Local ICT start-ups to benefit from innovation showcase

The ICT Authority has today announced that Kenya will hold the inaugural ICT Innovation forum, bringing together novel technology-based ideas, solutions and practices on the 2nd -3rd March, 2015 at KICC, Nairobi.

The forum which has a national outlook will have President Uhuru Kenyatta as chief gueast.

The event, which will bring together ICT innovators, investors, development agencies, academia, multi-nationals and local entrepreneurs, is organised through a consortium of public and private players and will discuss challenges facing Kenya’s innovators and seek to identify opportunities.

Additionally, the forum will include an ICT Expo where innovators will showcase their ICT solutions at the various levels of development.

This comes at a time when experts have identified intellectual property rights as being central to the development of a new brand: “Made in Kenya, Assembled in Kenya, and Sold around the World”, which has the chance to grow the Kenyan economy exponentially.

“The Innovation Forum and Expo is a unique opportunity for information sharing and co-operation between the public and private sector on emerging technologies and innovations. While we are all in agreement that tech-enterprises need to work more closely and grow, our aim is to make all these great ideas commercially viable,” said Victor Kyalo, CEO, ICT Authority (ICTA).

In line with the National ICT Master Plan, said Kyalo, the ICTA in collaboration with the Ministry of ICT seeks to boost opportunities of Kenyan innovators by supporting the growth of locally developed solutions.

The two-day forum aims at:

– Sharing game-changing innovative ideas among high-level stakeholders within key sectors of the economy such as manufacturing, tourism, financial sector, health, agriculture, education, transport, energy and water;

– Creating a consensus around the state of ICT innovation, the prevailing challenges and distilling actionable solutions;

– Defining next steps on how to unlock value in the ICT innovation space;

– Pooling for the first time innovators that will help to create the Next Big nation.

Among the key agenda topics are Promoting Buy Kenya IT, Build Kenya IT, Unlocking Capital, Talent development and employment, Innovation, Research and Development, growing IT exports and the place of incubation and accelerators in the innovation ecosystem.

The event is aligned to the Vision 2030 development blue print that identifies ICT as being an enabler of industry and having the opportunity to create wealth and jobs in the county.

Sponsors of the event include Safaricom, Microsoft, Konza Techno City and Huawei.