Its nice to be writing again. It is a relaxed Sunday. I would say that since my last blog update a year ago, so much has happened. North Africa and the Middle East have been through massive change. Europe’s debt crisis is now a much bigger subject of discussion than the US deficit. Social networks have become completely socially and politically mainstream. The major roadworks around Nairobi, especially Thika Road have greatly progressed. Steve Jobs has died. Amy Winehouse has died. Wangari Mathaai had died. Nick Ashford (Ashford and Simpson) has died. India is just today hosting its first Grand Prix Formula 1 (congrats India).

On the personal front, I have now completed my MBA (the graduate executive MBA, GEMBA from USIU in conjunction with Columbia Business School).

Forbes Africa in its first edition had an article titled “the Tandaa Generation” where they quoted extensively from this blog. Asante sana.

After that period of time, I come out more convinced that nurturing, supporting the younger folk who want to start or have started companies is the best way to create real value in ICT.

One of my most significant moments this year was meeting up with Reid Hoffman co-founder of Linked In and partner at Greylock Partners a respected silicon valley venture capital firm. I met him in early October at a forum on digital diplomacy in Paris. His advise to the 20 odd participants at the forum, (who like everyone in tech around the world would always be interested in the success of the Silicon Valley) was its about people in informal communities creating ideas in an environment where you can. He also talked about the three things that can get VCs excited. Networks, Platforms and marketplaces.

On Friday I officiated at the graduation ceremony for Pasha digital centre Managers. Just before they graduated they had to present business plans. The presentations took place in groups. I was made aware that they had worked very hard the night before. I was amazed at the quality of the presentations. There were 30 odd participants from all over Kenya who were at the training as the initial recipients of the Kenya ICT Board facilitated loan scheme through family bank. My take was that training and capacity building are important ways of the government creating jobs. especially in a country where there are many unmet needs and a shortage of certain skills to bridge that need. Ideas ranged from how to administer pensions via pasha centres in rural areas to how to start community banking projects, how to train people in creative arts and multimedia in rural communities. Ideas came from the participants themselves based on their local needs. Thank you to CISCO East Africa and Appleseeds for the training course.

During the recent Dimension Data ITEX on Thursday last week, I spoke to the participants about the need for large corporates to start developing entreprise grade solutions for SMEs. Supply chain systems that could be used by retailers in rural areas. Systems to help a posho miller expand and own ten posho mills for example. My view is that the organizations that gets into this space properly in Kenya will benefit commercially.

Lastly, I congratulate Safaricom and partners (Seven Seas, EMC, CISCO) on the launch of the Safaricom Cloud. An example of bringing large scale technology for application to common businesses. In coming days there will be alot of discussion around the cloud and everyone is encouraged to dig in to understand it.

Now off to watch some weekend TV. I am hoping India F1 is not over yet.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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. Read the rest of this entry »