Kenya must ensure a steady stream of mobile solutions

Woman speaking on a mobile phone. Three companies — Equity Bank’s Finserve, Tangaza Pesa and Zioncell — were licensed in 2014 to run telcom business in Kenya. PHOTO | FILE 

In Summary

• The mobile application “Ujirani” emerged the winner in the community category and is fashioned around the “Nyumba Kumi” concept by enabling neighbours to form networks with links to emergency response services.
• Kenya's mobile application sub-sector is quite advanced, but we rarely appreciate it because it has become so very common to us. 
• The capital investment costs are minimal; only bright youngsters with  programming skills and time on their hands are required.

By JOHN WALUBENGO
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The annual Safaricom Developers Challenge (AppWiz) ended two weeks ago at a colourful ceremony at Hotel Sankara, Nairobi.  Just like last year, this year's AppWiz competition did not disappoint.

There were four categories that software developers, who were drawn mainly from the local universities, were competing in. They included creating community based solutions, business solutions, youth and entertainment solutions, and infrastructure and utility solutions.

Several finalists made it in each of the above categories. The mobile application “Ujirani” emerged the winner in the community category and is fashioned around the “Nyumba Kumi” concept by enabling neighbours to form networks with links to emergency response services.

In the business category, the “Guide Rig” application took first place.  The mobile application facilitates business and consumer  interactions during marketing campaigns. In the Youth and Entertainment category, a popular campus-related news feed, the “Magazine Reel” mobile application was the winner.

The very timely “Smart Travel” mobile application led in the Infrastructure and Utilities category.  The Smart Travel mobile-app comes in handy for the typical Kenyan reveller who needs to check his or her “Alcoblow” status before driving, and risking an encounter with the boys in blue who use the real Alcoblow.   Essentially, Smart Travel is a handheld, digital Alcoblow device in your pocket.

LIFE CHANGING APPS NEEDED

The simplicity, convenience and timeliness of these mobile solutions is amazing.  The demonstrated synergy between the industry (Safaricom), academia (universities)  and government (the ICT Authority) to deliver these solutions makes one wonder if we still need to build the Konza Techno-City in order to make Kenya the ICT Hub in Africa.

Kenya's mobile application sub-sector is quite advanced, but we rarely appreciate it because it has become so very common to us.  The fact that we are able to pay our water, power, shopping, insurance and other bills using mobile money is so natural to us that we fail to realize that it is still  a mind-boggling phenomenon for many developed economies abroad.

Mobile application development should therefore be our global niche as country, and we should leverage it by creating local solutions that we can eventually export to global markets. 

Indeed, MPESA has already walked this path, but we need structures that generate a pipeline of life-changing mobile applications over the long term.

The opportunities are endless. “Killer” mobile applications that would serve and improve our health, education, agriculture, water, transport, security and other sectors are waiting to be discovered. Furthermore, the capital investment costs are minimal; only bright youngsters with  programming skills and time on their hands are required.

DEVELOP M-GOVERNMENT

The youth should, of course, be supported by institutions willing to provide guidance, incubation and start-up funds to grow these ideas into mature products that can scale up to meet market demand.

It would be useful if the Ministry of ICT played a more strategic, leading role, rather than just being a supportive player in this mobile application development sub-sector. Specifically, the ministry could highlight the priority areas for development such as mobile Government (m-Government), while providing start-up funds for them.

Additionally, the ICT regulator should be thinking ahead in terms of what market structures and regulatory frameworks should be in place for emerging m-Government applications in order to avoid the market concentration challenges that are currently evident in the mobile sector.

Meanwhile, let us support the mobile innovators and innovations that continue to come through the Safaricom and other initiatives.  It can only be good for the Kenyan youth and Kenya in general.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Twitter:@jwalu