Hi all stakeholders of the web

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the www inventor in 1989 and Time magazine member of 100 Most Important People of the 20^th century honoured Kenya by a visit last week facilitated by KICTAnet. On the conclusion of the trip, he gave a wide ranging one-on-one interview to K24’s Jeff Koinange Capital Talk to be aired on Monday 30^th at 2000 hrs and 2200hrs. Make a date to hear first hand the inventor of the www.

In his itinerary, he met and interacted with the cross-section of Kenyan web stakeholders – government, parliament, academia, techies, industry and civil society. This was a fact finding mission to understand how his invention is being exploited. He also profiled Web Foundation (www.webfoundation.org ) that he launched in Sharm el Sheikh IGF on 15^th Nov, Web Science Research Initiative (www.wsri.org) and clarified some of the outputs of www consortium (w3c) in standard setting especially for the virtually impaired.

He met government officials led by Vice President Hon Kalonzo Musyoka, Permanent Secretary Dr Bitange Ndemo and CCK DG Mr Charles Njoroge among others over lunch, had an interactive session with Parliamentary committee responsible for ICT led by Hon Eng James Rege. He also gave a one hour lecture to the academic community (view the video lecture at www.kenet.or.ke) and met Skunkworks at Strathmore University as well as TESPOK. A recurring theme was the opportunity provided by the www but can only be fully exploited by the development of content – just do it, put data on a web page and contribute to the growth of the web now estimated at 10 raised to power 18 pages and growing rapidly.

From the high and mighty, Sir Tim went to the grassroots. First stop was first hand interaction with the virtually impaired at the Kenya Society of the Blind. Yes, the blind who constitute up to 3% of the Kenyan population need to access the web and software to help them is available both for the computer and the cell phones. According to the virtually impaired ,the cost was a barrier, good pc software cost about $500 while for the cell phone cost $300, and open source was not as good. Equally, most of the Kenyan web developers do not incorporate features for virtually impaired.

In addition, Sir Tim saw applications of the web as a social intervention to create jobs, reduce crime and organise a neighbourhood by the excellent work by Kimathi Information Centre, and the power of the community radio to extend the power of the web to those in the slums as ably illustrated by the SIDAREC radio – Ghetto 99.9. To crown the visit to SIDAREC, he talked live on Ghetto 99.9 FM and praised the efforts of the SIDAREC to empower the poor with information.

His visit comes at time when Kenya has just plugged into submarine optic fibres cables and a repealed Kenya Communication Act chaperoning Kenya to the information society era. From the many interactions in his itinerary it was clear that all sectors of the society are highly sensitised on the opportunities created by www and ways to exploit the web. The only way to honour Sir Tim’s visit is to ACT now.

Cheers

Muriuki Mureithi

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Summit Strategies Ltd

ICT consulting and research

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email - mureithi@summitstrategies.co.ke