[kictanet] Dreams of a cosy career that turned into a nightmare

Tue Nov 20 22:36:45 EAT 2012

Yes Phares. There was mischief. It appears KRA (the commissioners involved) leaked the innovation, and then buying back their own innovation.
I hope Nation/Business Daily will follow up on this story. It will be interesting to see how the matter will be handled both by our court, and also at KRA. 

From: pkariuki at gmail.com
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 20:01:08 +0300
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Dreams of a cosy career that turned into a nightmare
CC: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
To: ggithaiga at hotmail.com

Perhaps I misread the articles (there are two of them), but it seems that the KRA commissioners wanted to tender for a system that was internally available (the innovator simply wanted to secure his employment). They effectively wanted to tender for the system that the employee had developed (and KRA won an award for deployment) whilst using IP from the employee, effectively paying a third party for the employees initial innovation. 

If someone is to get paid for the innovation (given that now KRA suddenly had the budget to pay for the system), it's only fair that the person who built the system gets remunerated for the system instead of a predatory third party and I think that's why the employee sued. The email excerpts are rather revealing, there was mischief afoot. 

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Baiju Shah <baiju at tele2media.com> wrote:

Hi Ali/Grace,

 We should not forget that KRA provided platform and the time for Samson to develop the innovation. Here is the case of shared IPR and Samson needs to be rewarded by KRA in light of the exceptional work he undertook and also given the right recognition. This sort of issue should have been managed by the Human Resources department properly, it is really a shame that it has gone to the courts, it is a serious loss of momentum for both the parties involved.

 Best Regards,

Baiju ShahManaging Partner

Telemedia Africa. 

From: kictanet [mailto:kictanet-bounces+baiju=tele2media.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Ali Hussein

Sent: 20 November 2012 14:26
To: Baiju Shah
Cc: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Dreams of a cosy career that turned into a nightmare

 Grace

I guess that's the question the courts will answer as I believe this has already been taken up by lawyers for Samson. 

http://www.nation.co.ke/Features/smartcompany/Dreams-of-a-cosy-career/-/1226/1623712/-/qdkj18z/-/index.html

I think though the bigger question is how are we preparing our young brilliant minds for the rough and tumble of starting and building sustainable businesses? 

Ali Hussein 

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 12:37 PM, Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga at hotmail.com> wrote:

AliDoes the innovation belong to the employer considering it may have been developed to suit the needs of the employer? This might be open to various interpretations by different lawyers. 

 This caught my attention:

"According to the letter, KRA has used the technovation and communicated it to a third party, although the law states that this entitles the technovator to “a remuneration which shall be fixed by mutual agreement between the technovator and the enterprise.

This is because KRA went ahead to submit the system to an international innovation fair, where it won an award. It has since publicised the award, even on its website".

http://www.nation.co.ke/Features/smartcompany/KRA-caught-up-in-Sh1-billion-tender-row/-/1226/1623708/-/item/2/-/rpgfcm/-/index.html

From: ali at hussein.me.ke
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:58:01 +0300
Subject: [kictanet] Dreams of a cosy career that turned into a nightmare

CC: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke
To: ggithaiga at hotmail.com

 Listers This is an interesting case study of the link between employer/employee relations on Intellectual Property. Who owns the IP when you invent/innovate while working at a company and the invention/innovation is directly linked to the work you have been hired to do?

 IN SUMMARYWhen Mr Samson Ngengi beat thousands of applicants to land the coveted position at the tax agency in December 2009, the graduate of Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (JKUAT) had one thing on his mind; to ensure that he gets absorbed into the job

Mr Ngengi came up with an innovation that links plot boundaries and location, ownership, and building details as well as tax status of a taxpayer as a single view in a computer application, in an effort to give KRA an insight into how to get its pound of flesh from the lucrative real estate sector

His innovation was named the Geo-spatial Revenue Collection Information System (GEOCRIS). But little did he know that he would, early in his career, find himself fighting his employer

 Is there a strong case here to also focus our Techpreneurs on the 'softer' stuff of turning their ideas/products etc into viable businesses? You know the boring stuff...the nuts and bolts of building an enduring business? Protecting your business idea, building a business system to deliver on the values opposition, sales, legal standing (company registration) etc..

 What would have happened if Samson had decided to quite his job at KRA and develop his idea independently?

 There has been lots of news of late about the hype that has become known as 'Silicon Savannah'. It would be sad if the hype is not concurrently followed by serious efforts to build an ecosystem to support all these brilliant (and not so brilliant) ideas and turn them into strong enduring businesses. 

 For every Cellulant there are maybe tens of others that will never see the light of day. 

 There is a case here for a new type of Multi-stakeholder intervention - between government, private sector (VC, Companies etc) and Not For Profits. I suspect this is already happening in some form or other. More focus is required.

 Ali HusseinCEO | 3mice interactive media Ltd

Principal | Telemedia Africa Ltd 

+254 773/713 601113 Sent from my iPad 

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Warm Regards,

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