Kenya: Cradle of high-tech Africa

Kenya is planning to create a Silicon Valley in the middle of the savannah, called Konza City.

" Kenya is on the move. Africa is on the move" . It was with this tweet that Barack Obama launched his visit to Nairobi last July. The trip to the country where his father was born was part of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, a gathering of entrepreneurs from around the world invited by the White House. The fact that this summit, the sixth of its kind, was held in Nairobi on its first diversions through sub-Saharan Africa illustrates the hopes placed in Kenya's future. Yet this key country in the east of the continent cannot count on South Africa's staggering gold and diamond reserves. Nor does it benefit from an oil windfall like Nigeria, despite the exploration of deposits that should soon be productive. So there are no raw materials in abundance, but ideas are teeming and there is a very dynamic start-up scene that is foreshadowing the Africa of tomorrow.

Like many countries on the continent, Kenya does not have an optimal physical telecommunications infrastructure. So the country has gone straight into the digital age. Four-fifths of its 44 million inhabitants have a mobile phone, a rate of ownership similar to that of industrialised countries. With Africa's legendary "Système D", innovative entrepreneurs have developed a host of mobile solutions to solve all kinds of everyday problems.

Less fun than Candy Crush, these applications are much more useful, like MedAfrica, which brings good health practices to the fingertips of millions of people, as well as giving the location of the nearest medical facilities. In agriculture, a strategic sector accounting for 75 % of Kenyan workers, small farmers can find out the latest market prices thanks to SMS messages sent by MFarm. By consulting iCow, they can find a wealth of information to optimise milk production. Meanwhile, the M-Kopa app allows 200,000 households to benefit from solar energy and pay for this electricity by the hour via a smartphone.

The payment part of this solution is based on the most famous of all mobile applications born in Kenya: MPesa, M for mobile and pesa for 'currency' in Swahili. Developed in 2007 by Vodafone and its local subsidiary Safaricom, MPesa makes it very easy to pay electricity bills, school fees, groceries and even tax by text message! The money transfer service is organised around a network of small traders acting as bank agents. A true Kenyan success story, MPesa has begun to flourish in other countries such as India, South Africa and as far afield as Romania.

Mobile payment is one of Kenya's leading sectors. As long ago as 2013, more than half the population paid for their purchases using a mobile phone, according to Pew Research. So it's no coincidence that Barclays and MasterCard, aware that the future of banking services is also being played out in Africa, have chosen to set up an "innovation lab" in Nairobi.

In this sense, these banking networks have simply followed the example of IBM, which decided in 2013 to open its first research centre in Africa in Nairobi, giving Kenya the status of a leader in the high-tech revolution on the continent. "Africa has millions of entrepreneurs who are experts in their markets and are now looking for technological support."As Nick Nesbitt, IBM's General Manager for East Africa, pointed out at the time. Supported by a government that is playing the new technologies card to the hilt, the aim of this laboratory is to train future talent before - who knows? - see the brains of the Kenyan diaspora return to the country one day soon.

This year, the American giant launched an incubator in partnership with iHub, Nairobi's high-tech community. One of the emblematic players in the coworking trend in Africa, along with Nairobi Garage and 88mph, this high-tech melting pot has already seen the birth of more than 150 technology companies. Through the IBM Innovation Space@iHub, a start-up like Bitsoko, which specialises in electronic wallets, will be able to take advantage of the American group's expertise to move forward. "There's a real buzz about technology in Kenya and across Africa within the entrepreneurial community. Having greater access to global markets is propelling us into a new era of African innovation."explains Allan Juma, co-founder of Bitsoko.

New technologies are at the top of the list of objectives in the "Vision 2030" plan, launched by the Kenyan government in 2008 and designed to lift a population half of which lives below the poverty line. The highlight of this national ambition is the Konza City project, an intelligent city being developed 60 km south of Nairobi. Already dubbed Silicon Savannah, Konza City will see the development of an entire high-tech ecosystem on more than 2,000 hectares of savannah, with a business district, company headquarters, start-up incubators, universities, housing for 20,000 inhabitants and transport facilities with trains to Nairobi and Mombasa, the country's major port. The first buildings are due to go up in 2017, and the total cost of the project is estimated at between 10 and 15 billion dollars over 20 years. The country has one hope: that this Silicon Savannah will not be one of those major public works projects that are unnecessarily expensive and doomed to oblivion. A white elephant of sorts...