[kictanet] Kenya ICT Sector Stakeholder Public Forum (was Re: Legislation and Discipline & Ethics

[Mike Theuri]

Aki,

Fortunate or unfortunate policy and politics go hand in hand, if politicians
do not follow through by implementing policy on behalf of the public that
they serve, then policy itself is a non starter. I would be hesistant before
painting with a broad brush posts you allude to as belonging to dreamers,
despite differences in opinion, most on this forum tend to speak from first
hand experiences. Some of the initatives reffered to here are real examples,
did not come up overnight, but have been in the works for a number of years
now and have hit policy stumbling blocks. Sometimes policy reformulation has
to encompass more than just one sector's policy, one may have the best text
book ICT policy taxpayers can fund and then go on to encounter obstacles
with investment and planning policies or with the public's employees who on
their own volition may not report to work to formulate a policy into law:

http://www.centralbank.go.ke/downloads/media_releases/Kenyanabroad.pdf

 # 1, Due to brain drain, there are many Kenyan ICT professionals residing
outside the country, a thriving and competitive local ICT industry is likely
to reverse this with time, new market entrants such as Google, new
infrastructure ie undersea cables are likely to make the ICT industry more
attractive, salaries in ICT outside of Kenya are comparatively and
significantly higher. Rather than export manpower, the industry should be
seeking it as intellectual capital is key to ICT development.

#2, If Mpesa counts, then it is one such technology, however it has been
revealed in some quarters that this is Vodafone's IP. Even if it didn't
count as Kenyan owned, it had its first successful runs within the country
and is now being "exported" elsewhere.

#4 Skunkworks would be a good resource for this question, there are many
talented local developers some of whom have come up with complex inhouse
applications. Given that these are likely to be inhouse or specific to a
project/client the likelihood of any repeatable export is low.

Kenyan Linux? the best stab at this would be at our universities, however
are our universities equipped and funded well enough to carry out major R&D
activity? We have a long way before we can competitively engage in ICT
exports, what would be wrong with offering incentives for investors to set
up a chip manufacturing facility on condition that it is done on the basis
of a JV with support included for part local ownership? Those conditions are
the "protections" that are being advocated atleast from my perspective,
protectionism does not necessarily mean "lock out".


On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 6:36 PM, aki <aki275 at googlemail.com> wrote:

>  I'd like to attend the meet but unfortuantely will be away till early
> september. Hopefully we should be able to read about the meet.
>
> This foreigner bashing issue is getting boring, un-realistic and some posts
> seem to be more about dreamers ( or even politics ) than the actual matter.
> From a technology and ICT policy view :
>
> 1) What can kenya export to the region/rest of the world in ICT? If its
> man-power, there's a glut of highly skilled and experienced ICT
> professionals worldwide. Unless they want to work for less.
>
> 2) Has kenya come up with some super ICT product/technology that is
> competitive globally?
>
> 3) When was the last time kenya exported a simple 4 pin micro-processor (
> that was designed in the 1950's )?
>
> 4) Has any smart kenyan written and exported a simple ERP system, let alone
> an operating system?
>
> The list is end less.
>
> A simple example : South Africa gave africa its open source name i.e Linux
> Ubuntu ( Mark Shuttleworth – Founder, Ubuntu ). Where is a kenyan linux ? At
> best, most kenyans download and re-configure this Ubuntu.
>
> Until we keep importing ICT technologies, we are stuck with the brains that
> come with them. To protect local ICT industry and ICT jobs, where is the
> industry itself? What are we protecting?
>
> As a start, can anyone please provide export details of kenya's ICT sector?
>
>
> Rgds,
>
> Aki.
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