Since May 2023, I have been contemplating to plan our Africa trip, but it took some time for me to materialise it. My purpose in visiting Africa was to connect with the community one-on-one, as my understanding of the region was very blurry and filtered. I was convinced about our conference in September 2023 when Mitesh Khakeria (Aakvatech) came to our office and showed interest in taking some initiatives to conduct some marketing activities within the African community. I asked Rushabh immediately whether we should go ahead and plan out some Frappe Local events in Africa. His immediate reaction was, “I am interested in visiting Africa too." With no further delay, I reached out to Mitesh & Muchai (Navari Limited) and told them about how we should conduct these local events and asked them for their advice as well. We decided that we would conduct two local events, one in Nairobi, Kenya, and one in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From then on, we have regularly been connecting with each other and formalising the agenda and how we can get the community to these local events. Muchai, Mitesh Khakeria, Mitesh Choksi, and Vimal Rathod (VV Systems) were trying to connect base with their customers, prospects, and ERPNext community in Africa, whereas I tried to create awareness within the Frappe Community through discuss forums and sending out newsletters to all our users in Africa. Altogether, our main aim was to educate the Africa community about open source, ERPNext, and Frappe

As the day of our trip was soon approaching, my mind was filled with mixed emotions. I was equally nervous, anxious, and excited about what was going to happen on this trip. I was travelling from Bangalore to Mumbai and then travelling with Rushabh and Hussain from Mumbai directly to Nairobi. We had a red-eyed flight and reached Nairobi in the wee hours of the morning. Once we came out of the airport, we enjoyed and soaked up the breezy weather in Nairobi. Swiftly, we took a quick uber ride from the airport to our hotel, which was located in Westlands (a so-called posh locality in Nairobi), which was amidst privately owned European-style houses and surrounded by lush green grasslands. Instantly, the three of us wondered if this was the real Nairobi.

After checking in to the hotel, we had a hearty breakfast, and soon after, Chris and Mike (Pointershub Limited) came to receive us at the hotel and took us (Rushabh and myself) to meet a couple of their customers and prospects, while Hussain went for the framework training at ihub. Before we met the customers, we had a quick stroll in the Nairobi Central Business District (CBD), and I was completely mesmerised by their advanced architecture. It was nothing like how I perceived it to be. After a quick stroll around the CBD, we had a quick chat with the Pointershub team at their office. They discussed how they started with their company. They shared their experience as Frappe partners and their long-term vision for their business around Frappe products.

At Central Business District, Nairobi

Soon afterwards, after an insightful discussion with the Pointershub team, Chris and Mike took us to Transafrica Limited, where we met Carol Maina, who is their management accountant. Transafrica has been our customer for the last two years. They are into the business of manufacturing equipment for refining and distributing water and supplying it to their customers. Mostly, they are into B2B business. Carol told us about how the Pointershub team has really helped them implement ERPNext and is currently training their employees around using ERPNext.

At Transafrica Limited office

After the delightful discussion with Transafrica Limited, we went to meet Tanuj Shah (Group CEO of METCO). METCO Limited is a leading manufacturer in Kenya that provides quality products fabricated with mild steel, stainless steel, and aluminum. We met him in his factory, and he gave us a wonderful tour and told us that they are using version 11 of ERPNext and had self-implemented it in their virtual machines. Now they are facing challenges since their business is growing and they need to properly re-align it to ERPNext, due to which they connected with Pointershub to help them align their business processes to the latest version of ERPNext.

With Tanuj & Chris at METCO office

Subsequent to visiting Tanuj, we all went to meet Kabir Oberoi (Director of Operations and Sales at Stitch Masters Limited). Kabir told us that earlier they were using an ERP solution that his brother had designed. But because of an unfortunate incident, they had to look for another ERP solution. They were looking for an ERP that gives them the control to customise as per their requirements, so they looked for an open-source solution and came across ERPNext. Currently, they are using ERPNext and are in awe of its flexibility, and wish to contribute back to the community by getting the community together. After meeting Kabir, we were kinda of tired, but our day was not over yet.

