By Haniya Shah
In the early hours of the 4th of November, 2025, Ugandan born Zohran Kwame Mamdani was chosen by 50% of the popular vote as the next Mayor of New York City, the global hub of the Western world. And yet, Zohran was not your average Mayor Elect – he was only thirty three years old, a Muslim, a democratic socialist and an immigrant from East Africa. In all of history, such an amalgamation of the ‘Other’ had never conspired together to culminate in a Mayor of the American capital. Zohran took his oath almost two months ago, on New Year’s day, at the old Subway Station under City Hall, his hand placed firmly on a copy of The Holy Quran instead of the Bible. “You know he ain’t messing around…” was the vein of various comments under the YouTube video of his swearing in, referring to the gravity of swearing on the holiest book in Islam.
Travel six thousand miles east , to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, and rewind four years when 2022 found a young Harman Grewal Singh, law graduate and educator running for Governor of Nairobi county with similar ideals of social justice and equality. Singh, of South Asian descent, and of the Sikh faith also counted himself in a minority in the cosmopolitan capital in many ways. South Asians who have made Kenya their home for generations are known as ‘Muhindi’. At 25, like Mamdani, Grewal was particularly young to run for the gubernatorial, and was in fact the youngest aspiring governor Kenya had seen. And then, the policies he ran on seemed reminiscent of the same pipe dreams that Mamdani promised (And indeed, in two months in office, has begun to deliver on); free buses, free universal childcare and rent freezes for the population of New York amid the rising cost of living, while taxing wealthy corporations. Singh promised free education for all Kenyans in his eight point manifesto, as well as fighting corruption through digitizing public office transactions, using the budget to manage the growing waste crisis in Nairobi and reducing traffic through building a modern transport system. Sakaja Johnson, the eventual winning candidate of 2022, remains the governor of an office deep in debt amounting to KShs 82 Billion accrued by previous administrations and growing- while Nairobi traffic, public education remain at a moot point. Today, 16% of Nairobians live below the poverty line and only 5% of Kenya’s population earns more than $700 a month.
While New Yorkers got their Mamdani, why is it that the city of Nairobi is still in the same place it was four years ago, plus a few Generation Z protests turned deadly, on the rising cost of living, deeper potholes, and a steadily growing KShs 82 billion City Hall debt? According to Singh, the co-founder of Kalasik https://kalasik.com/a startup that promises to transform both teaching and learning through AI, it’s all about education.
‘If you look at the most successful nations, they’re the most educated ones,” says Singh, speaking over a Zoom call in his home in Nairobi, ‘We live in a total democracy and have the freedom to be ruled by who we wish to elect….if anything is to change in Kenya we need to have proper civic education and people need to be educated on how to vote.” That’s where he believes Kalasik comes in.
“After the election had passed and my opponent Sakaja had taken the seat, I realized there was still an avenue for us to be able to provide free education , and now not just to the people of Nairobi, but the whole of Kenya through the digital solution we had created. So we looked into all the books needed for CBC, had them rewritten by my team and also attached an AI teacher with the books. We try to digitize the entire process for the education system so that a student that perhaps can’t afford the school fees here in Nairobi can still be able to access the platform even if the student is outside Nairobi. Right now we have 20,000 monthly users on our platform.”
That’s considerable amount for a relatively young project. And where did he get the funding for this project?
“My brother and I pretty much fund the entire company.
We’ve built two classrooms already, funded primarily by us.”
The classrooms refer to the ingenious ‘Carton Classrooms’ created by the two brothers out of shipping containers, featuring Kalasik’s digital AI solution for both teachers and students as well as desks, studying materials and everything a student could possibly need for a conducive learning environment.
“It’s a new solution. You can have one teacher with 40 students and sometimes you can have zero teachers with 200 students, which is the case with certain subjects in Kenya- this solution allows for change in the learner’s life. Even if you are going to an expensive private school in Nairobi, for example, Brookhouse, it is still difficult for you to get personalized learning solutions-that’s why even these upper – class schools are relying on these digital solutions.. The main thing we are trying to do is provide an equalizer, to those who severely need it and can’t afford it. With AI, we can track what a student is doing, where he or she is going wrong. And give very personalized guidance.”
So had Singh become governor, what would he have done to support teachers and students in Kenya, since education is a state responsibility.
“Although it’s more of a government response on a national scale, we would still have some influence because there is funding for these, the infrastructure and operation. For example the current governor of Nairobi has used funds to create the school feeding programme (Dishi Na County). There are many avenues for how you can create influence within your area of regulation. I designed the Kalasik platform to help both the learner and the educator. As a teacher you need to know what you’re going to be teaching your students that specific day, the manner in which you will be instructing them and the outcome- but not every teacher has the same level of experience or skill-set, but this shouldn’t be a limitation. With Kalasik’s AI tool teachers can draft their lesson plans before class, assign homework and take tests- there tested by AI and marked by AI. imagine just one classroom has forty students and as a teacher you are attached to maybe seven subjects – over 200 tests would have to be marked in an exam period. But with Kalasik AI, its brought in that auto marking feature, lesson planning and personalized guidance.”
Singh’s passion for education that is readily available to the masses is obvious. But how does he stay hopeful that change is possible in other areas of Kenyan public life when observing the obvious corruption in all ranks of government in the country that causes budgets to vanish? Even if Kenyans cast their vote, how do they know they will manifest in the election outcome?
‘”Well, I mean everyone is aware that corruption has been rife in Kenya since independence by the democratically elected leaders here in Kenya – so if we willingly elect those that have been involved in not one but several corruption cases and then expect something different, is the electorate not to blame?”
