Kenya hosts the 3rd East Africa IoT & AI Summit

For the third time in a row, Kenya, is hosting a two-day East Africa Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence (IoT & AI) Summit purposed to accelerate enterprises’ digital transformation journey.

Themed; Harnessing the Power of IoT & AI in Driving Digital Transformation, the annual summit has brought together various stakeho[td_block_video_youtube playlist_title=”” playlist_yt=”” playlist_auto_play=”0″]lders to share, learn, collaborate and demonstrate to synergise their efforts to maximize efficiency and profitability while easing work pressures.

During the official opening, Joe Mucheru, Cabinet Secretary for ICT, said digital transformation platforms are changing the way normal operations are done and that people must then heed to such.

“Digital revolution has given rise to new technology-enabled business models, which have had a profound transformative impact on the digital economy,” he said adding; “Such platforms create value by aggregating ecosystems of end-users and producers, and using technology to facilitate transactions between them,” he observed.

Laura Chite, the CEO, CIO East Africa, emphasized the importance of incorporating new technologies like IoT and AI to maximize efficiency and profitability alongside easing work pressures for employees.

She emphasized that for companies to realize the full potential, they need to embrace innovation and invest on emerging technologies, to simulate intelligent behavior and make well-informed decisions with little or no human intervention.”

According to the Mucheru, many people are yet to fully appreciate the benefits that emerging technologies are bringing to their lives. “It is however, pleasing to note that the industry is alive to the reality that leveraging on technologies such as IoT & AI is a progressive step towards streamlining government operations and enhancing public service delivery,” he said.

The government, added Mucheru is committed to working with the private sector on the potential presented by these technologies for the benefit of the country’s national economy. “Adoption of these emerging technologies will transform the Kenyan economy by creating opportunities to solve current problems, including unemployment, corruption, (in) security and poverty,” asserted the CS.

According to Mucheru, while the whole economy can gain from digitization, some segments may face greater challenges in making this transition.  In this bracket are our Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Collectively, they employ two thirds of the workforce and significantly contribute to Kenya’s GDP.  There is need to onboard the SMEs in the digitization journey because they are critical to our economy.

Over the coming years, ongoing advances in AI will have profound impact on business operations and strategies in virtually every industry. Already, integrating AI and IoT into networks is becoming a prerequisite for success in today’s ecosystems. Businesses must move rapidly to identify how they’ll drive value from combining AI and IoT and remain competitive or face playing catch-up in years to come.