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We Are Bringing Oracle’s Greatest Technologies
With an increased focus and commitment to Africa, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is announcing our intent to open a new public cloud region in Kenya. As part of Oracle’s broader strategy for Africa, this region will expand OCI’s footprint on the continent, including the Johannesburg region, which is also an Azure interconnect location.
Building on our strong history in Kenya
As we announce this region, we’re building on a long history with Kenya, with our technologies being used in the country for more than 20 years. Oracle is a committed and trusted partner to public and private sector entities in Kenya on their digital transformation journeys, by providing technologies that run and secure critical workloads, boost performance, productivity, and responsiveness, and create value for citizens. Our new region investment and this long-term commitment has translated into strong collaborations to help organizations of all sizes achieve strategic objectives with digital transformation.
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These new investments will support both private sector and government cloud needs. Oracle is partnering with the government of Kenya to support its key digital initiatives: Digital Superhighway, National Digital Master Plan, and the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology Policy.
Bringing Oracle’s greatest technologies
OCI’s unique cloud architecture enables us to deploy dedicated cloud regions with over 100 cloud services inside customer data centers and to deploy more public cloud regions, faster by starting with an optimal footprint and scaling as needed. As a result, Oracle has grown its global presence at a faster pace than other hyperscalers, with over 65 customer-facing regions currently in operation. Our approach meets the needs of countries like Kenya, without compromising cloud capabilities, while also providing the consistent performance, SLAs, and global pricing for which OCI has become known.
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Supporting economic Vision 2030
Kenya is currently one of Africa’s fastest-growing technology markets, where technical innovation has increased productivity in all spheres of the economy and enabled the expansion of skills. Kenya’s economic Vision 2030 outlines Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) as one of the critical enablers for attainment of economic growth. The pillar that captures the expectations of the ICT market seeks to improve the prosperity of the country by achieving a sustained 10% GDP growth rate by 2030. Oracle is excited to bring our latest technologies to the country in support of this vision.
Expanded focus on skills development and entrepreneurship
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Oracle Academy helps foster technology knowledge and skills among Kenyan students and teachers by providing free learning resources that make technology engaging and accessible. Through this initiative, we provide access to the latest tools to help educators increase student success and develop career-ready skills in the era of cloud, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, the internet of things, and beyond. To date, we have trained hundreds of educators have been trained in Kenya through training events, webinars, workshops, hand-on labs, and conferences with well over 5,000 students impacted directly and indirectly.
In September 2021, Oracle signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kenyan Information & Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) to create a specialized training program for 90 government student trainees from the Presidential Digital Talent Program (PDTP). The 12-week program offers the selected PDTP trainees a unique opportunity to gain invaluable personal and professional development skills, while working together with Oracle professionals. The program is now known as the Oracle Graduate Trainee Program and runs on a hybrid model allowing the trainees to interact with Oracle xLOB experts globally.
An opportunity exists to unleash significant innovation and competition in Africa. Oracle is committed to working with governments and the private sector across the continent and elsewhere to drive the digital transformation of government agencies, public institutions, enterprises, startups, and universities. We’re excited to lead this next wave of growth.
Scott Twaddle is the Senior Vice President, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Product and Industries