a few..
24 Hour economy: Nairobi is one of the cities that you can get anything and everything at anytime. Whether it is during the day or the night.you are guaranteed of accessing a chemist or a fast food place. With the 24hour economy, it also makes it easy to make our Nairobi Office Space accessible 24/7.
Great Weather: If there is a place with great and friendly weather is Nairobi. The city has a lovely climate with warm and cool atmosphere for most of the year. The average temperature in Nairobi in a year is 11.1 °C. The brightest and coolest part of the year is from December to March, when temperatures average is about 10°C.
Great Views: Surrounded by the likes of Mt. Kilimambogo tothe Ngong’ Hills, Nairobi has the greatest views. The Nairobi Skyline is quite impressive with skyscrapers coming up every now and then. Well, we still have a long way to reach the New York skyline. But the skyline is worth noting
The only city with a national park: Nairobi is also home to Nairobi National Park. In fact with the location of our Kilimani Office Space, one can easily get a glance of the National park though from a distance. Giving us another reason to love this city.
These are the reasons why Catherine and we at Nairobi Garage love Nairobi, and why you should too. Want to sum up why you love Nai as well? Tweet us @NairobiGarage with the hashtag #WhyILoveNai, and let’s share the love we have for this awesome place we’re lucky to be living in!
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