[kictanet] Tom Friedman

[Nik Nesbitt]

Did you get the pictures of his visit here?  How was your visit with him?
He sounded very positive having met you...

The US Ambassador and his team were extremely positive about what Tom had to
say in his article about Kenya and the prospects for this industry
developing into a major part of the regional economy.

Now we need to capitalize on this opportunity and ensure the rest of the
world knows what Kenya has to offer.

The BBC did a radio interview last night with us on the World Bank fiber
project and have already received half a dozen emails from California to
Singapore trying to understand what the subsidy could mean for their doing
business out here.  Next week a large UK paper also wants to do a story.

The World Bank posted its announcement of its subsidies to the region on its
web site on Tuesday, in case people haven't seen it yet.  All good...

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21281294~pagePK:
34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html

Thanks for all of your support
Nik

--
Nicholas A. Nesbitt
Chief Executive Officer
KenCall EPZ Ltd.
Sameer Industrial Park, Mombasa Road
P.O. Box 27507 ­ 00506
Nairobi, Kenya

+254 (721) 458.458 (mobile)
+254 (20) 66.02.101 (direct)
+254 (20) 66.02.222 (fax)

+1.703.937.8970/1 (USA line to Kenya)
+1.253.484.0006 (USA efax)
+1.914.380.9444 (USA cell)

www.kencall.com

World Bank Approves US$164.5 Million for Connectivity to Make Kenya, Burundi
and Madagascar More Competitive
Up to 25 countries* in East and Southern Africa could benefit from the
broader US$424 million Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (RCIP)


Press Release No:2007/309/AFR

In Washington, DC: Henny Rahardja
+1-202-473-4857 hrahardja at worldbank.org
In Bujumbura: Marie-Claire Nzeyimana
+257-2-2-2657 mnzeyimana at worldbank.org
In Nairobi: Peter Warutere
+254-20-322-6444 pwarutere at worldbank.org
In Antananarivo: Jocelyn Rafidinarivo
+261-20-225-6000 jrafidinarivo at worldbank.org
 
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 2, 2007 ‹ The World Bank Board of Directors approved
on March 29, an International Development Association (IDA) financing
package of US$164.5 million for Kenya, Burundi and Madagascar as the first
tranche of the US$424 million Regional Communications Infrastructure Program
(RCIP) for high-speed connectivity in East and Southern Africa.
 
The region is being held back by the prohibitive costs of international
connectivity. Businesses are unable to compete in the global economy;
university students suffer because they cannot access the Internet; and
Government agencies cannot communicate effectively with each other and their
citizens because they are not connected.
 
East and Southern Africa is the only region in the world that is not
connected to the global broadband infrastructure and accounts for less than
one percent of the world¹s international bandwidth capacity. As a result of
this Œmissing link¹, the region relies on satellite connectivity, with costs
amongst the highest in the world.
 
One Kenyan call-center entrepreneur told the World Bank Board of Directors
the region simply cannot compete. ³To put 25 agents on the phone, it will
cost us close to US$17,000 a month. Elsewhere, it will only cost US$600-900
a month,² said Nicholas Nesbitt, CEO of KenCall. ³It is absolutely
imperative that something be done right now to make bandwidth affordable.
Otherwise, we¹re going to miss a huge opportunity and people are simply
going to say that Africa is not ready for these kinds of jobs, is not ready
for business.²
 
The Board of Directors responded to the appeal and Governments¹ requests for
assistance by unanimously endorsing RCIP, which will bring affordable high
speed connectivity to as many as 25 countries* in East and Southern Africa.
The US$164.5 million first tranche of funding consists of IDA credits in the
amount of US$114.4 million to Kenya and US$30 million to Madagascar, and an
IDA grant in the amount of US$20.1 million to Burundi.
 
RCIP is an innovative example of the emphasis on regional integration, which
accounts for more than 10% of total World Bank support to Africa.
 
³Improving broadband connectivity will add tremendous public value for
Africa. Low cost, high quality communications is essential for economic
competitiveness,² said Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank Group.
³Africa is becoming more plugged in - this is very encouraging for the
continent. Our partner countries are sending a strong signal to the world
that they are open for business and ready to leap into the information age.²
 
RCIP financing of terrestrial networks will be a catalyst to attract and
maximize private sector investment in telecommunications infrastructure.
RCIP complements regional undersea cable initiatives, such as the Eastern
Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) developed by telecommunications
operators with support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and
other development partners.
 
By the end of the Program, it is expected that all capitals and major cities
in East and Southern Africa would be linked to competitively priced
high-bandwidth connectivity. This will equip Africa to trade on a level
playing field, extend education beyond the classrooms, and accelerate good
governance.

