Re: [kictanet] [ke-internetusers] Re: Is Kenya Ready for Innovation?-Genesis of ICT Board
Yawe, it appears your hijacked question has meta-morphosized(?), gone round the world and came back with some answers below... walu. --- On Wed, 4/7/10, Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: From: Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ke-internetusers] Re: Is Kenya Ready for Innovation? To: "Alex Gakuru" <gakuru@gmail.com> Cc: "ke-users" <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 7:37 PM Alex has raised issues which are deep and far reaching but either way can still be answered by those who participated in shaping the ICT policy in the period 2003-2006. The decision to create the ICT Board was made after various studies and consultation over a 3 year period. Towards the end of the 5-year exclusive period granted to Telkom Kenya (TKL) over International Gateway services, VSATs and National Long-distance services (1999-2004), the then Minister of Information and Communication, was so much concerned about the impending privatization of Telkom Kenya that he paused the following question to his advisors: “Tell me.. If the Government goes ahead to privatize Telkom Kenya by selling majority shares but later wants to ‘do something in the sector’, what vehicle would the Government use?” He was immediately informed that the Government will still maintain some shares in TKL and therefore will still have a voice. But he pressed further, “What if the new majority shareholder in TKL vetoes the decision?” Everybody fell silent and he then added , “Think about it.” In 2006, it became apparent that there were operational matters in the ICT sector that could not be handled by the existing institutions. The investment and trade promotion authorities were not well positioned and equipped to handle new investment/promotion matters in the ICT sector. Similarly, the communication regulator (CCK) was going to run into credibility problems if it started participating directly in the promotion of ICT services or the initiation of pilot ICT projects. The other body was the National Communications Secretariat which had its role clearly specified in Section 84 of the Communications Act as : “to advise the Government on the adoption of a communication policy.” It could therefore not extend its operations to other ICT matters without substantial amendments to the law. Eventually, consensus was build around setting up an ICT Authority. But even this paused some problems. An authority had to have its own Board separate from management. This was going to require the appointment of a group of eminent persons from the ICT sector to the Board of the Authority who in turn would have to appoint another group of persons (mostly from the same sector) to run the affairs of the Authority in line with contemporary corporate governance principles. Eventually, the Government settled on the ICT Board with a CEO who was to be the Chairman of the Board. Following this decision, the Board was created under section 3 of the State Corporation Act as a corporate body with perpetual succession and common seal, and capable of suing and being sued. This I believe is long enough for all of us to digest. Anybody who remembers more can contribute or amend before the mandate can be scrutinized as Alex has attempted to do. Regards James Kulubi ===================== The views expressed here are personal and not in any way those of the Multimedia University College of Kenya where the Author Works as the Principal. From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> To: Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> Cc: ke-users <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Sent: Wed, 7 April, 2010 10:59:30 Subject: Re: [ke-internetusers] Re: Is Kenya Ready for Innovation? I hope this contribution is not cheapened to protecting individuals or name calling. My intention is solely to address the "approach" most holistically but I am alive to the fact that some will invariably view this as a "personal attack" hence may react unexpectedly. Anyhow, everyone has a right to their opinion. On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
I have read with interest recent discussions about the ICT Board and also about innovation in our beautiful country. I am compelled to contribute.
The genesis of the ICT Board problem stems from contradiction between what the ICT Board believes is their mandate, repeated governance questions hanging around their ad hoc and tax payer costly series of activities. They diverted their mandate to “four-fold 1) Marketing: Positioning and promoting Kenya as an ICT destination (locally and internationally), especially promoting Business process Outsourcing (BPO) and Offshoring. 2) Advisory: Advise the government on all relevant matters pertaining to the development and promotion of ICT industries in the country 3) Capacity Building:Providing government and other stakeholders with skills, capacity and funding for anchor implementation of ICT projects for development. 4) Project Management: Coordinating, directing and implementing anchor ICT projects in development.” http://www.ict.go.ke/index.php/theboard/our-mandate-a-objectives - - Whereas the Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 11 Legal Notice No.26 of 2 march,2007 that established them states their mandate as: - - Functions of the Board: “4. The functions of the Board shall be to - [emphasis mine] (a) advise the Government on all relevant matters pertaining to the development, co-ordination and promotion of information and communication technology industries in the country; (b) promote both locally and internationally the opportunities for investment in information and communications technology; (c) facilitate and manage information and communication technology, industrial incubation parks and technology parks together with associated facilities on sites, estates and land; (d) appoint agents within and without the country to carry out such functions, as it may consider necessary, in accordance with this Order; (e) carry out any other activities as, in the Board's opinion, will promote and facilitate the development of information and communications technology products and services.” - - Therefore, the ICT Board's continued journey on their ultra vires path will go very far, but in the wrong direction. Question the value proposition in abandoning income generating activities to attend the next hurriedly convened meetings “to discuss” what such so clearly stated on the law? (Civil Society describes such gatherings as “ventilating forums” or “whining forums” where the aggrieved public poured their frustrations hearts out, yet nothing much changed thereafter at high-office government circles... simply “officials criticism management” events of sort often used by government fat muscle machinery to crush legitimate criticisms by individual members of the public. Another forum was held at the KICC 2 years ago which discussed the very Kenya ICT Board. Soon after, they went back to “business as usual” where nothing much changed.)
