How we are killing our Kenyan ICT Industry, what we could do to revive it!
Guys, It seems whatever is happening at KICT Authority has caught quite some attention, which is good, as we cannot forever go hiding as if everything is okay, when clearly the status quo remains and only less than 10% of current GoK procurement is for products and services produced locally. I have blogged about the recent happenings here and comments are welcome. http://www.a1.io/a1io_blog/kenyan-ict-industry-old-habits-die-hard/ As regards lobbying for local ICT industry, and for those who were there during #140Friday, a lot needs to be done as currently what we have are just rumblings and subsequent hot-air from the powers that be that our grievances will be addressed. IMO, probably the only way is for the local ICT players to join Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM). It is the only body with the experience, resource and drive to piush for adoption and promotion of local industry. Any other bodies such as KITOS/CSK etc that have previously been suggested do not have the experience, knowledge and drive to push our agenda. Infact, if you ask me, they will just be used to ensure the status-quo remains. The second way is to prepare to challenge the status-quo legally. It will cost quite some money, but no one ever said freedom is cheap! We are already meeting amongst a couple of firms with KAM, and I will be pushing for them to allow either corporate and individual membership and use them to articulate our issues. But, bottom line, we cannot let the networks of old that intentionally lock out Kenyan firms from grabbing the bigger chunks of ICT Projects procurement, and especially so that now everything ICT has been centralized at KICT Authority. We are centralizing to gain efficiencies not so that we can centralize corruption. Ngigi Waithaka A1.iO
Great blog/article. On another note, we can use KES 100B (per annum) of the KES 300+B returned to treasury to automate many government processes without neo colonial donor conditions :) http://mobile.nation.co.ke/News/Ministries+fail+to+spend+Sh300bn/-/1950946/1... On Sep 18, 2013 1:08 PM, "Ngigi Waithaka" <ngigiwaithaka@gmail.com> wrote:
Waithaka and listers I have a contrarian view point here. We need to be creative to ensure that we are on the table asking for a piece of the action. I believe in this case (and in a number of other cases) there are specific clauses that allow for partnerships to be formed to enable meet certain basic minimums. That is what we should be lobbying to ensure that Kenyan companies are not locked out of such tenders. Having said that I would like to urge the Government to embed certain principles as a matter of course in such procurement. 1. Firstly specifically indicating a brand name in a tender document kind of skews that to one particular vender and I believe this gives that vendor an unfair advantage. The document should be generic in its description. 2. That Kenyan companies should be involved in one way or the other through including this as part of the technical scoring to ensure that foreign companies have an incentive to partner with local ones. 3. Even though the proof of the pudding is in the eating this issue of pegging the effectiveness of a solution to a finite revenue number is abit old fashioned. In our space expensiveness doesn't necessarily equate to quality and hence revenue numbers can muddy the water when it comes to evaluation of the tenders. I believe that our procurement laws, although not yet fully foolproof are way better than they were a few years ago. We should strive to continuously improve them through engagement and consultation with government. Ali Hussein +254 0770 906375 / 0713 601113 "Kujikwaa si kuanguka, bali ni kwenda mbele" (To stumble is not to fall but a sign of going forward) - Swahili Proverb Sent from my iPad On Sep 18, 2013, at 1:07 PM, Ngigi Waithaka <ngigiwaithaka@gmail.com> wrote:
The reason these projects are "designed" for big boys is .. you never get fired for hiring ibm "No one ever got fired for buying IBM” (or “Nobody gets fired for buying IBM") means that no one gets fired to making the safe pick and choosing an industry leader. Other companies might have better products or offer lower prices, but they often come with greater risks. The phrase possibly dates to 1978 (or earlier), but was used most frequently since 1984. In the 1990s, the phrase became: “No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft.” In the recession of 2008, the phrase became: “No one ever got fired for buying gold.” http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/no_one_ever_got_fire... Technocrats are making safe choices - thats why Accenture and all those "experts" came to tell us what we should do with our BPO sector .. On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 4:43 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
