Digital platform to help local innovators market new products

Local tech-preneurs should develop products that address the Kenyan problems. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By JOHN MUTUA

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Local tech-preneurs and innovators will reduce the time and funding used to market their solutions following the launch of a market-place platform for their digital innovations.

Atlancis Cloud Chief Executive officer, Daniel Kinyua said the firm will provide the platform where individual start-ups and organisations pay for the services on a revenue share model.

“Through the Atlancis Cloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, we will be able to have a digital marketplace where we will host software solutions developed by partner organisations and individual innovators, and they will be readily available to the general public through the cloud,” Kinyua said.

SaaS is a model where software is distributed through a third-party that hosts the applications and avails them to the public.

Mr Kinyua spoke during the Connected Kenya Summit-ICT forum that drew attendants from across the East Africa last week.

He urged local tech-preneurs to be innovative and develop products that address the Kenyan problems and challenges as opposed to facilitating the uptake of imported technological innovations.

“For Kenyan IT companies to remain sustainable for the next foreseeable future, they must focus on innovation,” Mr Kinyua said.

The launch of the digital market-place is one of the efforts alongside other initiatives to help local start-ups that face difficulties in scaling their ideas into viable ideas.

iHub has created free space for technologists, investors, and tech companies to gather and work together in realising their innovations, since it opened doors in 2010.

US tech giant, Cisco Systems announced plans to open an innovation hub in the country last month.

The Sh50 million-lab will have a capacity of about 50 developers per cohort and will help digital innovators improve their skills, meet and work amongst themselves.

Technology firm Microsoft partnered with the United States International University-Africa to set up its first technical skills hub in Kenya, located at the institute’s incubation and innovation centre in Nairobi.