We will soon have a new constitution and the public will expect changes not only in government systems but also in the way they live and work. This therefore brings to bear a new question.
The public has long cried for changes in the matter state officials (their employees) have been poorly serving them. For example, the secrecy around deals entered into by officials with private companies, opaque and costly ICT activities and “projects” etc. The Rights sector has since 2000 tirelessly urged the governmnet to implement the Freedom of Information to shed light on thus far governance in darkness which has only served as breeding grounds for extended, entrenched and institutionalised corruption. The new constitution dilutes the current top-down power structure and empowers mwananchi.
Is the country ready for radical innovation?
Yes! And it has always been... But the power holders detest 'disruptive' innovation. They are the ones that in fact have been opposed radical innovation because that dilutes their grip on power, resources, and public control. They fear innovation because it it has the potential of creating new centres of power - A wild allegation that must be supported by facts? Consider the history of how the Internet entered Kenya. Moi era was so frightened of it that an official communication banned it from all government offices. And only a handful of the “politically correct” in the private sector were gradually permitted to operate it. Their loss of public thinking capture through state controlled KBC as the only means of receiving information and communication was simply unbearable. Dr. Mary Muiruri wrote the chapter on Kenya on the book “Negotiating the Net” http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/ntn/ In other words, power brokers oppose innovation unless and until they can manipulate it – directly(through policies, laws, and regulations) or indirectly,for example, where they co-own the ventures (e.g. mobitelea) thus can influence decision and/or their “right” ones are put in charge of the innovations- never mind their (or lack thereof) technical qualifications to manage innovation.
Fast forward>>
Could today's high communication prices be deliberately engineered by the establishment so as to frustrate bottom-up innovation- as back door to retain power at the top? How much does the powerful ruling elite own in the telecommunications industry? Did they game the system to privately benefit from public exploitation by “private sector” companies when in essence they are one an the same? Why public funds invested in TEAMS cable today has never benefited the public? Did the government that was the initiative leader deliberately water down its shareholding on the cable? Was it a deliberate shareholding weakening to later conveniently excuse self and blame “private sector” and perpetually expect and “hope [failed] competition will bring prices down.” As proof of sincerity, all public official need to first exercise Freedom of Information principles in their projects, activities, so-called “public-private-partnership” and deals entered into therein,, etc then the public can discern genuine public-good initiatives from private and personal steal-quick initiatives that have absolutely no relation to promoting innovation or of any national interests (mistaken by some as “Nationals Interests”) Engagement on this innovation, and other, governance matters should be three-fold a) the politics b) motive of the actors and c) the details. Unless the politics and and motives are clearly understood, then it may be time wasteful to over-engage on details - because the a) and b) forces easily wreck whatever “details” one may have invested so much in (time, expertise, money, reputation etc) Meanwhile, as indicators to the some of the frustrations facing local innovators, have a look at "The excruciating pain of being a Kenyan Coder" by Idd Salim http://www.iddsalim.com/blog/2009/11/09/the-excruciating-pain-of-being-a-ken... and http://www.iddsalim.com/blog/2009/11/13/the-excruciating-pain-of-being-a-ken... Some of us have been screaming ourselves hoarse... but nothing gets done. Could we be back to the pre-June 2005 ICT Policy position "Kenya lacks high level ICT leadership?" regards, Alex
The millennium challenges require the Third World to change focus and address simple and well-stated goals. However, the paradigm called “third world decease” which was introduced to me over 20 years ago by one Prof. Leo Van Biesen (you may Google him) still hangs on our necks. To highlight this decease, he paused the question: “What does it matter if one knows something but nobody is using that knowledge? What does it matter? In any case chances are that with the rapid advances in knowledge, somebody is going to gain the same knowledge anyway or even put in a better way – somebody somewhere may already have the same knowledge.”
In this breadth, Third World has many well trained experts in all spheres of knowledge with outstanding decorations but they are completely unable to translate what they know into some kind of innovative service or product that can significantly improve the lives of the ordinary person. Year in year out we complain about bad leadership, limited foreign investment, limited access to information , etc.
