$82m fibre optic internet connection provides boost to Kenya's tech sector

LAST FRIDAY was a historic day for Kenya’s nascent technology sector but Paul Kukubo, chief executive of Kenya’s ICT Board, wasn’t celebrating in Mombasa.

The reason for celebration was the landing of the East Africa Marine System (Teams) telecommunications cable which, for the first time, provides Kenya with a high bandwidth connection to the internet backbone, rather than expensive satellite links.

The $82 million submarine fibre optic cable links the Mombasa coast with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. It has an initial capacity of 40 Gbit per second which can be upgraded to 640 Gbit per second.

“Within two months, the cost will come down and we will have the quality of service to do international business,” Mr Kukubo said. “There is lots of interest in using Kenya as a location for outsourcing and we see the possibility of Kenya being a strong ICT hub in the next three years”.

Mr Kukubo travelled to Dublin last week to promote Kenya’s credentials in the technology sector at an event in the Irish residence of the Kenyan ambassador. His attendance was delayed by a visit to the Digital Hub. Mr Kukubo admitted to being “blown away” by the cluster of Irish start-ups. He appealed to the Irish technology industry to help him recreate the model in Kenya.

“We need the intellectual support to do that and I want to strike a partnership between our two countries,” he said. “Help us and we can give you the skills you need.”

Kenya is turning out about 30,000 graduates a year, about 5,000 of whom are in science and technology disciplines, according to Mr Kukubo.

Malcolm Quigley, director of development charity VSO Ireland who hosted the event, said that developing outsourcing in Kenya would not take jobs from Ireland but would actually help Irish companies to expand and become more profitable.

One Irish firm which has already made the leap is Jinny Software, the telecoms software provider. Llewellyn Farquharson, Jinny’s head of finance and administration, said the company chose Kenya as a location to support customers in the region but has been impressed at the ease of doing business in the country.

The Kenya ICT Board engaged management consultants McKinsey to look at where the opportunities lay. They concluded that Kenya’s strong English language skills made it ideal for the development of a call centre industry, particularly one focused on the hospitality industry. Already the capital Nairobi is home to 5,000 call-centre “seats” which are a combination of local firms and offices established directly by global brands.

Multinationals such as Microsoft, Cisco, EMC and Google already have offices in Kenya from where they run their operations in the region.

Mr Kukobo also highlights two offshore Java software development centres which show the country’s capability of doing higher value work.

With $120 million in support from the World Bank, Kenya has embarked on a drive to computerise public records such as land ownership and driving licence applications as part of its move to combat corruption.

Mr Kukobo, who was chief executive of his own web development company before joining the public sector, firmly believes the government should foster the local industry by investing in technology projects. In addition to the Kenya Transparency and Communications Infrastructure Project, the government is upgrading a number of its own core IT systems, while the Digital Villages project is building a network of 210 cyber cafés in rural villages which will be completed by 2012.

“The government sees its own ICT investment as a stimulus” said Mr Kukubo.