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

The digital villages project (Pasha) is still on track.

The Board sends out regular communication to those who underwent the first lot of entrepreneurship training in October 2009, as well as other trainees applicants due to be trained in the next phases over the next two years.. The portal www.pasha.co.ke is also active and is updated to keep all informed on the progress. This portal is being enhanced continuously.

A 2nd lot of 1500 people from all over the country are due to be trained in this first quarter of this year. The eventual target for training is 7500 in the next 2 years.

The board has now finalized the Grants Manual, a document that provides the basis of how the funding for this grant to entrepreneurs will be administered. Each entrepreneur will have an opportunity to competitively apply for a grant to fund his start-up costs (or expansion costs for those who have some level of establishment). The board will also provide a technical support arrangement for the centers across the country for a fixed period.

These Pasha centers will be self sustaining and entrepreneurs themselves will determine what specific services they provide based on their local circumstances. They will also act as one of the main gateways for government online services.

There are 5 Pasha Pilot centres. in Kangundo, Gairrisa, Malindi, Mukuru (industrial Area), Meru, We continue learning about specific issues on the ground from these sites. Issues such as business model, infrastructure requirement, public uptake and demand for services. One key learning so far is that this project is in great demand for varying reasons across the country and that even if there is no ‘one size fits all’, citizens will adopt the centers to suit their needs.

For details about the actual Pasha process visit this link on ours site http://www.ict.go.ke/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=133

We welcome further questions and comments and encourage you to help us maintain public interest in this important project, which even we at the board are the first to admit, has taken longer than originally envisioned. Indeed projects such as this do take a long time and stakeholder anxiety is to be expected.

We shall keep you informed more regularly.

[gallery]

working the MIT chaps at Strathmore to prepare my presenttion

]

Reading todays editorial in the business daily,

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion%20%20Analysis/-/539548/619464/-/u1li80z/-/index.html

It basically makes the point that aside from focussing on getting international investors, we must focus on developing local ICT entrepreuners as part of the wider agenda for ICT sector growth. I could not agree more. These are some of the thoughts I am laying kdown as part of what I will be taking forward for stakeholder discussion on this issue. The eventual aim is to agree a framework for the development of the local ICT economy.
ol
liDevelopment of Incubation centres. I will propose we adopt the model of the digital hub in Ireland. We need to find low cost high traffic physical space (im thinking the Railway Godowns, or somewhere in the city centre) and kit up the place with high bandwidth and desks and invite entrepreuners to set up there on a time limited basis./li
liBranding the sector. The Board has launched the www.doitinkenya.com portal which will eventually showcase all things ICT in Kenya. This is aimed at creating an ICT brand for Kenya. This portal enables interested investors to review a companys profile prior to contacting them. doitinkenya will also be the brand line for a cmapign to create awareness locally about ICT in everyday life/li
liThere have been many suggestions to us from the industry to assist with lobbying for a change in public procurement in ICT to support value added partnerships between local and international firms. Currently, the way it works is that local firms need not be ICT technical firms. The practice currently means that many of the local firms that partner with international firms to provide high value solutions, do so without a clear capacity and technology transfer agenda. So the country develops solutions without getting the knowledge. This problem is not limited to the public sector./li
liWe have incorporated BPO and entrepreunership into the Pasha Centre curriculum. More BPO and ICT entrepreunership training needs to find its way into the curriculum of all public and private education institutions. Skills development is the cornerstone of upgrading the ICT businesses/li
liTraining and skills upgrading of current managers of ICT businesses as well as encouraging entrepreunership among more experienced corprate sector managers. Skills in contracting, financial management, project management, brand management, negotiations etc are critical in getting ICT entrepreuners to step up. This is the only way that many of the companies can develope the scale./li
liGreater government automation will always be a double treat for the sector. Greater automation, means greater efficiency and service delivery for citizens whilst at the same time more ICT work for the local ICT economy./li
liSupport for local initiatives. The ICT board has not always had the funding it requires here to support all the various industry organizations that are developing in the sector. Open Source Society, Linux users association, the Kenya ICT Federation, the Computer Society, The BPO Society etc. The Association of domain registraters, Kictanet, the CIO forum, etc. These organizations fulfil a useful role as stimulants of ICT activity. My initial impression is that te associations require greater support at this early stage of our ICT development./li
liSeed grants, venture capital, angel investors, private equity. All very important in providing businesses with much needed capital. ICT sector investments, especially in service businesses, are normally dependant on much intellectual capital formation with very little going towards capital items. Because of this, IT firms find great difficulty securing capital from banks./li
liMany industry players have spoken to us about the need for a shift in the taxation approach for ICT firms. Specifically on payroll taxes and VAT. These taxes require to be paid very month on invoice, even when there is no cashflow to support the outflows of cash. The nature of amany IT services contracts is such that most companies will pay project fees on completion and delivery of the project. Some innovative ideas are required in tax adminstration to stimulate small firms./li
liIntellectual property (IP) protection is another factor. The ICT board has been asked to step up market awareness of intellectual property. Incidences of disregard or abuse of IP have been noted. The bigger issue her is that many of the individuals who develop IP are not in a position to actually negotiate its protection especially in contracts with large firms. So they get into a contract in a weak position because they need the money from the project for basic survival. because of this, we have seen little growth in IP based entrepreuners in Kenya. IP based entrepreuners are improtant in developing a countrys overall global competitiveness. This is an issue that will be on the agenda/li
/ol
There will be other thoughts and stakeholders will be invited to conclude a specific implementation plan. On the matters which require policy revision, the Board will escalate this to the Ministry for consideration and input. On matters in which it is within our mandate to solve, we shall apply ourselves accordingly.