In this regard, Dr. Mohan (IBM Fellow and Former IBM India Chief Scientist recently gave a speech at the University of California at Santa Cruz entitled “Can India be an innovation superpower?” A summary of his speech can be found at http://bit.ly/dxuurP. According to him, the innovation eco-system includes:
Government: Infrastructure, Incubation/Research Funding, Intellectual Property protection, R&D Labs Universities: Faculty including adjunct, Students, Teaching Vs Research, Consulting, Incubation, Public/Private firms: R&D labs, Visionary leaders, University linkages Funding Entities: Banks, VC firms, Government agencies – debt Vs equity Networking/Trade Bodies: Mentoring, Standards, Large customer base, especially domestic, Society at Large: Cultural attitudes like questioning authority, Relatives Money focus, press freedom, and availability of relevant role models.
Dr. Mohan goes further to list the essential attributes for innovation as:
Sheer intellect, analytical thinking, synthesis, inquisitiveness, Sustained work in an area, Maniacal focus and attention to detail, Appreciation for long term technical careers and related role models, Soft skills and belief in collaborating with other people, Risk taking and handling failures gracefully, Dedicated follow through to turn invention to innovation, Scale: pockets of brilliance are often insufficient for meaningful impact, Paths/desire for faculty to turn research into commercial impact, Truly serious collaboration between academia and industry, and Ability to promote startups while at the same time upholding well-established companies.
but may also apply to any third world country.
Putting too much focus on compensation; High-quality work and leaving a legacy are often secondary goals, if at all; Sense of entitlement, instant gratification pervade youth from day one at work; Lots of MoU signings between industry & academia, and Indian & foreign universities – more photo ops and not enough serious follow ups; true desire for collaboration lacking even in faculty (within/outside the university); Not enough accountability of outcomes with R&D investments; When good does happen, not enough publicity/documentation; Not enough interest in postgraduate education/research; Tempting to blame convenient scapegoats: infrastructure, government, politicians, bureaucracy, corruption, reservations; Only lip service provided on striving for excellence In spite of becoming modern in many ways, hierarchy still matters and questioning authority is frowned on; Too often looking westward for requirements/problems when local customers do have non-trivial problems that call for innovation; Acute shortage of soft skills; False believe that all entrepreneurship equals being innovation; Quantum leap in level of professionalism needed; Doing subcontract/QA work may bring in money but cost arbitrage won’t be sustainable – have to move up the food chain; Too much of narrow grunt work and not enough indulgence in exploration on the side as skunk works by individuals; and Lank of understanding that managing technologists and technology products requires special management skills.
When I carefully examine
Further, he identifies the following issues that appear pertinent to India these issues, I see myself, all you my colleagues
and the rest of the third world as part of the problem but not the solution or ARE WE?
Regards
James Kulubi
From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> To: ke-users <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Sent: Mon, 5 April, 2010 21:29:08 Subject: [ke-internetusers] Re: Price never goes down in Kenya
The painful truth behind this article is quite upsetting. That costs keep rising or at best remain high. We have complained about it yet not much seems to result in lowered consumers internet costs.
But at least, domain hosting has just became much more affordable!
Background:
freedom of expression in Kenya'http://www.freedomofexpression.org.uk/files/Kenya_FoE.pdf - - - - 2.2.3 Costs of having an online presence
The costs of internet domain names, website development and web hosting are expensive in Kenya, effectively preventing most of the population from having a presence online. As of 23 October 2008, there were 9,238 generic .ke domains and 548 restricted or ‘second level’ domains registered, totalling 9,786 .ke domain names. The policies of Kenic (Kenya Network Information Centre) on internet domain pricing were hotly discussed during the period of this study. A price of Ksh 2,000 per domain had applied for all .ke domains, until sustained complaints that
Hosting has been expensive - 'New communications technologies and the domain was overpriced, and that this was a barrier
to purchasers, compelled Kenic to review prices downwards in August 2008. However Kenic’s Board decided to lower to 500 Ksh only the prices of restricted domain names (those used by government and schools) which were also the least registered. Kenic’s minutes from its annual general meetings fail to record the levels of public dissatisfaction with their policies, reflecting a tendency to report only on positive achievements.
Estimates suggest that the lowest accepted commercial rate for website development is around US$ 1,000 (approximately Ksh 80,000), making the cost prohibitively high for community and civil society organisations. Professionally developed websites can cost upwards of three times this amount. Popular ‘cheap’ hosting in the US costs about US$ 100 (approximately Ksh 7,500) per year29, which is expensive for many Kenyans and civil society organisations.