Singh doesn’t give out any names, but proceeds,
“I don’t have to talk about all the several corruption cases and all the corruption rates. But if you incorporate education on how to vote in the school system and how to be an ethical person, that’s what will really bring change here in Kenya – the Kenyan voter casts his/her vote based on things that do not correlate with leadership or the outcome of an individual in a particular seat. Aside from tribalism, we have people voting for, lets say like the current governor for Nairobi for his appearance.”
Seriously?
“Yes! There was a whole campaign around his dimples and it did garner thousands and thousands of votes. Some people simply thought he was a good looking person and they said that would make a great leader. And that’s why I say the responsibility falls on the electorate because how can you now go and blame this leader you have democratically elected and say he’s not turned out to bring the policies I wanted?”
Since governor Sakaja Johnson , branded the fresh faced “cool kid of Kenyan politics” took office, The student bursaries and water reforms that he promised have never materialised and the governor is being accused of betraying Nairobians. And yet, he remains the same man who was elected despite doubts over the authenticity of his university degree.
“Last year was the first time people (In Kenya) looked into a bill” says Singh, referring to the Anti-Finance Bill protests which saw young Kenyans taking to the street to protest a series of proposed tax hikes that raised the price of basic necessities such as bread. The protests, which were led by the younger generation of working Kenyans known as GenZ, led to deaths as police used live bullets for crowd management. , The subsequent pressure on President Ruto and his cabinet forced them to withdraw the bill.
“People don’t even know how a bill is passed, nor what an MP does, what a senator does, what a governor does, or an MCA. They don’t know which one is more senior, more junior. A lot of Kenyan South Asians as well, when they’re hit a pothole in the road, they don’t know who to blame. You need to be educated on how your country operates and then you need to learn how to vote correctly and the importance of a vote.”.
Sometimes, though, where local government fails, advocacy groups step in to make a change. Enter the Parklands Residents Association (PRA), a community based, independent organisation that represents more than a thousand property owners in the Parklands area of Nairobi. It acts as a watchdog opposing unregulated high-rise developments, environmental degradation, curbing illegal construction and upgrading the general infrastructure in the Parklands area. The association’s most recent victory was halting the construction by Mandera governor Mohammad Aden of high rise buildings on public land.
Coming to Kenyan South Asians, what does Grewal have to say to those who accuse them of not really participating in national civic life, and yet proudly call themselves as the 42nd tribe of Kenya?
“A lot of Kenyan Asians don’t even go to vote and then they complain about the leaders in the area. Right now, this period of time, a lot of Kenyan South Asians are suffering because of how Parklands and Westlands is being managed. Very few of them voted. Perhaps if they had voted correctly and elected a person to represent their interests, they wouldn’t be suffering this way?”
And then there’s the brain drain that Kenya and Africa in general is suffering from.
“The immigration rate is very high for Africa, everyone is rushing over to Europe. In Kenya whenever someone attains a certain level of wealth, statistically, I don’t know if it’s the majority or the minority, but there’s a large number that emigrate out and we suffer form brain drain. And its not limited, to Kenyan South Asians, but to all Kenyans generally. Because there is more structure in foreign nations. Its more peaceful, more organised, there’s less harassment from the government and its just easier to operate.” So what will make people stay?
“This requires several solutions. What makes you enjoy residing in the UK for example? Good roads, access to healthcare and affordable and quality education. As a Kenyan, I would like to enjoy is a cleaner city, something as simple as that- I don’t want to be living in an area surrounded by garbage. The basics needs to be covered and be able to move from the different stages in the growth process and develop. My approach would be to start with the basic things and build from there”
Sanitation remains one of the biggest concerns with the streets of Nairobi and public places like City Park Market, and the borough of Eastleigh. According to Grewal its very simple.
“Its one of the simple things-you can just use manual labour.If there’s garbage on the floor, you organise for collection in that area, in half a day you can totally clear that area and the country has a budget for it. Hiring a team of cleaners would not be one of the more expensive things to do.”
But how about City Hall’s 8.2 billion (and counting) debt?
“Having debt doesn’t mean its collapsed. Companies have debt, doesn’t mean they collapse, they can still operate. There are many ways to deal with access to finance and funding operations. Nairobi county has accrued debt from past regimes but by cutting expense, reducing corruption and looking for innovative ways to generate income, you can reduce the debt burden. It will definitely take time because the debt has reached over billions of shillings and its not a simple task to deal with.”
So would Harman Grewal Singh run for governor again?
There’s a pause.
“In the words of PLO Lumumba, I don’t think Kenyans are ready for leaders like me. They still wish to have ‘entertainers’ in office. And when they’re ready for leaders like me, I will come.”
Singh declines to give an affirmation over whether he will run again in 2027. Right now, his focus is Kalasik, and his blog, KenyanLaw https://www.kenyanlaw.com/our-team ,where people can access free legal education.
It’s a full time commitment, he says, and it was among his prime motivations to run for governor in the first place. He has volunteered for several charities and organisations over the years
“It was just something I contemplated because with my small offerings her and there, we were able to create so much change in different areas around Kenya. So I wondered, with these huge budgets, how much impact I could have on Kenya. Just a simple drive around Nairobi you can see many people are suffering from very basic things. And I am educated to a level that I can come up with solutions to these basic problems.”
Maybe he is right, and the people of Nairobi are not ready for a Harman like New York was for Zohran. But one thing is for certain, whether he runs for governor or not, Harman Singh and his AI Smart Classrooms are making an impact on Kenya and soon on Africa, perhaps more than any governor of Nairobi has of yet.
