NAIROBI: “The Kenyan ICT industry is immature and suffers from significant international competition,” says Brian Munyao Longwe, as he was speaking at a session at the ongoing Connected Kenya conference in Diani, Mombasa. Munyao who spoke on behalf of Kenya Information Technology and Outsourcing Society (KITOS) represents the private IT sector in the country that has come up together to develop a roadmap to guide the development of the sector. Munyao warns that the country needs to align its ICT sector as it will soon be facing competition from other countries. “Nigeria will be big as soon as they sort their undersea connectivity. They will bring hundreds of developers while we have tens of developers,” he says. The key factors that need to be addressed include a solid stream of ICT work from the private sector, the ICT sector delivering high quality work , sustainable and predictable funding from financial sector and government support and facilitation. “We have cowboy contracts that end up soiling reputation of good companies. There is need for a special stock exchange for IT the sector and also funding guidelines with well defined entry and exit points,” he says. Munyao says that the private sector expects to come up with the roadmap by October this year.