Around 50% of Kenyan websites are currently hosted overseas. The organisation Afrispa (A continental Association of African Internet Service Providers) has published a strategy arguing that this is the case because the ‘unfair distribution of bandwidth cost sharing is actually driving traffic out of AISP [African Internet Service Provider] backbones and into IBP [International Backbone Providers] backbones’. Kenyan ISPs, it says, are effectively bearing the cost of international connectivity in both directions, resulting in higher costs to consumers. The strategy proposes redressing this imbalance of cost sharing and the consequent high prices, by promoting the development ‘peering’ through Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) so that
- - - Today hosting services remain quite expensive, for example, below are annual costs published at one of the local hosting company's website:-
50MB - KSH 3,000/= 100MB - KSH 6,000/= 300MB - KSH 9,000/= 500MB - KSH 12,000/=
Quite prohibitive costs which I know should be way much lower!!!
Intervention:
An own small contribution towards lowering the prevailing high internet costs.
In contributing to the solving the internet domain hosting costs, today I partnered with one of the best hosting companies in the world. I am pleased to inform you that from now on your domain/website can be hosted (with 500MB disk space) at shillings 3,500/= (three thousand five hundred only) per year.
You can assist:
May I request that you kindly let persons that may be interested in this affordable hosting know of this intervention?
regards,
Alex
On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 10:04 AM, Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> wrote:
[Our cartels ruled economic arrangement defeats 'free market' philosophy. Unless government intervenes on telecommunication prices as promised a while back by PS Ndemo, then consumers should just forget all those promised 'wonderful benefits of ICTs' - internet fibres, mobile, contents/applications, etc. etc. -true or false? AG] -- [Daily Nation] By ALLAN NGUNGU Sunday, April 4 2010
Kenya has in all along been a veritable capitalist country whose
free-wheeling economic model has compared the US and Britain.
In Africa, it is ranked among the top entrepreneurial states, its people staking their business acumen from Eastern Africa to Botswana to the goldmine havens of South Africa.
But even with this “market economy”, it has had a major flaw: it’s almost entirely based on an edifice of ever rising prices of goods and services — and production costs. These always go up but never, ever come down even when the open market dictates so.
The precepts of a free market as espoused by the Keyneses of this world never seem to work here, no supply-driven price drops.
During times of drought, for instance, prices of goods shoot up, but when it rains cats and dogs, prices remain high for all manner of dubious
reasons including the favourite: the roads are impassable.
Right now, prices of maize, potatoes and milk have precipitously dropped in various parts of the country but the middle-men vultures have swooped in, buying at throwaway prices only to make a killing in towns.
When cattle are dying and herders are selling at rock-bottom prices, meat prices never go down but will swiftly go up if there is a minor shortage.
When crude oil prices escalated from around $60 to $147 a barrel in the latter half of 2008, Kenyan oil companies gleefully raised prices to over Shs110 in days, When the barrel prices dropped below the original, it took the virtual intervention of the Government with threats of price controls to nudge these companies to reduce the prices even though all
locally-destined traffic can be routed locally and at lower cost. they did was a slap-in the face.
After the huge escalation of electricity rates late last year supposedly because of the drought, there has virtually been no drop even as we have swollen rivers wiping out villages.
WHEN CONSUMERS WERE ENDURING the economically costly power rationing, Kenya Power and Lighting Co — that edifice that is adept more at power outages than lighting — was reporting astronomical profits. How one makes huge profits during a power rationing regime is a mystery.
There are many other examples, including, mobile telephone rates that are some of the highest in the world, Internet charges that remain high despite the landing of the much-hyped fibre optic cables or matatus that triple fares because it has suddenly rained or because it is
Christmas.
It is the same for Kenya’s legendary shylocks in the form of banks who have defied all pressure including positive measures to reduce their high credit interest rates while paying puny amounts to depositors.
The result is always the same: far from increasing their sales and customer base, Kenyan businesses, big and small, end up excluding huge numbers, while remaining highly uncompetitive globally.
They don’t have a clue about why huge companies such as Wal-Mart, Ford, Toyota and others became such success stories — they sold cheap to all strands of clients, not just to those who could afford their goods.
Henry Ford captured this early last century when he found out his workers could not afford the cars they
made.
http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Price%20never%20goes%20down%20in%20Keny...
