Liquid Telecom, Strathmore Business School launch data analytics centre for African businesses

Liquid Telecom, a subsidiary of Econet Global, has partnered with Strathmore Business School (SBS), the graduate business school of Strathmore University, to launch a new data analytics centre focused on data-driven research and practices for African businesses.

Under the partnership, Liquid Telecom will provide the new Strathmore Africa Analytics Data Centre with dedicated rack space and collocation services at East Africa Data Centre (EADC); the region’s Tier III certified data centre.

Liquid Telecom will also establish a direct fibre link between the SBS campus and EADC in Nairobi, which will facilitate data analytic services such as data mining, predictive analysis and exploratory data analysis.

“Strathmore envision a Data Centre that will cultivate Data analytics to help executive entrepreneurs and Government make data driven decisions. We feel it’s a moral duty to include the new data modules into the entire curriculum of our University,” says Dr George Njenga, Dean Strathmore Business School.

Liquid Telecom will support SBS as it looks to grow its customer base, enabling businesses in the region to tap into the growing opportunities presented by Big Data, while establishing Nairobi as a centre of innovation, excellence and training for data analytics.

“Businesses in Africa now have a lot of data about their customers and their buying behaviour. So far a lack of skills in data science has prevented businesses from using that

Data for strategic decision making. Through this partnership, Liquid Telecom and SBS will help provide companies with the tools and learning they need to achieve real improvements in performance,” said Ben Roberts, Group Chief Technology and Innovation Officer (CTIO) at Liquid Telecom.

According to analyst firm IDC, global spending for big data and business analytics hardware, software and services is expected to grow from $150.8 billion in 2017 to $210 billion by 2020. As businesses rush to mine the world’s data, new privacy and regulatory issues are emerging that must also be considered in data-driven research and practices.

Increasing collaboration between industry and academia will be key to both unlocking the opportunities and addressing the challenges of Big Data in Africa.