Al Kags

Al Kags (born on August 13, 1980), is a prominent writer and poet in Kenya. He is the author of Living Memories, a collection of personal stories by ordinary Kenyans over 65 years about their experiences in Kenya's colonial era. Having Founded the Al Kags Trust for Poetry, he is the creator and publisher of the Quarterly Colour Series of Poetry, which started September 2006 and is read by over 175,000 people around the world. Al Kags is also a leading entrepreneur in ICT and media circles.
As a writer, Al's interests have a strong historical context.
Personal history
Al Kags, originally Alex Kagwe, grew up initially in Nairobi, where he lived with his grandmother, then a prominent businesswoman, Janet Kagwe, before joining his mother, Edith Kagwe and step father, Harald Freitag in Malindi, at the north coast of Kenya. His biological father, Daudi Waithaka, never lived with him, but Kagwe credits him with advancing his literary development as a boy by buying him all the books and toys that he could find.
He changed his name to Al Kags as a protest to the negative ethnicity in Kenya and also as an acknowledgement of his personal brand. In 2000, Al Kags moved back to Nairobi, where he started his career as a marketer writer who evolved with time to one of the most popular writers and poets in East Africa.
While still single, Al Kags is considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Kenya. He was featured in the February 2009 issue of True Love magazine. In the magazine, he was titled as the "Ladies Choice". He is quoted as saying that he loves to cook, a fact that makes him quite popular.
Work
Al Kags is one a respected marketer and project manager in Kenya. With a career spanning from working in the private sector, government and the civil society in various capacities, Al has been behind initiatives that have advanced the course of marketing in Kenya as well as driven the ICT agenda.
Al was an enterprising man in his hometown, Malindi, where at 17, he is said to have made a substantial amount of money changing Foreign Currency in the black market in Malindi's Uhuru Gardens. He also worked in his family's restaurant, the Silvermoon. He always claimed to have been brought up in the kitchen, with his mother and grandmother having been accomplished hoteliers and caterers. It had been widely expected that he would join the hotel industry when he left school - to the extent that he started his apprenticeship in Hotel Management at the Francorosso owned Tropical African Dream resort.
When he moved to Nairobi, Al Kags initially worked at Bonafide Ltd, where he was the sales manager, selling custom made inventory software for the company. He stayed a few months before he moved to the International Education Services, a student counselling agency in Nairobi. In 2001, he joined the master Editor and Writer, David Makali, who was the executive director of The Media Institute. He was given the responsibility of helping revive the Expression Today paper, which has become the definitive Media Magazine in Kenya, ET.
In 2003, Al Kags was one of the founders of KTIG, a telecommunications company that was founded by young Kenyans including , former CEO of East African Cables and now Director General of Kenya's Vision 2030, , a global financial advisor, Prof. Angaluki Muaka, the only Swahili instructor at the University of Minnesota and others. Though unsuccessful in their bid, the KTIG experience launched Al's career to be one of the most respected names in Kenya's ICT sector.
He founded Multiple Choices in 2004, a company that builds applications for the Internet. As the ICT sector continued to heat up, Al was one of the founders of the ICT industry organisation, ICTvillage.com that was at the forefront of shaping ICT policy in Kenya with key personalities, Peter Kimacia and Jay Bhalla of Speechnet, a Voice over IP telephony expert now based in . Multiple Choices was one of the first communication companies in Africa to venture into web 2.0 products and he led his team (including web developer guru, John Wesonga) to build Africa's first corporate blog, .
Throughout his career, Al Kags has been the idea generator and brains behind, successful magazines in Kenya such as Mambo (known in media circles as the masterpiece), Expression Today and ICTVILLAGE as well as the strategist behind the success of such magazines as Sokoni and many others.
As a features writer for the Standard group and other media companies around the world, Al Kags was among the first Kenyan writers to write on the situation in Darfur as well as Zimbabwe (a pet subject of his). He also wrote a memorable feature on the people trading in West and Northern Africa.
Al Kags has been credited with building industries, with African magazine, Business in Africa describing him as "The Business master". He has been credited with revitalizing the Marketing Society of Kenya, where he was a member of the council; Convenor of , the powerful ICT lobby and BusinessLoop, an exclusive CEOs forum. Most recently, Al Kags sponsored the technology Innovation, Design and everything initiative with his partner John Wesonga, in a bid to build a fraternity of entrepreneurs in Kenya.
Al Kags was the Programmes Officer at the newly founded Kenya ICT Board, where he coordinated the strategic partnership engagements with the private sector. In doing so, many of the ICT sector companies based in Nairobi, including Multinationals speak highly of him. Al is also the Face of Tandaa, the Kenya ICT Board's National Digital Content strategy, which he drove with the CEO, and long time friend, Paul Kukubo.
While he continues to drive his profession, Al is a consummate writer. In the literary world he is acclaimed for publishing one of the most popular poetry ebook series, The Al Kags poetry Series that included the Quarterly Colour Series and other books. It was recently announced that Al is publishing a book, Living Memories, which is based on historical stories.
Living Memories
Kags' Living Memories is a collection of stories told by ordinary Kenyans over 65 years of age, who grew up in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. It features true experiences told in a conversational way, in the first person.
The stories are set in colonial Kenya before Kenya's independence in 1963. The book is essentially a chronology of ordinary Kenyans experiences, describing how they coped with their lives in the midst of the oppression of colonialism. In the poignant interviews, elders from across Kenya share their memories of what life was like in the struggle for Kenya's independence as well as the hopes for a brand new Kenya.
In some of the stories, the elders reflect on the progress Kenya has taken, especially in the light of the 2007/8 post election crisis.

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