Having lunch with Chris, Mike & Muchai at Sarit

We had lunch with Chris, Mike, and Muchai and moved ahead to meet our next customer. We met Lucia (Director of Data Innovation at Victory Farms). Their office was located in one of the traditional corporate offices with glass windows with a beautiful view of the skyline. She discussed with us their current challenges. They are already going live with Phase 1 and Phase 2 of their implementation, but they are facing blockers on the retail side of their business and how to align it with ERPNext.

The next day, we abruptly decided to visit Hell's Gate National Park for our partner meet-up. Surprised ? Even I was so. Before the trip, Muchai and I planned out a traditional way to have the partner meet up in a boardroom. All thanks to Rushabh for coming up with this idea. I didn't know that meeting our business partners in an unconventional setting would be so much more fun and enriching. Since we planned this out at the last minute, we were scared that anyone would show up. We created a group and told all our partners that we would assemble at Sarit (our pretty much meeting place in Nairobi) at 6:30 a.m. We were so glad that many of our partners, like Yusuf, Romeo, Watson, Moses (ERP Champions Limited), Patrick Willy (Cubenet Systems), and Muchai (Navari Limited), joined us for the visit. On our road trip to Hell's gate, which was located in Naivasha, we interacted with our partners and got to know them personally. It was so incredible to discuss our cross-cultural values and share our experiences and upbringings with each other.

On our way to Hells Gate

When we reached Hell's Gate National Park, all of us were in dire need of food, as we did not have breakfast. Some of us went to get some high-energy food so that we could sustain ourselves for a couple of hours until lunch. After filling our hunger, we took a bike and went to explore the park. On our way, we spotted some zebras, giraffes, African buffalos, and, of course, baboons. We had a 14-kilometre bike ride to and fro with approximately a 5-kilometre trek, where we spotted the Masai tribe, who were selling some of their traditional artifacts and jewellery. The entire landscape around Hell's Gate was lush green and had a great geological phenomenon of hot springs. So the water was warm & clear. On our way back, the last mile of the bike ride was the most difficult, as we ran out of water and the sun was directly above us and was tearing our skin. When we reached the exit gate of the park, I was very hungry, and to get immediate energy, Hussain and Rushabh offered all of us some bananas. While I was having a banana, out of nowhere, a big baboon came from behind and snatched the banana from my hand. The baboon would have weighed approximately 55 kg, as I felt a human snatching it from my hand. On our way back, we had a traditional lunch, and most of us dozed off in the van as we were very tired. We reached Sarit around 5:45 p.m. and invited all our remaining partners who could not join us for a catch-up.

At Hell’s Gate National Park, Naivasha

Rushabh initiated the discussion by asking everyone how everyone was feeling and what was their idea of building the community? At first, Watson (ERP Champions Limited) initiated with his thoughts. He said that all of us should come together to work for the ecosystem. His idea is to bring all community members to a common goal, and he made us all believe that we should not be in competition with each other but rather in competition against an establishment that has over the years promoted proprietary ERP software. I felt it was a great way to start the discussion, as it gave the tone to the discussion. Muchai went immediately after Watson and said, “My aim is to build the community in such a way that when people think about ERP, they should think about ERPNext." In continuation of Muchai's words, Patrick (Cubenet Systems) focused on discussing that penetration of the product is required by creating awareness about open source, after which Davis (Spiderbit Limited) made us aware that Africa does not have a strong ERP solution that is flexible. His aim would be to penetrate ERPNext into the community and build on top of it in such a way that it suits the African community. Romeo, Yusuf, and Moses (ERP Champions Limited) first thanked Hussain for creating amazing content through his YouTube channel #Buildwithhussain that helped them be connected to the product. They felt that, in the same way, the entire community should be working together and reaching out to people through social media handles. They talked about the partnership community and thought that, together, we could make it stronger. After a lovely and insightful discussion, we came to the conclusion that marketing the product in the right way is our way forward.