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J Wals, I suppose the bottom line from most of the posts is that all task forces/ boards / agencies created - have to account on every mandate they have. Otherwise, everyone will pretty well do what they 'd like to do. Robust checks and balances demand that a working Public Private Partnership model be developed to enhance accountability and transparency, and drive out any form of 'cliches', especially in this time and age... Question again, where do we start to re-examine, cross-examine, and purposely build on what we have to move forward...? Harry _____ From: kictanet-bounces+harry=comtelsys.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+harry=comtelsys.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Walubengo J Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 11:21 AM To: harry@comtelsys.co.ke Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] [ke-internetusers] Re: Is Kenya Ready forInnovation?-Genesis of ICT Board Yawe, it appears your hijacked question has meta-morphosized(?), gone round the world and came back with some answers below... walu. --- On Wed, 4/7/10, Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: From: Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ke-internetusers] Re: Is Kenya Ready for Innovation? To: "Alex Gakuru" <gakuru@gmail.com> Cc: "ke-users" <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 7:37 PM Alex has raised issues which are deep and far reaching but either way can still be answered by those who participated in shaping the ICT policy in the period 2003-2006. The decision to create the ICT Board was made after various studies and consultation over a 3 year period. Towards the end of the 5-year exclusive period granted to Telkom Kenya (TKL) over International Gateway services, VSATs and National Long-distance services (1999-2004), the then Minister of Information and Communication, was so much concerned about the impending privatization of Telkom Kenya that he paused the following question to his advisors: "Tell me.. If the Government goes ahead to privatize Telkom Kenya by selling majority shares but later wants to 'do something in the sector', what vehicle would the Government use?" He was immediately informed that the Government will still maintain some shares in TKL and therefore will still have a voice. But he pressed further, "What if the new majority shareholder in TKL vetoes the decision?" Everybody fell silent and he then added , "Think about it." In 2006, it became apparent that there were operational matters in the ICT sector that could not be handled by the existing institutions. The investment and trade promotion authorities were not well positioned and equipped to handle new investment/promotion matters in the ICT sector. Similarly, the communication regulator (CCK) was going to run into credibility problems if it started participating directly in the promotion of ICT services or the initiation of pilot ICT projects. The other body was the National Communications Secretariat which had its role clearly specified in Section 84 of the Communications Act as : "to advise the Government on the adoption of a communication policy." It could therefore not extend its operations to other ICT matters without substantial amendments to the law. Eventually, consensus was build around setting up an ICT Authority. But even this paused some problems. An authority had to have its own Board separate from management. This was going to require the appointment of a group of eminent persons from the ICT sector to the Board of the Authority who in turn would have to appoint another group of persons (mostly from the same sector) to run the affairs of the Authority in line with contemporary corporate governance principles. Eventually, the Government settled on the ICT Board with a CEO who was to be the Chairman of the Board. Following this decision, the Board was created under section 3 of the State Corporation Act as a corporate body with perpetual succession and common seal, and capable of suing and being sued. This I believe is long enough for all of us to digest. Anybody who remembers more can contribute or amend before the mandate can be scrutinized as Alex has attempted to do. Regards James Kulubi ===================== The views expressed here are personal and not in any way those of the Multimedia University College of Kenya where the Author Works as the Principal. _____ From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> To: Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> Cc: ke-users <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> Sent: Wed, 7 April, 2010 10:59:30 Subject: Re: [ke-internetusers] Re: Is Kenya Ready for Innovation? I hope this contribution is not cheapened to protecting individuals or name calling. My intention is solely to address the "approach" most holistically but I am alive to the fact that some will invariably view this as a "personal attack" hence may react unexpectedly. Anyhow, everyone has a right to their opinion. On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Kulubi James <jkulubi@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
I have read with interest recent discussions about the ICT Board and also about innovation in our beautiful country. I am compelled to contribute.
The genesis of the ICT Board problem stems from contradiction between what the ICT Board believes is their mandate, repeated governance questions hanging around their ad hoc and tax payer costly series of activities. They diverted their mandate to "four-fold 1) Marketing: Positioning and promoting Kenya as an ICT destination (locally and internationally), especially promoting Business process Outsourcing (BPO) and Offshoring. 2) Advisory: Advise the government on all relevant matters pertaining to the development and promotion of ICT industries in the country 3) Capacity Building:Providing government and other stakeholders with skills, capacity and funding for anchor implementation of ICT projects for development. 4) Project Management: Coordinating, directing and implementing anchor ICT projects in development." http://www.ict.go.ke/index.php/theboard/our-mandate-a-objectives - - Whereas the Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 11 Legal Notice No.26 of 2 march,2007 that established them states their mandate as: - - Functions of the Board: "4. The functions of the Board shall be to - [emphasis mine] (a) advise the Government on all relevant matters pertaining to the development, co-ordination and promotion of information and communication technology industries in the country; (b) promote both locally and internationally the opportunities for investment in information and communications technology; (c) facilitate and manage information and communication technology, industrial incubation parks and technology parks together with associated facilities on sites, estates and land; (d) appoint agents within and without the country to carry out such functions, as it may consider necessary, in accordance with this Order; (e) carry out any other activities as, in the Board's opinion, will promote and facilitate the development of information and communications technology products and services." - - Therefore, the ICT Board's continued journey on their ultra vires path will go very far, but in the wrong direction. Question the value proposition in abandoning income generating activities to attend the next hurriedly convened meetings "to discuss" what such so clearly stated on the law? (Civil Society describes such gatherings as "ventilating forums" or "whining forums" where the aggrieved public poured their frustrations hearts out, yet nothing much changed thereafter at high-office government circles... simply "officials criticism management" events of sort often used by government fat muscle machinery to crush legitimate criticisms by individual members of the public. Another forum was held at the KICC 2 years ago which discussed the very Kenya ICT Board. Soon after, they went back to "business as usual" where nothing much changed.)
