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<H1 class=headline>Kenya: Country in Drive to Claim Regional IT Hub Status</H1>
<P class=reporter>Harry Hare</P>
<P class=date>1 July 2010</P>
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There seem to be a quiet but strong movement positioning Kenya as a regional IT powerhouse.<BR>
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This is the message that I picked up from the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) breakfast meeting with leaders of the Ministry of Information and Communication last week.<BR>
The meeting was organised by KEPSA to debrief the non-IT private sector players on the ministry's programmes and plans.<BR>
And listening to Bitange Ndemo, the permanent secretary in the ministry, one could not help but be pleased by the enthusiasm, commitment and focus that seems to be taking shape.<BR>
It all starts with Vision 2030, which identifies information technology as a strategic pillar together with agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, and financial services.<BR>
Now, note the difference here, its no longer business process outsourcing as it was originally.<BR>
It's Information and Communication Technologies.<BR>
Now, according to Dr Ndemo, a lot of work has already gone in and the Ministry is on its way to achieving its Vision 2030 targets and in some cases already ahead of schedule.<BR>
I cannot confirm or deny this. What I know though, is that the ministry has steered quite a number of projects that could fall into the Vision 2030 scheme of things.<BR>
First, infrastructure. There has been tremendous improvement in the development of ICT infrastructure in the country and we are already seeing the difference.<BR>
Connectivity has ceased to be an issue, especially in urban centres.<BR>
Connectivity prices have gone down considerably, and these will continue to fall as more people start using the abundant bandwidth that ISPs are holding.<BR>
Mobile Internet has grown to some unbelievable levels in the past one year, exciting the mobile operators to invest heavily in their data products.<BR>
Dr Ndemo said his ministry has changed strategy on the digital villages project and has partnered with private sector entities including Safaricom and Cisco to roll these out.<BR>
Already more than 500 digital villages have been rolled out, according to the PS, and the target is to have a digital village in each village.<BR>
So, in terms of infrastructure and connectivity, we seem to be in a good place.<BR>
The only issue here is what feeds into that infrastructure.<BR>
And this seems to be the biggest headache that the ministry and its agencies seem to be grappling with.<BR>
But what wowed me was the declaration that the ministry was focused on making Kenya the regional ICT hub and reclaim the position from Rwanda.<BR>
With good infrastructure, an able workforce, good policies, I think this is chicken feed.<BR>
There is so much buzz in the air that all the ministry needs to do is flick a switch, and boom... digital Kenya, comes to light.<BR>
<EM>Hare is a director at African eDevelopment Resource Centre, a training and consulting firm based in Nairobi</EM><BR>
<EM></EM> <BR>
<EM>Source : Business Daily</EM><BR> <br /><hr />Hotmail : une messagerie fiable avec la protection anti-spam performante de Microsoft <a href='https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969' target='_new'>Inscrivez-vous</a></body>
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