Mr Simeon Oriko, the founder of Jamlab, with Natalie Cofield, the president of Capital City African American Chamber of Commerce in Austin, Texas. COURTESY
What you need to know:
World Economic Forum and a US lobby recognise techies for track record and leadership ability.
Three Kenyan techies have bagged global leadership positions in what is expected to further raise Nairobi’s stature as Africa’s technology hub.
Dorcas Muthoni Gachari, a software developer, was in March honoured by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as a Young Global Leader. The University of Nairobi computer science graduate was the only Kenyan who made the list of 199 young fellows from 70 countries.
WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab said the selection of the fellows recognises a track record, leadership experience, ability to overcome adversity and commitment to society.
In February, Nivi Mukherjee, founder of eLimu, an educational app and Simeon Oriko, the co-founder of tech platform Jamlab were named the pioneer fellows of the African Diaspora Fellowship (ADF) programme.
The programme is the brainchild of South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW), an annual global tech conference; and Capital City African American Chamber of Commerce (CCAACC), a Texas-based business lobby.
“Your entrepreneurial effort within the space of education and your commitment to the advancement of Kenya is to be applauded,” read the citation from the Chamber of Commerce.
CCAACC fellows get a chance to speak at a local university about emerging markets, a one-year honorary membership to the Chamber and an opportunity to host an international webinar with the organisation or its partners.
The two techpreneurs attended this year’s SXSW conference in March in Austin, Texas, getting a chance to network and learn from international corporate IT titans and developers.
“The fellowship, designed to create a bridge between Austin and Nairobi, two growing technology economies, presents a unique partnership for the leading-edge technology event,” said Natalie Cofield, chief executive of CCAACC.
Ms Gachari, Mukherjee and Mr Oriko say they will use the new status to form networks, learn from peers and borrow best practices to grow their start-ups into successful businesses.
“I hope to network and make business connections. It provides an opportunity to access people I would not be able to reach and also hear from other people and get mentorship,” Ms Gachari said in an interview with Business Daily.
A software engineer, Ms Gachari founded Openworld, a firm that specialises in developing e-government and business technology solutions, in 2004. She has built platforms for government ministries, the African Union, non-governmental organisations and SMEs.
Ms Gachari has developed ushirika.org, a cloud-based application that allows NGO staff to remotely keep track of field projects, helping to cut costs.
The Young Global Leader has also developed OpenBusiness, a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for SMEs starting from Sh500 a month. It integrates business functions such as accounting, payroll, employee records, tax returns, stock management and filings to KRA, NSSF and NHIF.
She is also the founder of Afchix, a program that mentors girls to take up careers in Information Communication and Technology (ICT) and engineering.
“We are building a mass of women engineers, role models to inspire younger women aspiring to join the engineering and computing fields.”
Ms Murkherjee and Mr Oriko are working to establish a programme between Nairobi, the Silicon Savannah and Austin, famously referred to as the Silicon Hill.
The twinning Nairobi with Austin aims at linking Kenyan designers, developers, and entrepreneurs with US counterparts to facilitate knowledge and skills transfer to improve the quality of local IT solutions.
“We met people who want to invest in here but don’t have a point of reference and lack information about the country,” Ms Mukherjee said.
Mr Oriko runs the Kuyu Project, a digital literacy initiative aimed at teaching African youth how to fully use social media and other digital tools to effect social change in their communities.
“The most notable experience for me was seeing how similar Austin and Nairobi are —the people, the culture, the ambitions and the mind-set. One subtle difference that I noticed, however, is that the local Austin technology and start-up community have a global perspective of commerce and business.”
Mr Oriko is setting sights on using new status to help the Jamlab community to gain traction in individual projects and leverage on the global network to transform tech ideas into viable businesses.
“I believe most of our start-ups and businesses don’t necessarily need funding but more customers. Working to make the connection between the two markets (and others) should be a priority,” he told Business Daily.
At a panel discussion themed ‘Teaching Cheetahs: Disruptive Education in Africa’ which explored tech innovations in the education sector in Africa, Ms Mukherjee challenged businesses and individuals to be enthusiastic.
She is the creator of eLimu, an educational app that features animations, videos, songs, music, games and quizzes. It runs on tablets and is currently being rolled out in primary schools in Kenya.
“Here was a room full of people who were not only interested in seeing what was happening in the education space in Kenya, but had ideas and a genuine enthusiasm to help us build something meaningful,” said the founder of eLimu.
