Opinion
Kenya, a crucible of technology and business
By Bitange Ndemo
Kenya is a frontrunner in technology and communications, but it must not slacken pace: the next decade will throw up opportunities to succeed in the global arena.
Kenya has made a name for itself in technology. Our M-PESA mobile-money transfer scheme, developed by Safaricom in 2007, is being copied world-wide. Our East African Community was the first to harmonize phone tariffs across the region, allowing a Kenyan to talk to a Ugandan or Tanzanian for no extra cost.
In 2011, Africa’s first mobile-phone application laboratory opened in Nairobi, a city that also hosts a research center from global technology giant IBM. Blackberry and Google are already here.
Our animators have produced award-winning children’s cartoons. We are not stopping there.
In the next decade, Kenya’s information and communications technology sector will be radically transformed. Broadband, for example, will be accessible and affordable for more than 80 percent of the population. In turn, the pressure to deal with the problem of the youth bulge, the growing need to empower all citizens, the nearly insatiable demand for data and the emphasis on devolving power to the counties will become the major drivers of technology diffusion in Kenya.
This will create the opportunity for the country to take off and become a major global tech innovation hub. Kenya is one of few countries in Africa that has comprehensively dealt with the issue of tech infrastructure, and as a result internet penetration jumped from less than 10 percent in 2008 to 40 percent in 2013.
Studies have found that a 10 percent drop in the cost of using the internet adds 1 million more users. The International Telecommunication Union estimates that every 10 percent increase in the use of broadband leads to 1.3 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP).
