11/23/2011 BUILDING A PLATFORM FROM SCRATCH — LESSONS FROM EAST AFRICA We love to think about what it is like to build a product from scratch—it is fun, but also very challenging. You have to decide on what platform elements to use, or maybe you're creating a platform. All those decisions and choices—so many possibilities it is sometimes very challenging to know where to start. Now imagine building a city from scratch—where do you start? There's an amazing example of building a platform upon which a city can be built in the work of GIZ to build roads in Ethiopian cities. As different as it sounds from building software, one can look at this success and see how it takes on elements of a platform and how the work we do to build platforms can learn from this work. This post is based on a trip to Ethcophl where I had an amazing opportunity to learn about this work and learn from those who are implementing it and also benefitting from it. Gil (or Gee Eye Zed) is a federal enterprise that supports the German Government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development. GIZ has some similarities to the USAID organization in the US Department of State. The project described in this post was developed by GIZ and funded through a variety of sources. One interesting note about GIZ is that the organization was previously called GTZ where the ar stood for technology and shows that the history of the group is rooted in providing technology support and programs. As you're reading this, keep in mind one dimension of statistic. Our King County, WA has 1,800 miles of paved roads over about 2,300 square miles. Ethiopia is about 4,300 miles of paved roads over 426,000 square miles (about twice the size of Texas). Texas has about ;;)r.x.an3 n Iv, of paved roads (and less than one third the population of Ethiopia). Moving around Ethiopia—people or goods—is extremely difficult. The climate of Ethiopia consists of very heav