Kenyan ideas have the potential to become globally successful products and boost capital inflows into Kenya, if conducive laws and the right partnerships are formed, according to Michael Macharia of Enterprise Kenya.
Disrupt Africa reported in March Kenya’s Ministry of ICT and ICT Authority announced a new initiative – called Enterprise Kenya – aimed at supporting and building the country’s technology entrepreneurship ecosystem; with the programme receiving the explicit backing of president Uhuru Kenyatta.
Speaking at the Connected East Africa conference taking place in Diani, Kenya, Macharia pointed to the international success of Kenyan-invented mobile money service M-Pesa, saying the innovation’s widespread popularity shows that Kenya is capable of creating products for the global marketplace.
“Kenyan ideas can become global products. M-Pesa was a Kenyan product, now it’s a global product. We’re solving Kenyan problems, but we can also solve global problems,” Macharia said.
If Kenyans focus on creating solutions to real problems, Macharia says capital inflow from external markets into the country is inevitable as international markets will look to Kenya for innovative solutions.
However, Macharia says stronger laws are needed to support and protect locally produced content, while there is also a gap separating entrepreneurs and innovators from private sector and government players.
“These are some of the problems we’re looking at with Enterprise Kenya. We’re closing the gap between entrepreneurs, the public sector and the global market,” he said.
Macharia says Enterprise Kenya believes that innovators should be channeled towards a number of set national imperatives – such as health care technologies, as an example -, with this focused innovation to result in the creation of globally trading and competitive companies.
“Our question is how can we make the Silicon Savannah something we don’t only read about in magazines, but something we can touch and feel?” he said.
The answer that Enterprise Kenya has identified, is to create a set of 18 interventions needed to achieve the organisation’s visions of a Silicon Savannah, with implementation to begin over the next 90 days.
“If we achieve all 18 interventions, we will be able to justify and bring about 185,000 jobs, over 55 Kenyan companies, and an 8 per cent contribution to GDP,” he said.
“The problem has always been execution. We’re great at putting together ideas, but how do we execute?”
In order to facilitate execution of the 18 imperatives, seven action points have been set out for completion within the next 90 days, Macharia said.
First, the objectives and mission of Enterprise Kenya will be solidified; and a business case for the use of the government-granted KES1 billion (US$10.8 million) for the project will be set out. A roadmap will be formulated, which will be presented to the minister for ICT. A governance structure will be put in place, and a sustainability and funding model will be created, in time for the official launch of Enterprise Kenya.
With successful achievement of Enterprise Kenya objectives, Macharia said Kenya can become the home for innovation.
