[kictanet] Kenyan BPO fails to snap up the subsidy, why?

Mon Feb 1 21:30:50 EAT 2010

Dear Paul,

Thank you so much for these very importants highlights.. Indeed, I would be
speaking for many on the forum that such debriefing is highly welcome on a
regular basis 
as you now propose.

I would be concerned with a couple of issues, as pertains the direction the
Board is taking:-

*	The Digitial Village Project ( Pasha) -  it looks like the digital
villages are taking quite some time, to "take off", the ground. Just over
the last Dec Holidays, I was back in the village hoping to see some real
digitization back there - and the entire length and breadth it looks like no
one has ever heard of this project..! Is the Board's outreach effort really
getting to the far-flung areas, because I sense these are the most
disenfranchized areas. They need to be hooked up. What is the approach the
Board is taking to reach all areas in the country..? Is there a follow up
programme, to have those who have been trained get help to start off? If the
first batch of trainees is about over 1,000, then certainly we need to have
in place now, more than 5 pilot projects now countrywide. Does the Board
need help to get the info out there, in order to roll out these villages
much faster...? I believe many of us on this forum would be interested to
get involved, especially when kept abreast what is happening. Bridging the
digital divide underpins the very fundamentals that will help realize the
vision 2030
*	Outsourcing:- What is the official postion/policy - Especially ICT
Board, on procurement of Open Source solutions?  Is it not cost effective,
for government going this direction...? What decisive steps are being
undertaken to work towards effecting this? Is the Board involved in shaping
up procurement policy..?
*	ICT security/National Cyber Security:- I have not seen it covered
anywhere in the 5 pillars. I strongly suggest that this becomes your Pillar
no.6. I suppose we are currently faced with such vulnerability and exposure
than ever before, now with the international Fibre at our doorstep. While we
broaden up the broadband takeup for government, one of the key things I
suppose we need to take care of is security for such sensitive
infrastructure. We possibly may need to come up with a national cyber
security policy & standards and enforce across all Govt. agencies. It would
be good at least to start from somewhere, and build upwards.

Regards,
Harry

  _____  

From: kictanet-bounces+harry=comtelsys.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=comtelsys.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of Paul Kukubo
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 8:16 PM
To: harry at comtelsys.co.ke
Cc: ke users; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenyan BPO fails to snap up the subsidy, why?

Listers

ICT Board Progress Report and Status update

As a major implementer of government ICT projects I shall accept that the
ICT Board has not communicated as effectively as we should have and I am
therefore not surprised to read some asking what we have been up to. I
accept full responsibility for this.

I have effected a change in approach effective today to widen communication
from the board to include project progress details rather than reporting
what we consider major achievements. Our previous approach was developed
before we increased our staff count and beefed up our skills which we have
now concluded.

I will be brief and yes, this is being brief!

The board has divided its projects into five pillars as follows each headed
by a Project Manager.

1.	Digital Inclusion. These are projects concerned with providing
access to the masses. Specifically this includes,  

*	KENET bandwidth support project (for providing universities
bandwidth, so far 64 tertiary institutions in Kenya have been connected). 

*	Upgrading university networks where they were not optimal and
purchasing and providing 200mb of bandwidth. This has resulted in reliable
broadband availability to all students in public and private universities. 

*	Board has initiated the development of a world class network
operating centre to manage this network 

*	Digital Villages Pasha Project. I provided an update on this in an
earlier email 

*	Laptops for universities project, which is aimed to making it
affordable for students to purchase laptops. This project is currently
awaiting approvals to be formerly launched. 

2.	Egovernment Shared Services. Working with the egovernment
secretariat and the ministry of local government, the aim is to provide a
shared services platform for the delivery of key government applications
that are run government-wide, including financial systems, HR, procurement.
The status here is that we are concluding the consultancy award. 

*	Other projects in progress include 

*	The development of the government network operational centre 

*	The migration of government telephone systems to an IP based unified
communicated system 

*	ICT Board fundraising efforts have resulted in a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation towards the support of shared services development
for local government. Details of this will be made available once the
project has commenced. 

3.	Egovernment Applications. This project relates mainly to projects to
digitize key government registries, 

o    Operationalisation of the Outsourcing Business by Governments: The
State Law Office. The Board has been supporting the State Law Office in
Digitising and eventually automating its operations: To this end, the
project to digitise the entire company registry has already been awarded,
and the contractors are mobilising teams. The immediate benefits we are
seeing are:

.         A total of 300 NEW direct jobs in the BPO sector will be created
for the digitisation project alone.

