Interview: How Kenya plans to become Africa’s ICT hub by 2017
How we made it in Africa's Dinfin Mulupi finds out about Kenya's National ICT Master Plan.
The Kenyan government today launched a National ICT Master Plan ‘Connected Kenya 2017’, a plan that seeks to spur the development of 500 tier-one technology companies, the creation of 20 global innovations and 50,000 new jobs by the year 2017. Kenya also wants to become Africa’s ICT hub and have a robust industry that will generate US$2 billion dollars annually, up from the $860 million IT spending recorded in 2011. How we made it in Africa’s Dinfin Mulupi caught up with Paul Kukubo, CEO of the Kenya ICT Board, a government agency in charge of positioning Kenya as an ICT destination, to find out how feasible Kenya’s ambitions are. Below are excerpts.
Share with us some of the highlights of the National ICT Master Plan.
The plan has at its core vision that by 2017, Kenya becomes Africa’s most globally respected knowledge economy. Knowledge seems to be a central thing of this plan because the true value of ICT is knowledge. The plan is anchored on the Vision 2030. It has four strategic goals: that every citizen is connected; that Kenya becomes Africa’s ICT hub; that public services are available to all through ICT; and that Kenya will have a knowledge-based economy.
One of the goals is Kenya becoming Africa’s ICT hub. How do you intend to get there?
We are getting there. One of the key things is the Konza Technology City (a planned high-tech hub inspired by Silicon Valley), making sure we provide the facilities investors need as they come in. Number two is education. We need to continue strengthening education in ICT so that people can come here to find talent. Marketing and brand awareness is also important. We must continue to play the song of Kenya. Recently, MoDe – a Kenyan startup that offers nano-credit for pre-paid mobile phone users – received the IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year award. We are winning so many international awards that it’s almost becoming a culture and this helps strengthen our brand. We also need to continue supporting the ICT ecosystem through incubation, grants and loans to IT entrepreneurs and providing access for local companies to public sector work.
Speaking about Konza City, is the project achievable?
It will be achieved. The master planning has been done very well.
This is a multi-billion dollar project and a lot of money will go into construction. There are people who feel you could still build Silicon Savannah in Nairobi's Kibera slums by just supporting developers. Do we really need fancy buildings?
That is just a way of thinking. That is how you entrench what we call the third world mentality. How long are we going to think that Kibera is normal? We need to go to Abu Dhabi, South Africa and Singapore to realise that it is not normal. People shouldn’t live like that. Part of getting Kenya to the next stage is to start setting standards and aspirations of people. Konza is already unlocking so many opportunities in the private sector. It is creating linkages with the financial sector, construction sector, health sector, education sector and with development partners. Institutions that serve the middle class and the poor should actually be built to the best and highest standards, not the other way round.
The success of Konza City is heavily dependent on foreign investors. Could Kenyans end up being just spectators?
There is a fear of that happening. The foreign investment will be good for the economy though, that is for sure. You can never have too many foreign investors. When a country reaches that level, it is doing extremely well, look at Singapore, Australia and Dubai. It is a good thing. But it doesn’t mean that local companies should be marginalised. There are vehicles being used to enable Kenyan participation such as the real estate investment trusts (REITs). There will be Kenyan participation in real estate development, capacity development and actual technology companies that will move to Konza. So we will have Kenyan participation across the board. Kenyans need to realise that the project itself is demanding of us to take up our place. We have Kenyans in the diaspora who can come in and they are showing a lot of interest.
So what is the government doing to encourage Kenyan participation given that some CEOs of leading local technology companies are criticising the project?
They will come round. I think criticism is okay. We are doing a lot in creating awareness. One area being looked at is structuring financial incentives for local participation. The financial instruments are already being discussed. The second issue is capacity building. The Kenya ICT Board has launched a local incubator and issued grants to entrepreneurs. We have also been doing training and we are working with universities to improve their training. There are two ways to participate in the project: you must have the skill, or money.
What challenges should Kenya expect before Konza City becomes a reality?
Some of the challenges will be politicians keeping focused on it, especially after the elections. They will need to stay the course and not waver. The amount of political will it takes to keep to a project of that size is very important. Fundraising, to get the money that is needed and also getting the right international partners in terms of investors, will continue to be an issue. This can be surmounted by how we package it and right now Kenya is in a very good place.
Upon complete implementation of the master plan in 2017, what will Kenya’s ICT industry look like?
We will have about 20 new innovations that are globally propagated and 100 local. We want an ICT sector that generates $2 billion into the economy. We want 500 ICT companies that are tier-one and 50,000 new jobs. We will see 60% automation of all SMEs, a 25%-plus impact on GDP and 50% productivity gain for the ICT sector.
A lot of these goals depend on other people. How will you ensure entrepreneurs, for instance, align to this plan so that we can get those 500 tier-one companies and create 50,000 jobs?
It is all about education, re-training and skills. Some of it is not us as a government. Some of it is just working with colleges and universities to ensure they focus on the right curriculum. Some of it is just introducing new courses like data science and establishing research labs.
Entrepreneurs may be good at writing code, but tier-one companies are built using business skills. That is still a weak area here, any plans to address this?
That is not a problem just here, it is a problem all over the world. That too can be taught in schools or through mentorships, incubation and partnerships. Even on the money issue; the early stage funding environment in Kenya has improved substantially in the last five years and you can see the interest from investors.
How much will the implementation of the master plan cost and how will it be financed?
[It will cost] billions of dollars. That is what you need to create jobs. Jobs are not created without spending money. The plan will be financed through a combination of [a] public and private sector effort, it’s just about alignment. If you dig a ditch which nobody needs, you don’t create a job, but when you dig a hole to bury an undersea cable, then you create a job, because cable gives you bandwidth.