Focusing on the people
I find myself very distressed today and so its a perfect day to rant about something that's been bothering me for quite a long time. I've noticed over the last 6-9 months that Kenya is missing out on some really major technological moves, yes we have the fibre optic that's finally arrived on our shores and we had the facebook developers garage, but the interesting techie stuff seems to be happening across our borders in Uganda.
In the last one year unicef alone has deployed close to 3 technology projects in uganda including a mobile barcamp that aroused the interest of the dev community and had them coming up with some interesting projects. During my visit to IBM research labs all I heard was the buzz in Uganda, and I must say I was a bit disappointed and worried that Kenya was barely mentioned. Let's examine what's on the ground, Kenya has more developed technology infrastructure,a more mature technology and communication industry, a strong techie community-Skunkworks that has 300+ members and growing (though off late I'm disappointed with the mailing list content), we boast of having the largest call center in east and central africa-Kencall, the most successful web design company in the region-3mice and a "fully functional" ICT board whose sole mandate is to spearhead investment and development in the ICT industry, and that's just the tip of the iceberg even with all that many organisations and individuals are focusing their attention on the Uganda tech industry.
So a quick assessment reveals that investment wise (established businesses) we may have an edge over our Ugandan counterparts, but in terms of low level human and talent investment we seem to be losing in a major way. As Kenya focuses on building up those big companies, small and large organisations plus committed individuals in Uganda are making the investment in the next generation of tech entrepreneurs and leaders, I wonder where the biggest benefit lies.
AppAfrica which is a Y Combinator inspired incubator has been set up in Uganda by Jon Gossier and is set to do some very interesting work, in fact the momentum it has gathered is quite mind blowing. Zoom into nairobi and there seems to be something a miss, VC exists but nothing is happening on the ground, in fact people don't even think about VC when it comes to their projects. AppAfrica just got funded and now has the resources to pursue those interesting ideas and turn them into profitable businesses, when was the last time you heard that in Kenya?
So what is Kenya doing wrong that Uganda has managed to do right? I really don't have the correct answer or answers, but what's obvious is that we need to shift our focus back to individuals, the students who are graduating and have a million and one ideas and the energy to run the race. It's the investment in people and not businesses that the country needs, the fundamentals of any strong industry lies in the resourcefulness of its people, equip the techies with the right tools get them focused on coming up with homegrown ideas (not replicated) that will eventually become profitable businesses, the cycle of growth will never end with that kind of focus.
Is that all we need to do? No, there is much more that can be done such as getting academic institutions to focus on practical aspects of technology, the last thing we need is more theory computer science graduates. A year ago I was asked to help write an open source software development curriculum for a kenyan university, I was given the initial draft which suffice it to say was a typical programming curriculum, write code monday to friday, my initial thought is let's gear this curriculum towards software development that works in Africa, that addresses key african challenges. What was important to me wasn't getting as many PHP programmers into the market, but getting the right solution developers who understand technology, the environment they're operating in and how best to leverage it to build applications that make money.
At the end of the day we are all participating in the same industry, we can learn from each other and achieve mutual benefits.