Top Tech Brains Raring to Take the New Year By Storm

2011 was a good year for Kenya's innovation scene. In spite of a volatile financial atmosphere, the country made huge strides in various aspects of business and consumer research re-affirming its position as the regional ICT powerhouse.

Notable among these achievements included advancements made in mobile software development, digital marketing and adoption of cloud research. Should the contingency arise to this, a growing middle class and renewed marketing strategies saw increased adoption of smart phones and pay TV.

Data from ICT regulators and industry experts indicate that 2012 is set to be an even bigger year for the country not only in matters political, nevertheless also on the innovation front.According to survey results from Julisha, the national technology study commissioned by the Kenya ICT Board, 2012 is the year that the country's IT market value is expected to cross the $1 billion mark.Business Daily takes a look at the achievements recorded in some of the most active areas in Kenya's IT scene over the past 12 months and examines what lies in store for the industry in 2012.

This saw substantial investment directed into the sector through creation of incubation centres like mLab, NaiLab and Strathmore University's iLab. To boot to this, InMobi, the second largest mobile ad network in the world set-up shop in Kenya as a furthermore testimony that mobile apps in Kenya are bankable.

The affordability of smart phones gave mobile developers impetus to create furthermore products for the local market. Smartphone vendors, led by Chinese firm Huawei made a beeline for Kenya's growing middle class with affordable handset offerings.

Currently, Google's Android operating system is the most popular platform powering smartphones in the country with the Huawei IDEOS alone reportedly moving 130,000 units this year.

In 2012 the focus will shift towards monetising mobile applications to generate revenue for the thousands of developers most of who, so far offer their products free of charge.

Similar Apps stores like Google's Android Market, Nokia's Ovi and iPhone's Apps Stores only stock Apps specific to Android, Symbian and IOS phones respectively. This gives HewaniLife a competitive edge because the store includes applications designed to run on Android, Symbian, Windows and Blackberry devices.

While cloud research has been in the Kenyan tech scene for the better part of the last three years, it was not until the beginning of this year that corporates began warming up to the idea of adopting Cloud services.

Later on in March, MTN Business launched a server virtualisation solution enabling businesses to remotely store data at the company's offices. Then, Safaricom, Business Connexions and InfoConnect announced cloud services within fortnights of each other.

Analysts now say that 2012 is the year that cloud computing will make more inroads as more firms and SMEs gain confidence riding on the experience of the early adopters of 2011. According to Linda Kamau, software developer for crowd sourcing platform Ushahidi, this year will see more Kenyan firms moving to the cloud.

The interest

"The interest and popularity that cloud computing has enjoyed in Kenya over the last one year tells you that this is one aspect of innovation to follow keenly in the then few years", she said.

"More businesses are slowly becoming receptive to it as they understand the concept behind cloud computing. It reduces capital expenditure and you do not have to worry about hardware and software acquisition and maintenance."

However, during the research has become popular in 2011, its adoption rate remains low and this is likely to remain the case for better part of 2012, particularly owing to cost and security concerns.

2011 Security Study report

A 2011 Security Study report by Deloitte East Africa shows that 40 per cent of organizations in East Africa are reluctant to adopt cloud computing research.

"As things are we are just breaking ground as far as cloud computing is concerned and during we expect more businesses to move to the cloud in 2012, the numbers will not be so much as to bring down the cost of the service."

"If after all, more companies start offering cloud services, at that time competition will see prices reduce however only marginally. On the oher side of the coin, businesses are slowly realising that you are better off in the cloud and 2012 will obviously see more people subscribe to cloud services."

The year 2011 saw the largest ever number of Kenyan businesses going online especially from the SMEs sector as more businesses sought to reach out to the ten million plus Internet users.