We will soon have a new constitution and the public will expect changes not only in government systems but also in the way they live and work. This therefore brings to bear a new question.
The public has long cried for changes in the matter state officials (their employees) have been poorly serving them. For example, the secrecy around deals entered into by officials with private companies, opaque and costly ICT activities and "projects" etc. The Rights sector has since 2000 tirelessly urged the governmnet to implement the Freedom of Information to shed light on thus far governance in darkness which has only served as breeding grounds for extended, entrenched and institutionalised corruption. The new constitution dilutes the current top-down power structure and empowers mwananchi.
Is the country ready for radical innovation?
Yes! And it has always been... But the power holders detest 'disruptive' innovation. They are the ones that in fact have been opposed radical innovation because that dilutes their grip on power, resources, and public control. They fear innovation because it it has the potential of creating new centres of power - A wild allegation that must be supported by facts? Consider the history of how the Internet entered Kenya. Moi era was so frightened of it that an official communication banned it from all government offices. And only a handful of the "politically correct" in the private sector were gradually permitted to operate it. Their loss of public thinking capture through state controlled KBC as the only means of receiving information and communication was simply unbearable. Dr. Mary Muiruri wrote the chapter on Kenya on the book "Negotiating the Net" http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/ntn/ In other words, power brokers oppose innovation unless and until they can manipulate it - directly(through policies, laws, and regulations) or indirectly,for example, where they co-own the ventures (e.g. mobitelea) thus can influence decision and/or their "right" ones are put in charge of the innovations- never mind their (or lack thereof) technical qualifications to manage innovation.
Fast forward>>
Could today's high communication prices be deliberately engineered by the establishment so as to frustrate bottom-up innovation- as back door to retain power at the top? How much does the powerful ruling elite own in the telecommunications industry? Did they game the system to privately benefit from public exploitation by "private sector" companies when in essence they are one an the same? Why public funds invested in TEAMS cable today has never benefited the public? Did the government that was the initiative leader deliberately water down its shareholding on the cable? Was it a deliberate shareholding weakening to later conveniently excuse self and blame "private sector" and perpetually expect and "hope [failed] competition will bring prices down." As proof of sincerity, all public official need to first exercise Freedom of Information principles in their projects, activities, so-called "public-private-partnership" and deals entered into therein,, etc then the public can discern genuine public-good initiatives from private and personal steal-quick initiatives that have absolutely no relation to promoting innovation or of any national interests (mistaken by some as "Nationals Interests") Engagement on this innovation, and other, governance matters should be three-fold a) the politics b) motive of the actors and c) the details. Unless the politics and and motives are clearly understood, then it may be time wasteful to over-engage on details - because the a) and b) forces easily wreck whatever "details" one may have invested so much in (time, expertise, money, reputation etc) Meanwhile, as indicators to the some of the frustrations facing local innovators, have a look at "The excruciating pain of being a Kenyan Coder" by Idd Salim http://www.iddsalim.com/blog/2009/11/09/the-excruciating-pain-of-being-a-ken yan-coder-pt-1/ and http://www.iddsalim.com/blog/2009/11/13/the-excruciating-pain-of-being-a-ken yan-coder-pt-2/ Some of us have been screaming ourselves hoarse... but nothing gets done. Could we be back to the pre-June 2005 ICT Policy position "Kenya lacks high level ICT leadership?" regards, Alex
The millennium challenges require the Third World to change focus and address simple and well-stated goals. However, the paradigm called "third world decease" which was introduced to me over 20 years ago by one Prof. Leo Van Biesen (you may Google him) still hangs on our necks. To highlight this decease, he paused the question: "What does it matter if one knows something but nobody is using that knowledge? What does it matter? In any case chances are that with the rapid advances in knowledge, somebody is going to gain the same knowledge anyway or even put in a better way - somebody somewhere may already have the same knowledge."
In this breadth, Third World has many well trained experts in all spheres of knowledge with outstanding decorations but they are completely unable to translate what they know into some kind of innovative service or product that can significantly improve the lives of the ordinary person. Year in year out we complain about bad leadership, limited foreign investment, limited access to information , etc.
