Yourself.

Now have you understood the sentence or you just read the good part?

If the techies that you adore are not convinced, what about a non-techie like me?

@a4architect.com Is the 14000 acres you are talking about the ones around Athiriver ama ziko wapi because after kyumvi have never heard of EAPC Land.
have you talked to someone in the Land ministry who has info on whether the govt has no plans for that land?

The more you read, the more educated you become

http://www.itweb.co.za/i...es-to-attract-investors

If this Konza is seen as a real estate project as its currently being marketed, then it will become a white elephant as it will have to compete with Tatu, Turkana, Lamu, Isiolo and who knows how many other projects coming this year.

The ICT part has to be marketed.

Right now the feeling I get is that this project is meant to market Kenya as a cheap place to get cheap labour. Not to market the techies who have a vision to start their own multinationals. If you can't get the Kenyan techies to go to Konza, consider it dead and Konza will happen at iHub and Juja.

Follow the tweets on #ConnectedKE find out exactly how the Kenyan techie is disconnected from this project.

First we radically changed our strategy from focusing on BPO to creating internal efficiencies. In internal efficiencies, we look at radical cost savings and local outsourcing that will create more jobs than any other sector within a very short period. Implementation on this end has started in earnet with the shared services platform at the treasury. Much of Government services especially e-procurement will be on line with more emphasies on the mobile platform.

E-procurement will create many back-end jobs as well as localized call centers. The local or county call centers will help citizens identify service offering between country and National Government. Without such call centers, we shall be confused for the nextfive years before we demand change of constitution. In e-procurement we likely to create a saving of $1 billion every year (we receive about $300 million in aid when we can create such efficiencies).

Hoping the resistance will be less, we need the land Ministry automated. When we reorganized its banking hall and filing, revenue jumped from Ksh. 3 billion to about Ksh. 7 billion estimated to be only 10 – 20% of the potential revenue. The Ministry too will need massive back office operations possibly outsourced.

The there is Judiciary which has fully embraced IT. Here they lose in excess of $1 billion every year to fraud in bonding and fines. A fully automated Judiciary will and properly functioning police will bring in excess of $2 billion to Treasury from all manner of fines. Even if we commited $1 billion to salaries of those in the back office, it will be a life changing venture for thousands of our youth.

Here we have not said jobs in IT services raging from applications to systems intergration.

In the industry take for example agriculture. We shall be able to create greater productivity and cut cost giving rise to more than $5 billion in new revenues. In essence we do not need jobs from out there but once we create enormous capacity in internal efficiencies, BPO, KPO and other ITES will come knocking and by then we shall be exporting expertee to the rest of the continent. Remember from my “candidacy” I said we needed more intra Afroca trade than going out there unprepared. Africa in Business is virgin and we have the obligation to change that.

Ndemo.



Dr Ndemo did clarify that there is room for small business in Konza. There has not been adequate information on how to be part of or invest in Konza. The cost of commercial real estate (rental) as envisioned will be much lower than the average in Nairobi which could be attractive to small enterprises.

Brian Longwe did make a good point on Twitter earlier which he reiterated. If your business needs to be in Nairobi to make money then stay in Nairobi. Konza will only be attractive for those businesses that can leverage the opportunity.

I’m looking forward to a stakeholder forum on Konza (or did one already happen?) where a great deal of the questions on how to invest, what the roadmap is and questions of the project’s transparency could be addressed.

Kind regards,

Muchiri Nyaggah | PRINCIPAL PARTNER @muchiri

eGovernance, Healthcare, ICT and Financial Services Innovation for Africa

SEMACRAFT CONSULTING PARTNERS Nairobi, Kenya. http://www.semacraft.com | http://www.semacraft.com/blog twitter: @semacraft

@murchr...now that's the kind of engagement we needed from you. Not abuse. With more of that info, we may actually like the project.

Now one of the things that the blogs I've posted have raised issue with is the giving of ict contracts to foreign companies.

Is this true? If true, why?

I'm more concerned with giving my data to Google. What is the gov't doing to ensure that Kenyan gov't content is not left in the hands of foreigners pretending to help us?

Is this the course that Konza is taking? Will the gov't ensure that Kenyans own this project fully or shall we outsource the managers and bosses to India, Google and Nokia?

Have a good night. I'll be watching Kukubu later as this is becoming rather interesting.