I republish here a wrote to the kictanet mailing list on the whole debate about the various agencies in Government. I give a perspective only from my position as the CEO of the Kenya ICT Board www.ict.go.ke. I draw references from the recent 2nd Connected Gov summit/workshop in Mombasa. My team is preparing the final conference report for public consumption and this is not an attempt to extract a report.

The public sector is busy transforming in a way that matters to the common citizen, and in a way that will long term impact.

As an example, Public sector leaders presented 5 interesting case studies in government automation at the just ended connected government workshop (all slides and photos on www.ict.go.ke/connectedgov).

Kenya Revenue Authority on their progress since inception on automation, By their IT Head Mr Saina

The automation of the Company registry including the initial reorganization of the registry, the on-going digitization and future service targets for citizens benefit. Presentation by Mr Wanjuki Muchemi, Solicitor General

The Integrated Population Registry System, presented by both the PS Immigrations Mr Emmanuel Kisombe and his team. Of note here is the role this would play in giving the government a ’single point of truth’ of the citizen.

The on-going automation of the Kenya Medical Supplies Agency (KEMSA). Presented by the Director KEMSA

The Government Data Centre, presented by John Sergon Ag Director E Government.

Private sector was surprised by how committed and well thought and these projects are. These are just examples and they illustrate a government committed to laying the foundation for better citizen services.

Those projects, when combined with the Government’s role in TEAMs, the just commenced shared services project, the project to digitize the judiciary and the Ministry of Lands point to clear priorities. Private sector should align themselves around the opportunities presented by government. ( I cannot stop preaching this).

Vision 2030 Director General provided an update on the work to develop a national value proposition proposed to anchored around Kenya’s core strength as a hub and a centre of entrepreneurship and innovation within Africa.

Indeed in his wrap up, PS Dr Ndemo re-iterated the level of opportunity this all represented, but also stressed that there was still work to be done to get to where we want to get to.

While there can be no shortage of ideas on how the government can and should be structured the debate could be enriched by discussion around where greater co-operation could break down silos and the role private sector might play. Indeed PS Ndemo pointed this issue out during the Prime Minister’s Round Table recently. Private Sector, Civil Society and Academia add value by providing case studies of successes and failures locally with IT deployments, how the common citizen may be better served, even within the current reality. Good examples of successes include Safaricom’s roll out 3G services even in very remote parts of Kenya to enable citizens have better broadband experience, Cisco is rolling out training in their Net Academies to enrich the digital villages concept by enabling training in rural communities and Oracle is investing in the capacity of IT leaders both government and private sector, to understand how to deploy complex technologies that are necessary, in order that we have simplified IT access. (as you know there is always complex systems behind simplified access. If you doubt that, try rolling out a WIMAX network, or running a BPO firm.).

Some private sector participant observed to me that there might be a trend perhaps among a few on always putting forward suggestions without knowledge on what is on the ground, always proposing alternatives and not building on ideas and listening without internalization. While there is no harm in this, I would suggest a greater role for private sector, civil society and academia. These sectors could use their constituencies (if these are professional bodies, or associations, or working groups) to create forums for discourse on the issues and provide leadership and guidance, that is seen to be drawn from the constituencies themselves. The ICT Board interacts with many stakeholders and indeed many of them are also themselves looking for a suitable professional home. (be it the CIO Forum, KIFF, TESPOK, Kictanet, Skunkworks, Mobile Monday, Mobile Value Added Service Providers, the BPO sector, the systems intergrators, the Multinationals Forum, Pasha Trainees. They have diverse needs. Before the town hall meeting, my team could provide a brief summary of our observation in interacting with all them. Indeed in doing the rounds, we have not covered many of them. They are many..

It is entrepreneurs who will build a true ICT sector, one business at a time. Fortunately we have plenty of them in Kenya. Many who seek guidance and counsel on where to direct their energies. There are some who believe IT is fibre optic and others still in the ‘buy ICT equipment and sell mode”. We are always encouraging them at forums such as the Tandaa Conferences and the Mobile Boot camp to widen their view into applications, solutions, project management, consultancy, new media development (animation, web marketing, mobile marketing) etc. This requires concerted effort. During the Connected Gov workshop, we showcased animations developed by Home Boys Studios in Kenya using local talent (who had no prior animation training). These animations are being shown on UK TV. Local companies like Symbiotic, Cellulant gave case studies of the challenges and opportunities entrepreuners face, and Seven Seas a large Kenyan system integrator demonstrated how the government could deploy a digital dashboard and how partnering with Safaricom, they have developed  capacity building program to train for IT.

One last observation is that as ICT becomes more sophisticated, perhaps we can look at the role of the CIO and the CTO within both private sector and public sector structures. On this score, a few private sector firms in Kenya provide examples of ideal IT governance structure and we all could welcome them to share their experiences.