> From: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
> Reply-To: Kenya ICT Action Network - KICTANet <kictanet at kictanet.or.ke>
> Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 20:34:02 +0300 (EAT)
> To: <nnesbitt at kencall.com>
> Subject: [kictanet] Tom Friedman
> 
> 
> Dear All,
> Below article was in the New York Times.
> 
> Regards and Happy Easter
> Ndemo.
> 
> 
> April 4, 2007
> Op-Ed Columnist, New York Times
> The African Connection
> By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
> NAIROBI, Kenya
> 
> Was anybody out there checking out jobs with the U.S. post office in 2005?
> Do you remember when you called that 800 number to get details? Sure you
> do. Do you remember how the voice on the other end of the line helping you
> had this soft British accent with a slight African lilt? Do you know why?
> Because you were routed to a call center in Kenya.
> 
> So maybe you weren¹t looking for a job, but you had just bought a new
> computer. And when you turned it on, you clicked the icon for one of
> America¹s biggest Internet service providers to get broadband access. But
> you needed someone to talk you through getting it connected ‹ so you
> called that 800 number. The techie who helped you was also a Kenyan at
> that same Nairobi call center.
> It¹s called KenCall. It is located in an abandoned avocado processing
> plant, and it is the largest of Kenya¹s blooming outsourcing call centers,
> with almost 300 employees and annual revenues that
> have grown to $3.5 million since it opened three years ago. If you¹re
> surprised it¹s here, so are most of its customers.
> ³I was actually talking to someone in America who had just given birth and
> she was ordering high-speed D.S.L. for her new residence ‹ three or four
> hours after the birth,² said Nina Nyongesa, a
> 25-year-old KenCall supervisor and I.T. graduate of Nairobi University.
> ³She said to me, ŒWhere are you?¹ I said, ŒNairobi.¹ And she said, ŒAre
> you sure?¹ And she was really happy ‹ so she bought one for herself, one
> for her mother and one for her mother-in-law. So instead of making one
> sale I made three.²
> KenCall is one small reason that Kenya¹s economy grew 6 percent last year.
> Yes, Kenya still has all the ills of other African states ‹ from AIDS to
> abject poverty. But Kenya also now has a
> democratically elected government that is learning to get out of the way
> of Kenya¹s entrepreneurs and to get them the bandwidth they need to
> compete globally. It¹s way too early to declare Kenya an
> economic ³African Tiger,² but something is stirring here that bears
> watching ‹ and KenCall is emblematic of it.
> The company was started by the half-English, half-Kenyan Nicholas Nesbitt,
> his brother Eric and his brother-in-law Stephen Liggins. Nicholas Nesbitt
> and Liggins had made successful careers on
> Wall Street. But after Kenya¹s democratic elections in 2002, they decided
> to come home and see if they could do good for their country and for
> themselves by taking advantage of Kenya¹s large pool
> of educated, English-speaking talent to break into the outsourcing industry.
> 
> There was one big problem. Kenya, like the rest of East Africa, was not
> connected to any global undersea fiber-optic cable that would give it the
> cheap high-speed bandwidth of the scale needed
> by call centers. The Internet here all came via satellite, which is more
> expensive to begin with and was made even more so by the fact that the
> Kenyan state phone company had a monopoly.
> 
> In a rare move in Africa, the Kenyan government decided to give up that
> monopoly and open competition for satellite-provided bandwidth ‹ even
> though it meant laying off 6,000 government workers. The competition made
> KenCall¹s business possible. The Kenyan government is now working
> feverishly to get connected to the global fiber-optic network, via an
> undersea cable, which would make bandwidth here cheap and plentiful enough
> for all sorts of outsourcing.
> 
> KenCall opened in late 2004, taking orders for U.S. late-night TV
> commercials. Its Kenyan operators sold Yellow Page ads, security alarms
> and mortgages. But it has since grown its business to include data-entry
> for one of the premier Wall Street credit-rating firms and handling
> service calls for global banks and insurance companies. For an economy
> dependent on coffee, safaris and flowers, this is a real change of pace.
> 
> ³The concept of connecting to the outside world and attracting investors
> from the outside ‹ that has not been here before,² remarked Stephen
> Ogunde, another KenCall supervisor. KenCall¹s employees can make in a
> month what half of Kenya¹s population makes in a year: around $350. They
> get health care and free transportation.
> 
> Don¹t give up on Africa. KenCall is a reminder that with a little less
> government regulation, a little more democracy and a lot more bandwidth,
> African entrepreneurs can play this game too. ³In the
> old days, Œlandlocked¹ meant you didn¹t have a harbor,² said Mr. Nesbitt.
> ³In the new days, it means you don¹t have fiber broadband to the rest of
> the world. This whole market here is just waiting for
> that.²
> 
> 
> 
> 
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