Kenya riding on the right track to harness power of technology

The challenge of leadership is to obtain extra ordinary results from ordinary people. This involves creating a clear picture of the future that can fire up the potential within the masses.

It also inspires the people to take the necessary action towards achieving the intended results. Market Talk has always highlighted the need to take action as a necessary ingredient for business success. The saying that strategy without action is hallucination is applicable in this case.

My recent piece on county branding advocated for the governors to be alert about the many benefits of branding. Mary Kimonye the CEO of Brand Kenya Board also followed with a piece indicating that the Kenya national brand master plan emphasises on the need for county branding.

To demonstrate how some of these things work, the emerging status of Kenya as an ICT destination comes to mind.

(Read: Morocco to sign trade agreement with Kenya)

You may wonder why Kenya has been so successful in achieving its new ICT status. Market Talk sought to get some answers by taking a look at the Kenya ICT Board Progress Report. The report was released recently marking five years after the board was formed.

One of the notable highlights was the Kenya’s vision for ICT which is to become a top 10 global ICT hub. Developed five years ago, the vision must have informed various initiatives to the benefit of the ICT sector in Kenya.

The ICT master plan is in line with the Kenya’s Vision 2030 blue print in that it aimed at building an ecosystem that would drive the use of new technology to improve the living standards of all Kenyans.

The value added economy envisaged in the Vision 2030 will be ICT- driven compared to the traditional economy driven by brick and mortar commodities.

Market Talk advocates for the need for high thinking in order for you to achieve high impact. Developing the vision and other strategic statement is the thinking part. The rubber meets the road when it comes to execution.

Some of the main actions that have made a difference in five years include the laying of three submarine cables connecting Kenya to the rest of the world.

This has resulted to an over ten-fold reduction in international connectivity cost from $7,500 per month for 2MB per second to $650 per month in 2011.The volume of communication has already grown by more than 300 times over the same period.

There was also the launch of open data that put most of the public data at the touch of a button for the public to access it. This was a first in the region.

Last year, IBM opened the first research lab in Kenya which is the first in Africa and the 12th in the world. Recently, we also saw Microsoft offer to support the laptop for schools project with a model that would create many jobs in every county while building capacity for IT support services.

The above achievements and others that may not be mentioned are a testimony of the country’s ability to harness its potential. It appears that Kenya will achieve its vision to be a top 10 ICT hub before 2030. What’s your ICT vision?

The writer is the marketing director of SBO Research. E-mail: [email protected], Twitter @bngahu