<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><br></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><br><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> LO MAMADOU <alfamamadou@hotmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> africann@afrinic.net<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thu, July 1, 2010 6:28:10 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [AfrICANN-discuss] Kenya: Country in Drive to Claim Regional IT Hub Status<br></font><br>
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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>
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