@Liko, No one "got" fired for buying Trade Bank, Kenya National Assurance, Lehman Brothers or Fokker, but try that today and tell me what will happen. IBM did not come from space in a blue spacesheep (pun intended) at one time they where the underdog selling weighting scales but they did not wait for government intervention in the same way that Liko did not wait for the KICTB a.k.a KICTA to fund him before starting various ventures. @All Please read what is posted in its entirety and stop forming religious sects based on single bible verses such as "and Jesus wept", the mention of IBM in the tender could not be made generic just as we can not have a generic tender when ordering spares for the President's jet (it must be for a Fokker). The server being upgraded, please note the operative word here which is upgraded, is an IBM. No one but ourselves are responsible for killing our industry because we believe that an amorphous collection of bits and bytes needs to have a say, even the so called free internet has a duly constituted and registered organisation behind its activities. When we send requests to the CS and PS who will they say sent it, in the event that they would like a formal report who will sign it, when they want to appoint someone to a board where do they send the email and if someone needs to be sued who will be served? Regards Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696 ________________________________ From: Agosta Liko <agostal@gmail.com> To: robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, 19 September 2013, 7:57 Subject: Re: [kictanet] How we are killing our Kenyan ICT Industry, what we could do to revive it! The reason these projects are "designed" for big boys is .. you never get fired for hiring ibm "No one ever got fired for buying IBM” (or “Nobody gets fired for buying IBM") means that no one gets fired to making the safe pick and choosing an industry leader. Other companies might have better products or offer lower prices, but they often come with greater risks. The phrase possibly dates to 1978 (or earlier), but was used most frequently since 1984. In the 1990s, the phrase became: “No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft.” In the recession of 2008, the phrase became: “No one ever got fired for buying gold.” http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/no_one_ever_got_fire... Technocrats are making safe choices - thats why Accenture and all those "experts" came to tell us what we should do with our BPO sector .. On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 4:43 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote: Waithaka and listers
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/robertyawe%40yahoo.co.... The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
Liko Couldn't have put it better! So the question is how do we disrupt the apple cart? After all IBM, Microsoft et all were built by human beings like you and I... Ali Hussein +254 0770 906375 / 0713 601113 "Kujikwaa si kuanguka, bali ni kwenda mbele" (To stumble is not to fall but a sign of going forward) - Swahili Proverb Sent from my iPad On Sep 19, 2013, at 7:57 AM, Agosta Liko <agostal@gmail.com> wrote:
Ngigi My point is the person seated on the other side of that tender wants to make sure he will keep his job does not know or want to know A1 especially after IBM/Oracle showed them whitepapers about similar projects they have done .... at Connected Kenya Maybe its time to learn Golf :) On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:
I rest my case Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696 ________________________________ From: Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> To: robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Thursday, 19 September 2013, 4:43 Subject: Re: [kictanet] How we are killing our Kenyan ICT Industry, what we could do to revive it! Waithaka and listers I have a contrarian view point here. We need to be creative to ensure that we are on the table asking for a piece of the action. I believe in this case (and in a number of other cases) there are specific clauses that allow for partnerships to be formed to enable meet certain basic minimums. That is what we should be lobbying to ensure that Kenyan companies are not locked out of such tenders. Having said that I would like to urge the Government to embed certain principles as a matter of course in such procurement. 1. Firstly specifically indicating a brand name in a tender document kind of skews that to one particular vender and I believe this gives that vendor an unfair advantage. The document should be generic in its description. 2. That Kenyan companies should be involved in one way or the other through including this as part of the technical scoring to ensure that foreign companies have an incentive to partner with local ones. 3. Even though the proof of the pudding is in the eating this issue of pegging the effectiveness of a solution to a finite revenue number is abit old fashioned. In our space expensiveness doesn't necessarily equate to quality and hence revenue numbers can muddy the water when it comes to evaluation of the tenders. I believe that our procurement laws, although not yet fully foolproof are way better than they were a few years ago. We should strive to continuously improve them through engagement and consultation with government. Ali Hussein +254 0770 906375 / 0713 601113 "Kujikwaa si kuanguka, bali ni kwenda mbele" (To stumble is not to fall but a sign of going forward) - Swahili Proverb Sent from my iPad On Sep 18, 2013, at 1:07 PM, Ngigi Waithaka <ngigiwaithaka@gmail.com> wrote: Guys,
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kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at https://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/robertyawe%40yahoo.co.... The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
participants (5)
-
Agosta Liko -
Ali Hussein -
Ngigi Waithaka -
robert yawe -
S.M. Muraya