Dear Listers as you enjoy the World Cup, I hereby provide the Kenya ICT Board's programs update. Kenya ICT Board Interim Update 11th June 2010 *Pillar 1. BPO ITES* Project 1.1. National Capacity 1. Centre of Excellence. The 2nd Centre of Excellence Workshop and engagement with Kenya BPO Society, academia and industry practitioners. The COE framework presented for discussion and buy-in. Stakeholders agreed on the proposed timelines and strategy for the implementation of the COE which will selection of the anchor institution and selection of training by end January 2011. 2. Permanent Secretary Information and Communications established a BPO Skills Gap taskforce in 2009. This taskforce has now completed and presented an assessment report. 3. National Software Certification. Consultancy for the development of Certification and initial training awarded, pending contract signing. 4. Incubation. Project has yet to commence. Kenya ICT Board and the World Bank finalizing discussions on the model. Project 1.2. BPO/ITES Marketing/ Country Positioning 1. Confirmation from donor with donors to support Kenya Outsourcing day in (Bellagio) Europe in March 2011. This targets leading outsourcing and market analysts I n Europe with a view to making the case for Kenya outsourcing. 2. Direct Marketing. ICT Board finalizing support for a leading NGO to locate their shared services centre in Kenya. ICT Board is pursuing 4 leading BPO companies to locate in Kenya by mid 2011. 3. Stakeholders received a presentation by PS Ndemo on the initial case for Malili. Presentations were also received from IFC. 4. Kenya Positioning Marketing Initiatives undertaken as follows: Presentation to European Firms in Turkey in Feb 2010, participation at the UNDP International Conference on Interoperability in Rio De Janeiro Brazil, in May 2010, Participation at the HP Technology Conference in Frankfurt in April 2010. Commonwealth South South BPO Summit Mauritius 2010 (ICT Board Sponsored a member of the BPO Taskforce) 5. Kenya Positioning initiatives planned for2010. Call Centre expo Birmingham Sep 2010, BPO Visit to South Africa October 2010, CISCO CIO Global Summit October 2010, Shanghai Expo participation August, Harvard Business School, Shared Services and Outsourcing Summit July 2010, Accenture Global Outsourcing Conference Prague, June 2010. Project 1.4 Capacity Building and Sector Development *Pillar 2. Digital Inclusion* Program 2.1 KENET (Kenya Education Network) support 1. 200 MB Bandwidth disbursed to 64 tertiary institutions across the country. This subsided internet connectivity worth 200 MB of Bandwidth has substantially lowered the costs of connectivity. This commenced in January 2009 and will run end 2010. 2. Contract has been awarded for the development of a modern network operation centre (NOC) for the efficient management of the universities virtual network in line with global standards. 3. Kenya ICT Board has advertised for the procurement of IRUs (long term international bandwidth arrangement) for supply o bandwidth and connection to other national and regional education networks. 4. The Kenya ICT Board has facilitated training of university engineers in network design administration and management across all the tertiary institutions in Kenya. Project 2.2. Digital Villages (Pasha) 1. The ICT Board has trained 1000 people across every constituency in the county. Training has been in entrepreneurship to prepare them to run digital access centre efficiently. The trainees will be eligible for loans under the digital revolving fund to establish digital centers. 2. The Digital centre pilots have been undertaken in 5 areas, Nairobi, Garissa Kangundo, Meru, and Malindi. Preliminary findings are positive and will inform the larger roll out. The key learnings have been that the centers require excellent broadband communication, technical support, good equipment and capacity especially with respect marketing and service delivery. 3. The ICT Board is working with the Ministry of Nairobi Metropolitan Development to establish digital centres in the metropolis. Project 2.3 Wezesha (University Laptops scheme) 1. The ICT Board has commenced implementation of the Wezesha project. Advertising of the project will be done in July. This project to provide a financial subsidy for students in all universities to purchase a laptop. We intend to provide subsidy towards 16,000 laptops over a maximum of 2 years. *Pillar 3. Local Digital Content (Tandaa).* Project 3.1 Tandaa Local Digital Content Grants 1. Kenya ICT Board announces the launch of the grants for entrepreneurs in local digital content. Launch of awareness and dissemination campaign. This phase will disburse a third of USD 4 Million in batches of a maximum 10,000 USD per selected individuals and 50,000USD for firms towards the development of Project 3.2 Tandaa capacity and awareness for local content) 1. Held two successful Tandaa Symposium local content awareness symposiums which involved. First symposium had 80 participants and the second over 200. Participants shared experiences concerning local content development. 