In this regard, Dr. Mohan (IBM Fellow and Former IBM India Chief Scientist recently gave a speech at the University of California at Santa Cruz entitled "Can India be an innovation superpower?" A summary of his speech can be found at http://bit.ly/dxuurP. According to him, the innovation eco-system includes:
Government: Infrastructure, Incubation/Research Funding, Intellectual Property protection, R&D Labs Universities: Faculty including adjunct, Students, Teaching Vs Research, Consulting, Incubation, Public/Private firms: R&D labs, Visionary leaders, University linkages Funding Entities: Banks, VC firms, Government agencies - debt Vs equity Networking/Trade Bodies: Mentoring, Standards, Large customer base, especially domestic, Society at Large: Cultural attitudes like questioning authority, Relatives Money focus, press freedom, and availability of relevant role models.
Dr. Mohan goes further to list the essential attributes for innovation as:
Sheer intellect, analytical thinking, synthesis, inquisitiveness, Sustained work in an area, Maniacal focus and attention to detail, Appreciation for long term technical careers and related role models, Soft skills and belief in collaborating with other people, Risk taking and handling failures gracefully, Dedicated follow through to turn invention to innovation, Scale: pockets of brilliance are often insufficient for meaningful impact, Paths/desire for faculty to turn research into commercial impact, Truly serious collaboration between academia and industry, and Ability to promote startups while at the same time upholding well-established companies.
Further, he identifies the following issues that appear pertinent to India but may also apply to any third world country.
Putting too much focus on compensation; High-quality work and leaving a legacy are often secondary goals, if at all; Sense of entitlement, instant gratification pervade youth from day one at work; Lots of MoU signings between industry & academia, and Indian & foreign universities - more photo ops and not enough serious follow ups; true desire for collaboration lacking even in faculty (within/outside the university); Not enough accountability of outcomes with R&D investments; When good does happen, not enough publicity/documentation; Not enough interest in postgraduate education/research; Tempting to blame convenient scapegoats: infrastructure, government, politicians, bureaucracy, corruption, reservations; Only lip service provided on striving for excellence In spite of becoming modern in many ways, hierarchy still matters and questioning authority is frowned on; Too often looking westward for requirements/problems when local customers do have non-trivial problems that call for innovation; Acute shortage of soft skills; False believe that all entrepreneurship equals being innovation; Quantum leap in level of professionalism needed; Doing subcontract/QA work may bring in money but cost arbitrage won't be sustainable - have to move up the food chain; Too much of narrow grunt work and not enough indulgence in exploration on the side as skunk works by individuals; and Lank of understanding that managing technologists and technology products requires special management skills.
When I carefully examine these issues, I see myself, all you my
colleagues > and the rest of the third world as part of the problem but not the solution > or ARE WE? > > Regards > > James Kulubi > > > From: Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> > To: ke-users <ke-internetusers@bdix.net> > Sent: Mon, 5 April, 2010 21:29:08 > Subject: [ke-internetusers] Re: Price never goes down in Kenya > > The painful truth behind this article is quite upsetting. That costs > keep rising or at best remain high. We have complained about it yet > not much seems to result in lowered consumers internet costs. > > But at least, domain hosting has just became much more affordable! > > Background: > > Hosting has been expensive - 'New communications technologies and > freedom of expression in > Kenya'http://www.freedomofexpression.org.uk/files/Kenya_FoE.pdf > - - - - > 2.2.3 Costs of having an online presence > > The costs of internet domain names, website development and web > hosting are expensive in Kenya, effectively preventing most of the > population from having a presence online. As of 23 October 2008, there > were 9,238 generic .ke domains and 548 restricted or 'second level' > domains registered, totalling 9,786 .ke domain names. The policies of > Kenic (Kenya Network Information Centre) on internet domain pricing > were hotly discussed during the period of this study. A price of Ksh > 2,000 per domain had applied for all .ke domains, until sustained > complaints that the domain was overpriced, and that this was a barrier > to purchasers, compelled Kenic to review prices downwards in August > 2008. However Kenic's Board decided to lower to 500 Ksh only the > prices of restricted domain names (those used by government and > schools) which were also the least registered. Kenic's minutes from > its annual general meetings fail to record the levels of public > dissatisfaction with their policies, reflecting a tendency to report > only on positive achievements. > > Estimates suggest that the lowest accepted commercial rate for website > development is around US$ 1,000 (approximately Ksh 80,000), making the > cost prohibitively high for community and civil society organisations. > Professionally developed websites can cost upwards of three times this > amount. Popular 'cheap' hosting in the US costs about US$ 100 > (approximately Ksh 7,500) per year29, which is expensive for many > Kenyans and civil society organisations. > > Around 50% of Kenyan websites are currently hosted overseas. The > organisation Afrispa (A continental Association of African Internet > Service Providers) has