Nairobi, July 25 -- Frank Mwiti likes to say that he could have been an astronomer. He certainly shoots for the stars, because when he was a boy, he sent NASA a letter. The space agency replied with space magazines, and Frank became an instant celebrity in his local Meru School, a superstar. He was a new generation of nerd back then, its promised messiah.

Not that the CEO of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) has lost that sense of wonder. If the world is still an oyster, he has eaten most of it-devouring horses in Russia, whale meat in Japan and wrestling with the notoriously pungent fermented fish in Finland. He is down for whatever. "Paying for a trip has a better return on investment than going to a movie theatre or a lecture hall...