<div dir="ltr">I never really understand this line of critique. <div><br></div><div>Kenya is only the 32nd largest country in the world, the 84th largest economy, ranks 121st in ease of doing business and does not facilitate easy access to work permits for skilled foreigners.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population</a><br></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)</a><br>
</div><div><a href="http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/kenya/">http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/kenya/</a><br></div><div><br></div><div>Why would one expect Kenyan companies to be able to compete with the international players with these statistics? </div>
<div><br></div><div>People always talk about how there are local companies that are at this level, but I don't see any Kenyan ICT companies with thousands of engineers and multi-billion dollar market caps like the ones in this post. Who else is going to do large government contracts at a globally competitive calibre?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Don't get me wrong, I know exactly how wasteful these contracts can be and New York is no stranger to bloated IT implementations. Nonetheless, these big projects can't just be done by a 3 year old 10 person shop either. The solution to that problem is to hire better best of breed companies like ThoughtWorks to train up high quality teams of government employees so that each department has their own internal capacity, not to simply focus on building up more of a local contractor base.</div>
<div><br></div><div>-Adam</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>---</div><div>OpenStack for Africa: <a href="http://signup.kili.io" target="_blank">http://signup.kili.io</a></div><div>
<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">Musings: <a href="https://twitter.com/varud" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/varud</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">About Adam: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcnelson</a></span><br>
</div></div></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 3:58 PM, Rebecca Wanjiku <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rebeccawanjiku@yahoo.com" target="_blank">rebeccawanjiku@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><div style="font-size:12pt;font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif"><div><span><br></span></div><div></div><div> <span style="line-height:18px;text-align:left;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-size:13px;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">This week, the talk is about Connected Kenya Summit. There are more than 400 private and public sector folks to discuss ways to improve Kenya. The summit has cost more than Ksh 50 million.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom:15px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:18px;text-align:left"><span style>The ICT Board may not have raised the whole amount, maybe less than sh 8 million. The majority of the money is from sponsors. Look at the link on sponsors page of Connected Kenya, what do you
see?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom:15px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:18px;text-align:left"><span style>These are mostly international companies? How do they make money?</span></div>
<div>Read more......</div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif"><br></div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">
<a href="http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/kenyas-connected-summit-heavily-funded-by-international-tech-giants/" target="_blank">http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/2013/05/kenyas-connected-summit-heavily-funded-by-international-tech-giants/</a><br>
</div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif"><br></div><div style="font-style:normal;font-size:16px;background-color:transparent;font-family:'times new roman','new york',times,serif">
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