The next day, we had our Frappe Local event. I was very tense in the morning, as I had been looking forward to the event for a really long time. The event was held at the Kenya School of Government, which was located in an uptown neighborhood. We had around 153 registrations for the event, and approximately 100 people showed up. As we walked inside the hall where the event was taking place, Rushabh told us that he had a déjà vu moment of our first ERPNext conference in 2014, where the setup and the vibes were pretty much similar (I was not part of Frappe back then, so I can't comment). There were some interesting talks around the product. Personally, I enjoyed the talks given by Yusuf Mulinya (ERP Champions Limited) and Dr. Thomas Mwogi. Yusuf has been a partner with us for the last year, and he shared his journey from being an accountant to using an ERP solution, which was very intriguing. Dr. Thomas Mwogi, on the other side, discussed how he has successfully used Frappe Press and implemented ERPNext and Frappe Healthcare for the biggest hospital in Kenya (around 4000 employees). His vision is to “frappenize everything” and to bring Frappe and ERPNext to every hospital in Kenya. Dr. Thomas Mwogi impacted me greatly, as he was the living example of what I believed the African community should grow out to be. I understood the power of the open source community and its reach.

All thanks to Muchai and the entire Navari team for successfully organising this event. It would not have been possible without their support. Muchai has been a pillar of support in our growing Frappe community in Africa.

Frappe Local event, Nairobi

With 50% of our trip coming to an end, our next destination was Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We had an early morning flight, and on our flight, we were discussing whether we should have made a trip to Mount Kilimanjaro. Within 30 minutes of the flight, the pilot announced that we could spot Mount Kilimanjaro on the right side of our flight. Like toddlers, all three of us were looking outside the window to see the magnificent topographical peak and were completely mesmerised by the view of it.

Mount Kilimanjaro view from our flight to Dar es salaam

Upon landing at Dar (a commonly used alternative by locals), Mitesh Choksi, Mitesh Khakeria, and Vimal Rathod received us at the airport. At first glance, I felt the city was a replica of Mumbai with less crowd. The weather was hot and humid and could not be survived without an air conditioner. As we were approaching our hotel, I felt we had come back home to India. The hotel was located in the old neighbourhood of Dar, which was surrounded mostly by Gujaritis. We quickly checked in to our hotel, and Hussain and I went to our rooms to freshen up. Meanwhile, Rushabh went to Mitesh's house for a cup of tea. After freshening up, I checked on our itinerary to see what was planned for the day. Little did I know that I would again get a shock from Rushabh to change the itinerary. Inspired by the Hell's Gate expedition with our partners, he told us, let's go to Zanzibar and have our partner meet up there. At first, I was reluctant because I had to rearrange our plan and shift everything by one day. Once everything was taken care of, I said yes. Let's go. All our partners in Tanzania agreed to come as well.

After a hearty lunch at an Indian restaurant, we went to visit Toyota Tanzania, which is one of our largest prospects in Tanzania. It is owned by one of the biggest groups in Tanzania, i.e., Karimjee Jivanjee. I have been in touch with them for the last 4-5 months and also looped in Aakvatech for this project. We met Amit Singh (Director, Mobility & Value Chain at Toyota Tanzania) and had an interesting conversation. He told us that they have done the scoping of the project with Mitesh and are very confident that ERPNext would be a great fit for them. They highlighted that for every business operation they had separate software that managed everything. They wanted all the departments and operations to be aligned with each other and managed by one software so that they had one single source of truth. At first glance, there was no logic behind choosing ERP Next. Amit told us that they reached out to many ERP solutions, and whoever reverted to them the most promptly will be given the project. Surprisingly, Frappe was the most prompt to revert to them. Immediately, I understood that responding to our customers at a brisk pace is vital, as the solution we are providing to our customers is an ERP that is mission and time critical. After a wonderful discussion with Amit, we went around to have a quick stroll around the city, walked on for a bit, and visited their National Museum. The architecture was inspired by both Islamic and colonial times, and we immediately understood that there is a huge Indian diaspora in Africa that continues to this day.

At National Museum, Dar es salaam

The next day, we woke up early to take the ferry to Zanzibar. Mitesh Choksi, Mitesh Khakeria, Menrad, Nitesh, Rosemary, Muchai, and Vimal accompanied us. On our ferry ride to Zanzibar, the coast of Dar looked like the Marine Drive of Mumbai. There was an old fish market at the corner of the coast, which seemed to be very busy. The guide on our ferry even entertained us with Bollywood songs like Kaho na pyaar hai. After the two-hour ride, we reached the coast of Zanzibar and went for a quick bite as we missed our breakfast in the morning. Along the coast, we had breakfast and interacted with each other. I had an interesting conversation with Rosemary and Menrad about the rich history of Zanzibar and the Indian influence in Tanzania. The entire island was influenced by Arab and Indian culture, which was very interesting.

