[kictanet] Vision 2030: ICT and Other Sectors Converged (Day 2)

Fri Dec 16 18:31:43 EAT 2011

Dear Phares,

Thanks for your comments. Artificial currency manipulation is not the way to
go nor can we prevent cost of labour rising with increasing standards of
living and a growing middle class. What we have to do for the IT Enabled
Sector is to constantly move up the value chain (i.e. higher end IT services
such as software development) which is already beginning to happen.
Additionally, we will need to leverage the various advantages we have in
location and preferred hub in Africa. The name of the game has got to be
productivity and competitiveness.

I also concur that we need to support and promote our own but that will
require a concerted effort to elevate our quality levels to global standards
across the board and also for us to develop a resilient innovative culture.
One of the things we are trying to do is to encourage the government to
source local software products and BPO services, while also ensuring we
engage global standards consultancy to ascertain we keep up with global
developments. It's a delicate balancing act which Dr. Ndemo is undertaking!

Mugo

 <http://www.vision2030.go.ke/> logo.jpg

Mugo Kibati

Director General

Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariat

KUSCCO Centre, 2nd Floor - Upper Hill

PO Box 52301 - 00200, Nairobi

Email: mugo at vision2030.go.ke

www.vision2030.go.ke

From: kictanet-bounces+mugo=vision2030.go.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+mugo=vision2030.go.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of Phares Kariuki
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:36 AM
To: Mugo Kibati
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Vision 2030: ICT and Other Sectors Converged (Day 2)

My queries are below:

When it comes to Economics, we are lagging behind. We had a projected growth
rate of 10%, however the World Bank estimates that we will (on the upside)
have economic growth of 5% in 2012.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/KENYAEXTN/0,,co
ntentMDK:22600594~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:356509,00.html, not
sure how the 2030 secretariat is handling this. 

On the economic pillar, I have some issues with the BPO sector. As we
approach 2030, our competitiveness will depend on either a weaker currency
or somehow reducing our cost of labour (China currently artificially
prevents it's currency from weakening to remain competitive in exports). How
do we ensure that our growth does not kill the very sector we are trying to
grow? 

We also need to ingrain a culture of eating our own dogfood, growing Kenya
as a market for Kenyan produce (e.g. What we have done with tea). How can we
spur production of GSM Infrastructure, have policy that supports local
software as opposed to imported software (use of open platforms would save
this country a few billion USD every year) e.g. It may cost more to maintain
an Open Source software platform (e.g. Ubuntu), but it actually is cheaper
than buying MS (basically, the money is kept in our local ecosystem,
creating more employment for our IT graduates who maintain the system
anyway), Belgium has actually implemented the model... We also have a model
being piloted in the EU, the Living Labs concept,
http://www.openlivinglabs.eu/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_lab,
which can be used for community level innovation. 

The latest report by the ICT Board estimates total ICT expenditure at 700M.
If we can prevent the outflow of a lot of this spend (in open information
systems that have equivalent standards) we have the double edged sword of
perfecting our developer ecosystem whilst saving the country in general a
fortune... 

On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga at hotmail.com>
wrote:

Thanks Bwana Kibati for your well articulated responses. As you can see,
your responses have raised further queries on energy from Brainiac and we
look forward to your responses. 

A great point you raise on the fact that changing our value systems must be
a national collective effort if we are going to have social transformation.
We can have all the infrastructure but if we do not have values, then there
might not be much meaning to Kenyans. 

Barrack, Solomon and Harry, you now have it from Mr. Kibati. 

Harry, I do hope that you will take on the challenge to present the Vision
2030 secretariat with a concept on energy distribution. This will be a great
outcome of this debate and I am sure Brainiac and other listers may want to
join you. 

Barrack, i think this is your opportunity to influence. Is it possible to
suggest how Vision 2030 can influence national values using ICTs? Tusingojee
serikali...:)

As we reflect on the responses, we also move on to Day 2. 

The focus is on the three pillars of Vision 2030.  The vision is grounded on
three  piilars and we will look at the first one which is the economic
pillar.

The Economic pillar seeks to improve the prosperity of all regions of the
country and all Kenyans by achieving Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth
rate by 2012.   <http://www.vision2030.go.ke/index.php/pillars>
http://www.vision2030.go.ke/index.php/pillars 

The Medium Term Plan (2008-2012 identifies six targetted priority sectors
namely tourism, agriculture, wholesale and retail trade, manufacturing, IT
enabled services and financial services. 

 Over to you listers. Please feel free to still raise concerns on the vision
or on Mr. Kibati's responses too.

Sasa basi wakilisheni!.

Rgds

Grace
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Warm Regards,

Phares Kaboro Kariuki

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