Blessed Thursday! Greetings Sidney! I refer to your last para on existence of this community as the multistakeholder platform. I concur by saying it HAS GOT the potential, however it is not yet/not doing it; 1. Look at the contributions to the ICT Policy. If we consider this policy would be the gameplan and Kenya's gamechanger for the next couple of years - probably about 20pax, 40pax... lent their voice through this medium. Well perhaps others had other avenues Come the Practitioners Bill, and we have a good flood across all social media. Well this may be viewed to hit directly right at the bread and butter and the innovative future. 2. For the ICT Practitioners Bill circulated to have reached as far as it is now in its current state even if it were not from practitioners then "where was this community of practitioners"? This is a BIG question as this community has great Techies. Or it points to a disconnect with policy and policy making and as such something to work on. 3. Who is/are behind the Practitioners Bill? Every paper has a face of persons to it and the spirit behind it. That has not been raised here so as to interrogate/engage with them whether they are part of this community or not. I suspect we have barely had a scratch of the ICT potentials to jerk our country's development. I say again, yes the potential is there and this community would offer great service to the nation. Be blessed. Regards/WangariOn Jul 6, 2016 23:33, Sidney Ochieng via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

I'm now putting the blame for this bill squarely on you Walu. Your article seems to be describing exactly the bill's contents, they just switched out professionals for practitioners😊. Now let me go into why you're wrong: So far, there has been no Act of Parliament that would empower a particular organisation to regulate ICT professionals in Kenya and speak on their behalf. As the country adopts more and more technology, the absence of a statutory body mandated to provide leadership in the ICT space will become more pronounced. I have to ask why we need one body to speak for ICT professionals? We've had instances in which the professional bodies have been wrong, or have pushed agendas that put short term profit ahead of public good. Do you know why bodies for lawyers, doctors and accountants exist? Because these are professions that have existed for ever, figuratively. They have well established norms and methods. They're also extremely slow to innovate. ICT, in all it's forms has barely been around for 60 years and is still evolving. Give ICT another century to settle.

Already, many examples that would have benefited from an objective, non-political analysis from ICT professionals have come and gone. The Laptop procurement saga, the spectacular failure of the IEBC electronic systems, and practically all the Anglo “fleecing” ICT-related projects quickly come to mind. Would these projects have turned out differently if the individual ICT professionals involved knew that a statutory ICT professional body could revoke their licence to practice if at all they were found culpable of professional misconduct? No these projects would not have turned out differently, malpractice exists doesn't matter if you have a certificate or not. Infact having a certificate may lead people not to scrutinise the work of these professional carefully and sanction mediocrity.

The one reason you seem to have for such a body in law is so that the interests of ICT professionals can be represented however we have the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) described as a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation, and it seems to be doing a decent job without legislation to "legitimise" it.

On 6 July 2016 at 15:26, Walubengo J via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

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@Alex, @Muthuri,

Thnx for 'bursting' me @

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http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/blogs/dot9/walubengo/-/2274560/2305252/-/1208fk... 

It does seem the Internet does not forget :-)

Anyway, I still stand by those earlier views.  That the ICT professionals should be better organized and speak with one strong voice in order to guide the nation in prosperous and in difficult moments.  And that an Act of Parliament would go  a long way in ensuring that such a voice is grounded in legislation and therefore cannot be wished away by current or future governments. 

However, what I do not agree with is the way such an important bill may have gone 'below the radar' - all the way to the 1st reading. Without most people being aware of it, let alone having a chance to contribute and shape it.

In short, I have always appreciated the problem, but I do not necessarily agree with solutions (contents of the proposed bill), least of all the 'modus-operandi' methods applied to push it through.

So there you have it :-)

walu.