2. CEO presentation to Skunksworks 3. Suppoted the Launch of Eyeballs, an innovative mobile based advertising medium in May 2010. 4. Supported the launch of Mobile Monday in April 2010. 5. Supported the launch of Ihub. 6. ICT Board supporting Barcamp, The local developer meeting that brings together Kenya’s most innovative local software community. Takes place on 14 th and 15th of June at the Ihub. Project 3.2 Bashiri, National News information centers and government portal and intranet *Pillar 4. Egovernement Applications* Project 4.1 State Law Office Digitization of Key Achievements 1. Completion of the digitization process at the State Law office 25.5 Million paper records have been digitized. This is towards the eventual automation and online enablement of the company registry. Project 4.2 Ministry of Lands Digitization 1. Infrastructure capacity support for the Ministry of Lands where we have provided funding and helped implementation of the new banking hall. This has included providing furniture computers , scanners and local area network. Kenya ICT Board has engaged university students in an outsourcing arrangement to prepare the lands records for imminent digitization. Project 4.3 Government Bandwidth 1. Broadband Internet access worth 80 MB provided to all ministries at head offices under the Government’s Core Communications Network Project. This is costing 120,000 USD per quarter. Commencing March 2010 for 24 months to augment the government’s current broadband. 2. The ICT Board will be purchasing long term bandwidth commitments for the Kenya government towards reduced costs of international internet communications. We are planning a 15v year lease to be delivered via the TEAMs cable. Project 4.4.Judiciary 1. Trials have commenced for high end video teleconferencing links at the courts of appeal between Nairobi and Mombasa. Once this is trialed successfully over 10 months, this will be rolled out across key areas of the judiciary. 2. Contract has been awarded for digitizing 30 Million records for the High Court Registry. 2. Contract has been awarded for an interactive 2 way SMS platform for citizens to track the status of their cases before the courts. Project 4.5 KEMSA 1. Successfully implemented a new Enterprises Resource Planning System for Kenya Medical Supplies Agency. Project 4.6 Kenya Film Commission 1. The ICT Board will be funding the implementation of a content management system for the Kenya Film Commission. Kenya ICT Board has advertised for bids. Pillar 5. Government Shared Services (SHIRIKIANA) Project 5.1. Central Government Shared Services 1. The ICT Board has contracted Accenture Consulting to develop a shared services masterplan and pilot for the Kenya government. The scope of this work includes a pilot for public sector budgeting at the treasury. Interviews and data gathering are on-going. This project aims to create a high performance centre of excellence in the management and delivery of government back-end services such as HR, IT Procurement and Finance. This impact positively service delivery to citizens by government. Project 5.2 Local Government Shared Services 1. ITC Board has fundraised and received USD 300,000 towards the development of Local Government Shared Services, to support local authorities in financial, HR and IT shared services. *Communication and Capacity Building* 1. ICT board launches online newsletters for their various projects to ensure our communication are kept up to date. 2. Media workshop held in April 2010 in partnership with Kenya ICT Reporters Association for attended by 30 reporters. Major interest by media on government shared services and using online as a medium for extending traditional media. 3. ICT Board staff commence training and implementation of Project Management in partnership with Deloitte. Training is aimed at The Kenya ICT Board becoming Project Management Certified. 4. Presentation by CEO at the Marketing Africa Marketers Night in June 2010. Presented the opportunities for marketers in ICT with specific reference to entrepreneurship and to influencing the process of local outsourcing. Paul Kukubo Chief Executive Officer, Kenya ICT Board PO Box 27150 - 00100 Nairobi, Kenya 12th Floor, Teleposta Towers Koinange Street Tel +254 20 2089061, +254 20 2211960 Fax: +254 20 2211962 website: www.ict.go.ke local content project: www.tandaa.co.ke, www.facebook.com/tandaakenya twitter:@tandaaKENYA BPO Project: www. doitinkenya.co.ke Digital Villages Project: www.pasha.co.ke personal contacts _______________ Cell: + 254 717 180001 skype: kukubopaul googletalk: pkukubo personal blog: www.paulkukubo.co.ke personal twitter: @pkukubo ____________________ Vision: Kenya becomes a top ten global ICT hub Mission: To champion and actively enable Kenya to adopt and exploit ICT, through promotion of partnerships, investments and infrastructure growth for socio economic enrichment