published a strategy arguing that this is the > case because the 'unfair distribution of bandwidth cost sharing is > actually driving traffic out of AISP [African Internet Service > Provider] backbones and into IBP [International Backbone Providers] > backbones'. Kenyan ISPs, it says, are effectively bearing the cost of > international connectivity in both directions, resulting in higher > costs to consumers. The strategy proposes redressing this imbalance of > cost sharing and the consequent high prices, by promoting the > development 'peering' through Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) so that > locally-destined traffic can be routed locally and at lower cost. > - - - > Today hosting services remain quite expensive, for example, below are > annual costs published at one of the local hosting company's website:- > > 50MB - KSH 3,000/= > 100MB - KSH 6,000/= > 300MB - KSH 9,000/= > 500MB - KSH 12,000/= > > Quite prohibitive costs which I know should be way much lower!!! > > Intervention: > > An own small contribution towards lowering the prevailing high internet > costs. > > In contributing to the solving the internet domain hosting costs, > today I partnered with one of the best hosting companies in the world. > I am pleased to inform you that from now on your domain/website can be > hosted (with 500MB disk space) at shillings 3,500/= (three thousand > five hundred only) per year. > > You can assist: > > May I request that you kindly let persons that may be interested in > this affordable hosting know of this intervention? > > regards, > > Alex > > On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 10:04 AM, Alex Gakuru <gakuru@gmail.com> wrote: >> [Our cartels ruled economic arrangement defeats 'free market' >> philosophy. Unless government intervenes on telecommunication prices >> as promised a while back by PS Ndemo, then consumers should just >> forget all those promised 'wonderful benefits of ICTs' - internet >> fibres, mobile, contents/applications, etc. etc. -true or false? AG] >> -- >> [Daily Nation] >> By ALLAN NGUNGU >> Sunday, April 4 2010 >> >> Kenya has in all along been a veritable capitalist country whose >> free-wheeling economic model has compared the US and Britain. >> >> In Africa, it is ranked among the top entrepreneurial states, its >> people staking their business acumen from Eastern Africa to Botswana >> to the goldmine havens of South Africa. >> >> But even with this "market economy", it has had a major flaw: it's >> almost entirely based on an edifice of ever rising prices of goods and >> services - and production costs. These always go up but never, ever >> come down even when the open market dictates so. >> >> The precepts of a free market as espoused by the Keyneses of this >> world never seem to work here, no supply-driven price drops. >> >> During times of drought, for instance, prices of goods shoot up, but >> when it rains cats and dogs, prices remain high for all manner of >> dubious reasons including the favourite: the roads are impassable. >> >> Right now, prices of maize, potatoes and milk have precipitously >> dropped in various parts of the country but the middle-men vultures >> have swooped in, buying at throwaway prices only to make a killing in >> towns. >> >> When cattle are dying and herders are selling at rock-bottom prices, >> meat prices never go down but will swiftly go up if there is a minor >> shortage. >> >> When crude oil prices escalated from around $60 to $147 a barrel in >> the latter half of 2008, Kenyan oil companies gleefully raised prices >> to over Shs110 in days, When the barrel prices dropped below the >> original, it took the virtual intervention of the Government with >> threats of price controls to nudge these companies to reduce the >> prices even though all they did was a slap-in the face. >> >> After the huge escalation of electricity rates late last year >> supposedly because of the drought, there has virtually been no drop >> even as we have swollen rivers wiping out villages. >> >> WHEN CONSUMERS WERE ENDURING the economically costly power rationing, >> Kenya Power and Lighting Co - that edifice that is adept more at power >> outages than lighting - was reporting astronomical profits. How one >> makes huge profits during a power rationing regime is a mystery. >> >> There are many other examples, including, mobile telephone rates that >> are some of the highest in the world, Internet charges that remain >> high despite the landing of the much-hyped fibre optic cables or >> matatus that triple fares because it has suddenly rained or because it >> is Christmas. >> >> It is the same for Kenya's legendary shylocks in the form of banks who >> have defied all pressure including positive measures to reduce their >> high credit interest rates while paying puny amounts to depositors. >> >> The result is always the same: far from increasing their sales and >> customer base, Kenyan businesses, big and small, end up excluding huge >> numbers, while remaining highly uncompetitive globally. >> >> They don't have a clue about why huge companies such as Wal-Mart, >> Ford, Toyota and others became such success stories - they sold cheap >> to all strands of clients, not just to those who could afford their >> goods. >> >> Henry Ford captured this early last century when he found out his >> workers could not afford the cars they made. >> >> >> http://www.nation.co.ke/oped/Opinion/Price%20never%20goes%20down%20in%20Keny a/-/440808/892692/-/rpwg5a/-/index.html >> > > _______________________________________________ > ke-internetusers mailing list > ke-internetusers@bdix.net > http://www.bdix.net/mailman/listinfo/ke-internetusers > >
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participants (2)
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Harry Delano -
Walubengo J