A friend of mine walked up to me at the recent Nethope NGO BPO Workhop in Nairobi and said to me, “we are suffering, where are the jobs”. I replied to her to hang in there and play for the long haul. She responds ‘ I know I know, you keep saying that’. And standing next to me was a representative from Accenture Consulting (www.accenture.com) who has just made a presentation on outsourcing space. I introduced to my friend to the Accenture lady who in turn said to my friend it is possible that firms like ours in the markets that it we work, would seek to work with local companies.

What I did  not tell her is that my friend expressed the very same frustration very same comment when she launched her BPO 3 years ago and she is not alone. Within a month of the Kenya ICT Board being set up, many enterpreuners bought computers and set up what they hoped would be data entry and contact centre operations. The Board was then seen as delivering jobs to them.

Last week one Permanent Secretary called in the ICT Board for a meeting with his key Ministry team to discuss and review ways in which he could get his mail system up and running. His frustration was obvious. He and his entire Ministry had been off email for two weeks. (Indeed he had to send me a summary of some his issues by using his Hotmail account). The Ministry runs a Microsoft Exchange 2003 Server that has worked in start-stops for months.  As the meeting progressed various department heads gave their interpretation of both the short and long term, and here are some of the summary comments made;

• “The exchange server is obsolete”.
• “We need to up security, we had a tender to provide security software for so X hundred odd thousand USD”.  The MTC (Ministerial Tender Committee) rejected the plan.
• “We need to migrate to Linux based server it is more stable.”

After everyone had spoken the PS in question reflected as follows; “Where does one turn to for the trusted advise on the holistic implementation of ICT in managing the Ministry, when vendors come peddling their wares here in day in day out?”

The Board offered two solutions

Working with the department of Egoverment we would provide a solution to the mail issue in due course. Turns out that the Server License is illegal and therefore the mail system has never been patched or updated since it was installed. So the argument about Linux in that particular instance was not even relevant.  That was the easy part. But is begged a question. “How many unlicensed software installations are running? But more importantly, who are these license providers that get paid and don’t deliver. Licenses can be nebulous things because they are sooo intangible to decision makers”.  Many decision makers will be told, we can avoid licenses by going open source, which is largely true, however that argument has to be informed by wider strategy, and clear total cost of ownership considerations. It costs less to buy second hand cars, but they can be expensive to maintain.  Most global firms maintain both open source and ‘closed’ source deployments.

But again that was not even the point.  Permanent Secretaries are Chief Executives of often large government departments with local budgets and service delivery issues far greater than most commercial organizations in Kenya.  They require and indeed deserve to have the same level of strategic advice and ICT leadership as their private sector counterparts. But the structure as it is now often provides them with just enough technical advice to get by.  Being told about servers and hard disk replacements and flash disks and toners that require to be bought.

With the current improvements in infrastructure, including the landing of the cables and the availability of high quality broadband, the rolling out of the National Fibre optic backbone across Kenya, the deployment of Government-Wide Core Communications Network (which is a Cisco grade MPLS network for those who are technical, or a very good fibre based network that can securely carry data voice and video traffic, for those who are not). Last week PS Dr Ndemo, took his colleagues on a tour of the new Government Data Centre.

So what’s my point, with all the investments government had made, it is time for private sector players like my ‘friend’ in paragraph one to align to the opportunity. Pastor Oscar, at the Nairobu Chapel told us last week about evangelism and the responsibility we had as Christians. He said our responsibility was not to convert others into salvation, but to tell them about the word. He went on to say ‘tell a beggar where to find food, and when he is hungry he will go there, it is not your work to feed him’.

The Government has sooooooooo! many priorities in service delivery to the common citizen, and with those priorities also comes the responsibility to ensure a corruption free delivery.

I would argue that with all the platforms in place, and with all these priorities, and with the current leadership that has focused so much on putting in place the environment; it is a good time for private businesses in ICT. The challenges provide the best capital for serious businesses to flourish.

The How, is the true entrepreuners game to figure.  The What is all there, written all over the newspapers, blaring on radio, debated on mailing lists, spoken by citizens countrywide in long ques and delayed services. Necessity is the mother of invention… The challenges we face are our greatest source of business capital, let us invent.. “my friend”.

This morning I was blown away by the presentation by Serene Ho, Deputy Director who was accompanied by her Director Ms Yen Fong Yip from the IDA (Infocomm Development Authority) International, Singapore http://www.idainternational.sg a subsidiary of IDA Singapore, http://www.ida.gov.sg.  Serene presented at an Kenya ICT Board sponsored Breakfast meeting on the Singapore Journey with a special focus on the role Information Technology has played in transforming the city state of Singapore. Thank you to Mugo Kebati, Director General Kenya’s Vision 2030 Delivery Secretariate  for putting together the itinerary, packed as it may have been, for our gracious guests. The visit by IDA Singapore to Kenya follows a visit by Prime Minister Raila Odinga to Singapore last month, where Kenya and Singapore signed an MOU on various sectors, including ICT and Egovernment.