.         Operationalisation of the Outsourcing Business by Governments
through mainstreaming of documents conversion

o    Broadband Internet for Government

.         A total of 80MB of Fibre -based Internet connectivity has been
delivered to the government through an initiative by the Board. All the head
office government ministries in Nairobi are enjoying this capacity, and
there are plans to take the same to the entire provincial and district
offices through the National Fibre Backbone Infrastructure. This is a first

o    Capacity Building

.         As a partnership with Microsoft, the Head of Security for
Microsoft Mr Roger Halbheer will be giving talk on IT Security Best practice
to stakeholders. He is already in town and the Board has organised a
specific session for GOK officers on 2/2/2010.

.         As a partnership with Oracle East Africa, The ICT Board will be
conducting a 2 day detailed workshop on shared services implementation for
leading government officials.

.         As a partnership with Microsoft, the ICT Board is completing its
20 seat eservices training centre at the new offices under completion on the
12th floor of Teleposta Towers.

.         As a partnership with another leading global player, the Board
will be setting up a state of the art video conferencing facility to be used
by the BPO and other players in international marketing to minimise
marketing costs. It will also be used for training. 

o    Pilot Project for computerised digital land database

.         A partnership programme with a leading global player is working
with the Board and Ministry of to establish a Google Maps enabled Digital
Land Database. Shortly we shall be announcing the outcome of the pilot
project of a web based digital lands platform as a precursor to the national
mapping and digitisation exercise

o    The Digitisation of the Judiciary

.         This is ongoing.

4.    BPO/ITES. (It enabled services) The Board has recognised that
promoting this sector includes widening its definition to include all the
organizations that provide information and communications based services
employing mainly IT based skills. The Board has therefore brought into focus
the growing and highly entrepreneurial local software based business.

.         Software Certification. We are reviewing bids by local and
international firms to establish a software certification standard for Kenya
and certify local software.

.         BPO Centre of excellence project

1.    We have communicated this in the media before. We are concluding
awarding a contract to a consortium of consultants to establish a BPO
training centre of excellence for Kenya as part of developing the skills
base. This compliments private sector efforts.

.         BPO ITES marketing

1.    This is an area under review to focus not so much on deals for
individual businesses here (business to business) but rather on targeting
blue chip global players to set up in Kenya. This approach has been
necessitated by speaking to various contemporaries around the world on the
dollar return of attending all the various outsourcing events. In any event,
there is a discussion on-going to substantially increase the resources
allocated to these 2 components and more details will be availed.

2.    Last year we supported Kenya BPO society to attend the following 3
events. We did minimise our spend per event in order to manage our budget.

1.    Birmingham Call Centre awards

2.    The South Africa BPO week

3.    ITU ICT World Forum

.         BPO ITES Capacity building.

1.    We continue to provide the sector with training in standard, exposure
to best practices and opportunities for partnership (such as the forthcoming
ICT Board sponsored tour of South Africa's BPO sector in March 2010)

.         Multinational partnerships. Many of the largest outsourcers in the
world are already represented in Kenya in other capacities; some of them are
large banks, large IT firms, and large oil companies. We speak to their
principles regularly to pitch our value proposition of Kenya as an
attractive emerging destination. One large IT firm (not be named, has just
opened up a 700 seat technical support centre in Tunisia for French speaking
global support, they are interested in setting up one here in Kenya. The
gestation period for large deals such as this is a minimum of 18 months from
conception to 'ground breaking' 

5.    Local Content Development. Having recruited a new project manager for
this in January 2010, work has commenced to take forward this project. 

o    The Grants Manual that will be the basis for the ICT Board grant
disbursement is nearing completion and we expect to launch our call for
proposals in due course

o    We have partnered with a major global player on capacity development
for local IT and content development sector capacity building to include
training, and skills development. An announcement will be made in due
course.

o     Our new content project head is reviewing the www.tandaa.co.ke with a
view to upgrading it to provide a meeting point for Kenyan digital content
providers

Towards its internal capacity, the Board has contracted Deloitte Consulting
to provide Project Management implementation framework for the Board and the
department of egovernment with the following objectives

1.    Skills upgrade in project management with an emphasis on certification
of Key staff t implement multiple projects

2.    The establishment of a national project management system for
government ICT projects in line with international best practices.

Further to this update, the ICT board has concluded the development of its 3
year strategic plan and will be inviting stakeholders for a validation
workshop in last week of Feb once venue details are finalized.

www.ict.go.ke

Ends

Paul Kukubo
Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board
PO Box 27150 - 00100
Nairobi, Kenya

12th Floor, Teleposta Towers Koinange Street

Tel +254 20 2089061, +254 20 2211960 

Fax: +254 20 2211962
Cell: + 254 735 180001

website: www.ict.go.ke
skype: kukubopaul
googletalk: pkukubo
____________________
Vision: Kenya becomes a top ten global ICT hub

Mission: To champion and actively enable Kenya to adopt and exploit ICT,
through promotion of partnerships, investments and infrastructure growth for
socio economic enrichment 
Sent from Nairobi, Kenya 

On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Rebecca Wanjiku <rebeccawanjiku at yahoo.com>
wrote: