Today we live in two Kenyas.
One Kenya says: “Give me a chance and I will prove myself.”
The other Kenya says: “Prove yourself first, then we will give you a chance.”
Every innovator in Kenya is familiar with this story. He has a product; she has a solution. But they just need someone to take a chance on them.
One Kenya sees opportunities where there are challenges; the other Kenya sees problems.
One Kenya dreams. The other Kenya builds.
Today we make a choice which Kenya we want to be.
Personal Achievement vs. Collective Prosperity
We have reached a critical stage in the history of Kenyan ICT.
We need to mind the gap – a gap that exists because there is a disconnect between the present and our future vision.
Now is the time to close the gap.
We are at a tipping point.
We have been featured numerous times in TIME Magazine, The Economist and many other global publications.
Kenya’s ICT innovation train has been rattling along, fuelling innovations from M-Pesa to M-Kopa and gaining international headlines and admirers
Let’s be clear: our ICT brand is well known.
It won’t only be M-Pesa, a single example of a well-known Kenyan innovation, but a countrywide army of similar and better commercial innovations that we will create in the near future.
We will be the Innovation Train of Africa.
But we need to make a choice: do we pursue personal achievement or collective prosperity?
The National ICT Master Plan
Under the New ICT Master Plan, and part of Vision 2030 goals, we have committed to:
- Create 180,000 new direct jobs in ICT…
- Develop globally competitive exports…
- Add 8% ICT contribution to GDP…
- And be the leading Knowledge Economy in Africa.
But we also have a wider vision: in transforming Health, Agriculture, Education, Security, Citizen Services, to name a few.
Technology – instead of existing as a peripheral value-add – has the potential to create cross-sector change. And to transform lives and communities in line with our Digital Kenya promise.
Flagship Projects & Local Content
Today all our Vision 2030 Key flagship projects, ranging from Integrated Citizen Services, IFMIS, Lands Automation, Transport Management, National Spatial Data Infrastructure and E-Health, could be great platforms to harness local incremental innovation if well aligned to an appropriate Local Content Policy.
The local content policy is integral to enabling Kenyan innovations see the light of day and also be a catalyst to building state-of-the-art science parks, centres of excellence, building of intellectual property and creating an opportunity to export our Africa-based solutions to other similar markets with similar problems.
Afterall, Kenya’s problems are Africa’s problems and opportunities.
Somebody in our vast country today could solve Nairobi’s traffic challenge, with the right support and given the opportunity. These problems, when solved, represent vast opportunities.
Those solutions represent our golden goose that lays the golden eggs, if seen from that point of view, and built on the framework that our problems are our opportunities.
The rallying call to Build IT Kenya, Buy IT Kenya to Build Kenya is now – and should be supported to ensure we enable this transformation.
Centres of Excellence + Academic Linkage + Bridging the Talent Gap
We have to start commercialising Research & Development (R&D), intellectual property (IP) – and begin exporting our ICT brand globally with Kenya as our test bed.
The flagship projects will create an excellent innovation test bed for prototyping, co-innovation, research and development and also a platform to engage the youth on multiple fronts from polytechnics, universities and the much-needed vocational training institutes.
The Presidential Digital Talent Program is an excellent platform we can leverage upon and extend to the private sector, with a possibility of 15,000 interns per year being absorbed by the market by 2020, through the right combination of incentives and national and private sector projects.
Commercialisation + IP + Capital
Delivering Kenyan innovation to global markets will be possible once these building blocks are in place.
Much needed capital to fund idea stage-to-growth-stage businesses will find its way to the innovators and entrepreneurs, with much-needed activity being seen in the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) on the Nairobi Stock Exchange and growing the small-and-medium-sized companies and enabling much-needed sustainable entrepreneurship including unlocking cheaper capital.
We need to move to a point where we replicate and commercialise our successes across Africa. For example, Huduma Centres, in Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria? Including transformation of our Post Offices and the thousands of similar Post offices in Africa.
We lead, and Africa follows.
As we embark on that journey, we take along many Kenyan businesses with us to Africa.
Interventions Required
The Government can partner with us in enabling this transformation through the following interventions:
- Enterprise Kenya: an entity that supports, grows and nurtures early-stage businesses – a national accelerator as a catalyst to an entrepreneur’s journey. A place the innovator will feel safe and wanted.
- The creation of Centres of Excellence which produce globally competitive talent, aligned to National Flagship projects.
- A Presidential Task Force with a strategic view on innovation, intellectual capital, exports, skill and delivery of national projects.
- Quasi-Government-private sector Venture Capital Fund, focused on early stage technology companies
- Review of Procurement Laws with a key focus on Local content, giving the entrepreneur a chance to prove himself and create long term value beyond trading and tender facilitators.
Enterprise KENYA…
Closing the gap: we need an entity which supports the innovator on their journey.
We need an institution which nurtures, supports and grows ideas, born out of a desire to help solve problems and break the silos that currently exist.
We need an institution which the innovators call HOME.
For the innovator, the first mile is often the hardest.
It is a jungle.
The maturity process from incubation to growth is one of the major gaps that exists currently and responsible for the death of many great start-ups, in a society where failure is not entertained.
We need to make a choice: to let the innovator wage his own journey on a solo mission or to help chop down the dense forest that lies in his way and connect him with a collaborative community that sees value in collective prosperity.
But it is Enterprise Kenya that will be the key that unlocks our greatness.
And soon, Kenya will be the Home for African Innovation.
Industry Commitments
With those interventions, we commit to deliver the following by 2020:
The creation of 180,000 direct jobs…
- 55+ globally competitive Kenyan IT companies…
- 8% Contribution to GDP…
- $500 million in Technology-Based Venture Capital…
- 50 Commercial Patents…
- $1billion in IT & ITeS exports…
- 15,000 Intern Jobs per year, building on the Presidential Digital Talent Program.
Buy IT, Lead IT, Promote IT…
Today, one Kenya hopes; the other Kenya wants.
Today, Kenya is the home to one of the New Seven Wonders of the World: the Masai Mara’s Wildebeast migration.
Today, Kenya is the home of world-champion Olympic runners.
But they say the best way to predict the future is to create it.
We will be the Home of African innovation. ……
If we want it hard enough.
PULSATING NEW KENYA
One Kenya leads; the other follows.
While the world was not looking, a pulsating, dynamic and innovative New Kenya is emerging under your leadership.
It’s time to choose which Kenya we want to be.
It’s time to fly.
