Moses Kemibaro is a digital marketing professional based in Nairobi, Kenya. He has over 15 years experience in general management, business development, account management and strategic planning in the areas of digital strategy, creative design, business applications, technology integration, digital marketing, digital media and mobile (web, marketing & applications).
I remember quite vividly how excited we all were when the TEAMS high speed undersea cable landed in Mombasa in 2009 and went live soon thereafter giving Kenya for the very first time world-class broadband Internet.
TEAMS was only the first of three more high speed undersea cables that would eventually connect Kenya to the world. It is now over 4 years since TEAMS went live and many of the things we expected have not yet come to pass. For one, it was expected that Internet access would become much much cheaper but this has not been the case given that rates are more or less the same.
In addition, it was expected that broadband in Kenya would lead to an explosion of local digital content in the from of Internet-based offerings by locally owned technology start-ups and established businesses. To some extent, this has happened, but not in the shape or form that had been anticipated.
4 years after broadband came to Kenya, we now have millions of Internet users who largely access digital content via 3G enabled mobile devices. We also probably have too many technology competitions that are geared towards creating start-ups that could eventually become the next Facebook or Google, from an African perspective.
In addition, there are now quite a few technology co-working spaces, incubators and accelerators in Nairobi where start-ups can begin operations from scratch with Angel, Seed or Venture Capital funding which did not exist just a few years ago.You could say we have the perfect storm to drive local digital content initiatives which is actually starting to happen.
Click the Source to continue reading