Victor Koh, from National Social Economic Council poses with Mugo Kebati, Director General Vision 2030 Secretariate, IDA Singapore's Serene Ho and Yeun Fong Yip pose with staff of the Kenya ICT Board

I visited Singapore in June 2009 courtesy of the World Bank for a week to learn and experience how Singapore’s excellent public service management had helped this country of 4 million transform from a third to a first world country. I met with IDA International’s Serene at one of the cocktails organised for us and we imediately agreed to a visit to her offices the very next day to listen to presentations from her. Needless to say, at IDA’s Singapore offices, I went through the presentation that I went through again today. I have slides of it. I have presented to our directors and staff as part of an interim MOU that the Kenya ICT Board and Singapore’s IDA signed back then.  But listening to it again to day, it still captivated me.

IDA Int. Director Ms Yip presents to Prof C Kiamba, PS Higher Education Science and Technology

The key planks of that presentation are the following

1. Singapore’s public sector IT strategy supports the strategy of ‘Many Agencies, One Nation”. The idea that citizen needs are not determined by how government is structured and therefore technology must work to simplify government bureaucracy while delighting the citizen. case in point, it takes 15 seconds to register a card in Singapore with no charge to the citizen. Takes 2 hours to register a business.
2. Based on the above strategy, the government takes a ‘whole of government’ view to the implementation of projects in technology. No duplication of systems within the system, with an emphasis on economies of scale and optimization.
3. Masterplanning is done across the entire city state to cover all key public and private sectors. Indeed their current plan 1n2015, is intended to create ‘an intelligent nation…’. and covers entertainment, finance, healthcare and other sectors.
4. The development of key government applications that support ‘whole of government’ including Tradenet, a portal accessed system that enables businesses to sign on once and access a single permit to transact business, it further interconnects businesses with key government processes they require to do business. It is no wonder that 4 years in a row, Singapore has been ranked the no 1 country to do business by the World Bank and the World Economic forum.
5. Government spending in IT per year is approximately 800M USD. This expenditure has over the years stimulated the development of the local IT sector and also led the location in Singapore of all the leading IT multinational corporations (MNCs). The Infocomm industry development program has an emphasis on meritocracy rather than protectionism. This has led to the development of very high standard of IT companies and products. The IDA has developed many tools to support local industry including administering training and start-up grants and facilitating Intellectual Property development and protection.
   

   Walubengo makes a point during the ICT Board, Vision 2030 organised breakfast presentation by IDA Singapore

Let me explain how all this is relevant.

1. Singapore provides a benchmark from which we can re-craft and fine-tune some of our planning and execution.
2. Over the past three days since Monday we have met with 9 Permanent Secretaries of the government of Kenya to have one-on-one sessions with them on understanding their strategic issues and how these may find resolution through effective ICT implementation. The issues are diverse and numerous and this leadership team is committed to resolving them. None of the issues require quick fixes and indeed a they do not welcome any attempts at a superficial approach.
3. The timing of this visit was excellent. President Kibaki had just last week re-iterated the need for Kenya government to use ICT as a driver of greater government efficiency and better service delivery while at the same time eliminating corruption.
   

   Nik and Erik Nesbit host the IDA team and the ICT Board

4. The Kenya ICT Board, working with IDA International will be making some recommendations some key additional government applications to be considered by the team of Permanent Secretaries here. This will what we will call the foundational components of a ‘whole of government’ approach. Indeed some of them may already be in place, while others are being re-priotized. One such system would be the development of the land cadastre system by the Ministry of Lands. One, not under consideration yet but may require our collective attention is a possible Tradenet-like system. Another would be a planned look at a national human capacity database for Kenya, under the Ministry of Labour and Manpower development. The work to determine foundational components may well be covered under a soon to be awarded contract for the development of Shared Services Masterplan and pilot implementation for the Government of Kenya that the Kenya ICT Board and department of Egovernment are undertaking.
5. The Kenya ICT Board, working with the department of Egovernment is currently undertaking projects to digitise the Judiciary, The Ministry of Lands and the Company Registry. We shall augment our project delivery by consulting with IDA Singapore.
6. We are communicating to the local IT services sector (BPO, ITES and other systems integrators) that government expenditure on IT provides them with business growth opportunities. Their business plans must factor in government policy on automation and IT implementation and roll out in order that these same businesses participate and create jobs and intellectual property for Kenya. This is not always an easy argument for many of the businesses owners. Some of them consider these projects too complex, or too financially demanding to project manage. And yet by partnering with reputable international firms and investors, Kenyan entrepreueners could take a stab at this projects. This could be a win win for all. More efficient government, better service delivery to the citizens while creating jobs and long term value in the IT services sector.

