About Dennis Maorwe

I'm Dennis Maorwe - a technology-driven innovator focused on solving complex social challenges through smart, scalable solutions. My work bridges the gap between cutting-edge technology and real-world impact, ensuring that innovations don’t just work, but matter.

I spent nearly seven years at Oracle (2012–2018), leading and supporting enterprise software transformations across global markets. Since then, I’ve shifted my focus to building and advising startups, and consulting on projects that sit at the intersection of strategy, organizational development, and product innovation. I work with organizations of all sizes, including startups, scaleups, and mid to large institutions to bring clarity, structure, and forward momentum to big ideas, often technology related.

As a researcher, I explore how science-backed and AI-powered products can help solve systemic challenges in African communities. I'm currently researching how technologies like Large Language Models can improve health literacy among vulnerable populations, contributing to the broader goal of global health equity.

I hold an undergraduate degree in Telecommunications and Information Engineering from Kenyatta University, and a postgraduate degree in Telecommunications Business from the University of Derby, complemented by professional training from various local and international institutions.

Outside of work, I’m usually spending time with family, reading, listening to music, working out—or just exploring new ways to stay curious and grounded. I’m also the creator of the LIVEDROOTS Journal, a guided, physical journal designed to support self-exploration, creativity, and connection. It's a deeply personal project, soon available in bookstores across Kenya and perhaps East Africa, and built for anyone ready to embark on a transformative inner journey.

I’m based in Nairobi, Kenya.

My guiding philosophy

At Oracle, my work took me from Africa to Europe and beyond, giving me invaluable experiences. I immersed myself in diverse cultures and developed a forward-thinking, cosmopolitan perspective. However, my job wasn’t perfect, and over time, started to feel like a Sisyphean journey with no escape. I needed to engage with life in a way that reflected the person I was becoming, not the person I used to be.

Inspired by Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, I wanted my efforts to serve others and contribute to the greater good. Reading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb also sparked a dream in me. I recognized that becoming antifragile was my ultimate goal. One answer lay in leaving the corporate world and become attuned to the pursuit of a broader and more liberal education.

I realized that my years of traveling globally and across Africa had prepared me for the crucial role technology would play in the Africa of today. I had the privilege to witness the cultural shifts driven by the booming innovative culture and wanted to be part of it. I needed to work with other change-makers dedicated to improving the world.

In the intervening years, I read with great interest Wangari Maathai’s book, The Challenge for Africa. The call to actions in the book inspired me to be a hummingbird. Making such a significant impact required organized efforts that harness the collective intellect of other people to create effective interventions. I would need to contribute through my unique point of view. Technology-driven social change would be my way to contribute meaningfully.

Places I have been.

Writing

This website is a nebulous, sprawling, ongoing life project. The blog is a curation of various inspirations, readings, lessons, contemplations and experiences. It is an active exploration of thoughts and experiments relating to past and present inspirations and work/life projects.

As with the multi-polar world we inhabit now, you’ll find it's content fluctuating between the rational and emotional, the pragmatic and quixotic, the specific and universal - all in an attempt to honor the multidimensional lives we live and the world in which we live them.

Projects

Entrepreneurship

Majority of my work projects have grown out of intellectual detours that became so gripping that they forced me to abandon any form of original itinerary I had. Over the years, I have helped start and run a long string of ventures, which you dont need to know of because, as of now, my primary attention is aimed at DPE, InfoAFYA™, and LIVEDROOTS projects.

Workshops and speaking

I develop and deliver customized talks and interactive workshops on specific topics at the request of clients, either as part of ongoing consulting engagements, as one-off things, or simply out of pleasure.

Topics I have covered in recent years include new business development for creative professionals, prototyping startup to business partnerships, data strategies for a hyper-accelerating world, and responsible product management. 

Research 

Research is often something people think has to happen in a lab or an academic setting.

But for me, research is like a personal adventure - something I enjoy doing in my free time too. It involves being curious about the world, seeking evidence, and understanding what’s already out there. Whether I’m digging into data, reading widely, writing up findings, or sharing insights with others, it's all the same. 

Think of what I have described as research as leisure activity. Great researchers are good at finding impactful problems. To this effect, I am currently working on a research project in 2024/2025/2026, see more: AI for Global Health.

Reading

Explore what I am currently reading.

Consulting

I usually work with teams at medium to large organizations - on short projects and in some rare cases, 1:1 with senior executives. My consulting style is two fold:

  1. conversational - where clients use me to connect concepts, make inferences, think creatively and imaginatively, think critically, and explore deeper levels of knowing, thinking and understanding - in a conversational sparring manner,
  2. OR, they ask me to facilitate or deliver a certain body of work based on information, data, insights shared beforehand. 

Recent (sample) projects:

  1. Strategic coaching & advisory to business executives interested in refining their organization's innovation thesis and defining new target industries or markets.
  2. Supporting the conceptual design and implementation of transformational software projects that streamline operations and improve efficiency.
  3. Developing data-driven and customer-centric strategies for teams looking to leverage the power of data and AI to better understand their customers, their data, and enhance their offerings.
  4. Conducting technical feasibility studies for nonprofits and governments, ensuring that proposed initiatives are both practical and sustainable.
  5. Researching and presenting new product introduction (NPI) intelligence for startups, providing valuable insights into market trends and consumer preferences to guide their product development efforts.

I also work with leaders at startups that are typically pre-product-market fit stage to post Series A. These types of organizations tend to need exploration of ideas, visions, and concepts that do not have a shape yet. These kinds of clients usually find me directly through a referral. 

The tools

The sensemaking and analytical tools I bring to the table are culled from a professional and personal engagement with disciplines like philosophy, anthropology, literature, history, the arts, strategic thinking, complexity science, and a lifetime tinkering with computers/software. 

I am becoming better and better at product shaping

What ends up in the software is not what your customers want, it’s not what your sales team promised, it’s not what your analysts wrote in the specs. It’s the engineers’ understanding of the domain that determines the software design.

Domain Discovery is how we bridge the knowledge gap. And I happen to be a great domain discoverer/modeler. This can sometimes be thought of as product shaping, where we ask the smart (and the naive) questions, we observe like anthropologists, we dig like archaeologists. We expose how people want business processes to work, and how they work. We uncover ambiguities in the domain language. We find the edge cases, the awkward scenarios where nobody really knows what’s supposed to happen.

Product shaping is primarily business design work. It is also business R&D work. The shaped "thing" might be an interaction concept, design, artifact or any other solution viewed from the business, user’s, or industry perspective. Sometimes it is an architecture. It defines what solution is possible (desirability), how the solution might work (feasibility), where it might fit within existing (and new) business strategies (viability), and it’s expected impact within business, ecosystem, or societal settings (environmental fitness).

This means I work comfortably across all the Technology Readiness Levels ~ from Level 1 - conducting technology ore product introduction feasibility studies, to Level 9 - New Product Introduction and maturity.

Contacting Me

To interact more freely, feel free to:

  1. Connect with me on LinkedIn
  2. If you would like to discuss how I can support your needs, book my calendar or write to me at hi@dennismaorwe.com
  3. More on my Linktree