In its aim to grow its ICT sector and become one the top 10 ICT hubs in the world, the Kenyan government recently launched a $1.6 million public-private sector partnership with NaiLab to create a Tech Business Incubation program that supports Kenyan ICT startups.
“The idea was to create a business incubator in Nairobi whose main role was to stimulate innovation, provide a space for these ideas to be worked on with little financial strain as possible and provide the appropriate guidance necessary to do so.” says NaiLab founder Sam Gichuru
According to Gichuru, “NaiLab focuses on early stage business ideas that are likely to have a large social and economic impact, are highly scalable, require minimum investments to prototype, and have a strong value proposition. With this Tech Business Incubation program, we can upscale our ambition and support more ICT startups. It is our ambition to create the next generation of successful ICT companies of Kenya.”
NaiLab has been contracted by the Kenya ICT Board (KICTB) to pilot the National Business Incubation program for companies with high growth potential. This project is an initiative of the Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communications under the World Bank funded Kenya Transparency & Infrastructure Project
NaiLab is a Kenyan Tech Business Incubator based in Nairobi that was launched two years ago. NaiLab tries to lower the entry barriers for ICT entrepreneurs who want to start and scale their businesses in Kenya. NaiLab was a joint venture launched in 2011 by NaiLab Ltd in partnership with the crowdfunding platform 1%CLUB and consultancy firm Accenture.
Nailab hopes that a focus on the enablement of Small and Medium ICT Enterprises (SMEs) can contribute largely to Kenya’s economic development by providing jobs and income, expanding the middle class, broadening the tax base, and ultimately decreasing poverty levels.
