Following my recent visit to represent Dr Ndemo in Kingston Jamaica, on invitation from faculty at the University Of West Indies, Mona School of Business, the following article appeared in their leading local daily and online.
The visit included presentations to the Business Leaders including meetings with CEOs of some of their leading companies, (including publicly listed Gracekennedy), visits to their university campus, meetings with the software developer groups including sitting through presentations by applications developers and an evening at the national stadium to watch the Technology Univeristy track and field games. (Incidentally the story of their athletics development is another story on its own, considering that Mona Campus hosts Usain Bolt's training track and the schools is developing a sports science and sports management degree).
Jamaica GDP per capita 9100usd. Kenya 1200usd. Country feels and looks like Kenya in the 80s. One marked thing was the university students ability to articulate suggested that their English language instruction was very good and the University student lecturer relationship was very respectful. The quality of technical skills seemed very high, our developers see, a lot more business savvy from most of the tech fests I have attended here.
We agreed to conclude partnership that would allow us to expose our developer community to theirs and vice versa. They have a deep interest in Kenyan developers and entrepreneurs who's have mobile application experience because they are just finalizing their regulations to allow mobile payments.
It was an eye opener with respect to where opportunity may lie.
I shared this on tweeter and Facebook quite widely as it happened.
Paul Kukubo
CEO, Kenya ICT Board