Ms Serene, Deputy Director IDA Int, Ms Yip, Director IDA International and Dr Ndemo, PS Information and Communication

I have received many direct emails and I thought I might want to respond to one publicly and BCC the gentleman who raised the issues. Thank you for your email. I welcome further questions and suggestions.

My answers are in below the questions

1. Scope of the project-Is it meant to cover software alone or how does it integrate other pertinent aspects of ITES & BPO
A. yes. for now certification covers software development both for individuals and for organizations developing software. without pre-empting the procurement process, this standards may take the form of certification for process methodology. This basically means that once you have certified the method by which the firm or individual writes his code, you can vouch for the standards of the underlying code. One of the challenges many projects have locally (an indeed internationally), is that the software designers dont document what they are doing and you are left at their mercy once they have finished, another challenge is most projects dont allow for testing the code or the software that is written. Others because the same person who wrote the code has the responsibility to provide final test results for it. Indeed software development, document and testing is often outsourced and provides an interesting outsourcing opportunity. There is another project on the establishment of a BPO centre of excellence centre which is under way.

2. Character of the project- Does the board intend to entirely transfer the certification mandate to a private enterprise. Why not remain at the centre to guide and oversee progress with intermitent consultancy support?
B. The thinking is still open on this. Candidates for this consultancy may well be educational institutions who can collaborate with local institutions for a long term capacity transfer. In the case of South Africa, this is housed at the University of Witwatersrand in a semi-autonomous arrangement known as the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering. http://www.jcse.org.za/. This particular one is a 3 way partnership between academia, business and government and has a much more enriched mandate than we are envisioning initially.

3. Duration- 2 years are grossly insufficient for all the tasks envisioned. Certification can only work successfully along a continous time plan. Some assumptions cited within the terms list are meant for fun. eg the testing targets for 200/500 developers. Supposing no one turns out for those tests where will liability rest? Or are we assuming that people are extremely looking forward to those tests?
A. This is true. The project just gets us started with the funding available. We forsee developing a more long term project as indicated in 2. These have to be multi-year commitments.

4. Degree of stakeholder participation- Certifications are life and death issues because they determine whether you qualify for the pay roll or not. Such matters can not be left to private investors.
A. As indicated in 2 above, a partnership model would take care of this. I certainly share the view, However well regulated private investors can mitigate these risks were we to take a private sector only route.

5. Integration of existing efforts- This project may not necessarily have to start from scratch. There are multiple instances of related efforts which just require some little fine tuning.
A. I am happy to convene a stakeholder discussion on this issue, (and all the wider issues generally). We shall seek your assistance. The consultants terms of reference will however include establishing the state of play in the market. We can augment this with other inputs.

6. Span of resources and their source. How much worth of Kenyan currency is at disposal for this activity. What other options can be considered using the same towards the goal in question.
A. I will confirm this here later. Other options include setting up a specialized unit at the universities, adding this to university curricular. Any other suggestions. Actually all these are also things must be eventually done.

7. Outcome- Is the final product meant for the local market or the foreign one. There seems to be an unfounded assumption that once we embrace foreign standards international business will come looking for us. Is the emphasis on the soon to be papers or on the skill quality they will trigger?
A. Excellent question. We do need better standards in everything. (An example here is the quality of Masonry, or Carpentry. Is the issue that we don’t enforce standards or that at a basic level, we have lost the reference to standards in the first place?, or is it that Masons and Carpenters with half backed skills have been allowed to proliferate the industry? or even perhaps all the above!). Because we all committed to developing a world class ICT sector, the attitude towards the basics must be that everything matters. This is a sustainable approach. ICT is a human capacity sector.

8. Given the critical nature of standards and certification, wouldnt be more prudent for the Board to invest in a full fledged department that will handle the pertinent matters in that dimension. Waiting for KASNEB, KBS to set the pace for ICT certification and standardization can be deemed as inertia on the Board’s part.
B. As far as ICT standards are concerned the Ministry is already working on various dimensions as you may be aware. The Board’s role here is very project specific in order to meet the BPO /IT enabled services sector growth as outlined in the Vision 2030.

As we prepare to subject our final draft of the strategic plan to validation by stakeholders, it comes us a welcome wake up call for us to beef up our communication to our various stakeholders, whom are many and varied. I therefore take this opportunity to issue an update on the status of the projects.

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 mandated 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,
o 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
o Digital Villages Pasha Project. I provided an update on this in an earlier email
o 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.
o 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