Zanizibar

After breakfast, we took a boat ride to Prison Island, and my first observation was the change in colour of the ocean. The water was becoming clearer and clearer, and it turned from dark to turquoise blue. At first glance, I fell in love with the place. The entire island is a tortoise sanctuary and is surrounded by peacocks. Mitesh shared an interesting anecdote that the locals consider the peacocks to be a gift from India, due to which no one touches the peacock or its fallen feathers. Upon a wonderful stroll around the tortoise sanctuary, many of us took a dip in the turquoise blue waters, after which all of us headed back to Zanzibar.

At Prison Island

Once we reached Zanzibar, we had some time to spare and went for lunch at a beautiful place amidst the stone town. After lunch, Rushabh, Mitesh, and I went to visit the East African Slave Museum. On our way to the museum, we explored the unexplored streets of Stone Town, which was so heavily influenced by Arabic culture. Upon reaching the museum, we understood that behind all the natural beauty there lies a very brutal history to the place. I was completely taken aback reading about how slave trading was conspired by the Europeans and the Arabs. On our way back, I was very tired and pretty much soaking in all the weather and reading more about the history of Zanzibar on our ferry ride.

East African Slave Museum, Zanzibar

The next day, we had our scheduled Frappe Local event in Dar in the afternoon. In the morning, we touched base with Sanjay Mundade (CFO at Toyota Tanzania) and decided to meet at a nearby coffee shop. Sanjay shared how his life has been in Dar es Salaam, and now he feels very much at home in Dar. He also went on to ask us how we are planning to grow our product and asked Rushabh why he decided to open source the product. After a very interesting conversation, we headed our way to the venue where the local event was taking place. On our way, we had lunch at the coast of Dar, which is commonly called their chowpatty. We had their local food, which was more inclined towards high-energy food and gave us an instant boost for the rest of the day.

As the time of the event was soon approaching, Aakvatech and the VV systems team were preparing the hallroom where the event was taking place. At 3:30 p.m., we started the event. There were some interesting discussions around the local integrations that our partners have been working on, and customers also came up to the stage and shared their experiences. We wanted the local event to be more of a conversation than a one-sided discussion. I shared my journey to Frappe and my vision to build the Frappe community in Africa. All thanks to Mitesh Khakeria, Mitesh Choksi, and Vimal and their entire team for successfully arranging everything and getting the crowd for the event.

Frappe Local event, Tanzania

Our last day was reserved to meet the Soft-Tech team at their office, and they took us for a wonderful lunch at the seaside. Their office was located in the posh locality of Masaki. We met Harish Bhatt, who is a veteran and has been in this business for the last 30 years. He told us how we played a pivotal role in getting Tally to Tanzania and then focusing on Epicor and providing solutions to their customers. Their main focus has always been government projects. He shared that his team is now actively focusing on ERPNext. They have dedicated a team to its solution and believe that people in Tanzania are open to a change from proprietary software. He believes that once we can educate people about the idea, the future of Tanzania will be completely open source.

After an amazing lunch with the Soft-Tech team, we were dropped off at Shree Hindu Mandal, which has been using ERPNext and Frappe Healthcare for the last few years. We went around the hospital and saw how they were using ERPNext to punch in their entries. This was my first time visiting a hospital where I could see ERPNext and Frappe products being used at this level.

Finally, we made our way to the airport. Vimal and Mitesh Khakeria accompanied us to the airport. The three of us were exhausted but felt so enriched after this wonderful 7-day trip in Africa. As we sat by a coffee shop at the airport, we were just reflecting on the past few days. This has been my first official international trip, and I couldn't have asked for a better experience. I have been working in this region for the last one and a half years, and to be honest, I had a preconceived notion about Africa. I never knew that Africa has such great potential, and I am hoping to evolve our Frappe community in Africa with the help of our partners and community contributors.