With the recent expansion of innovative spaces, Kenya is earning the nickname of "Silicon Savannah". What is what drives the rapid growth of new companies in ICT in Kenya? Learn about it.

1. What is Africa's most innovative center?
Image courtesyof Trung NGUYEN at flickr.com
With the recent expansion of innovative spaces, Kenya is earning the
nickname of "Silicon Savannah"
Itis good that there are limits to presidential mandates for severalreasons
Colorado: Mountains, coins and dinosaurs
You have heard of Silicon Valley, the center of high-tech in California, but
have you heard of the "Silicon Savannah"? That is the nickname that many
have giventoKenya in English, its economy grewby 6.5 percent inthe year
2015 mainly thanks to its information, communications and technology
sector, the (ICT) sector.
Two elements make the technological boom of the "SiliconSavannah"
different fromother similar centers in other parts of the world. First, Kenyans
are using technology to solvelocal problems, M-Farmis a good example, this

2. is an application that gives farmers in Kenya an up-to-date information on
markets, so that they can get the bestprices for their agricultural products,
second, the Kenyans are designing products with the idea that these
products need to be mobile first, this is because99 per cent of the internet
subscribers in Kenya, approximately 16 million people usethe Internetfrom
their mobile devices. Kenyans did not begin to usethe Interneton personal
computers in the way that many Americans did it.
What is what drives the rapidgrowthof new companies in ICT in Kenya?
Well, let me tell you, it is all about the innovative spaces.
A place to grow ideas
Image courtesyof ~W~ at flickr.com

3. Before eliminating the term "innovativespace" as advertisementjargon,
even if the companies thrive in this digital era, the physicalspace is
important, in Kenya, innovation occurs in innovative spaces, these can be
shared offices, accelerators or incubators.
The shared spaces such as Nairobi Garage, offer new companies a flexible
shared office spacein which severalcompanies operate. The shared
environmentoften leads to unexpected collaborations.
On the other hand, accelerators inKenyaoffer programs witha defined
time limit during whichan entrepreneur canwork with mentors toachieve
a more solidbusiness out of a newcompany. Nailabfor example, is an
accelerator that works withentrepreneurs for aperiodof three tosix
months.
As its name suggests, Kenyaincubators are focusedonthe development of
new ideas, they offer advice, mentoring and officespace in exchange for a
stake in the new company. iHub is the mostfamous incubator in Kenya and in
2014 it was named the most innovativecompany in Africaby the Fast
Company Magazine.
Kenya’s innovativespaces are renowned, Global UBI, a Swedish organization
that analyzes incubators in the world mentioned three incubators located in
Kenya out of the five mostpromising university incubators in Africa in its
classification list of the most promising companies in Africa, the other two
are in Egypt and Morocco.
The success of these innovative spaces does not go unnoticed to
multinational companies, two technological giants haveestablished
innovation laboratories in Kenya: the Nokia ResearchCenter andIBM
Research-Africa-Centre.

4. Investing in innovation
Imagecourtesy of Marwa Morgan at flickr.com
Several factors contributeto the technological boomin Kenya, in 2007 a
Kenyan phone company launcheda platformcalledm-PESA that allowed
people topay for goods and servicesfromtheir mobile devices. In a country
in which justa few people had access to banks or credit cards, m-PESA
revolutionized finances, currently, among Kenya’s adults around 74 percent
of them use mobile money, this simplifies the reception of payments from
customers by new ICTcompanies.
A second contributing factor happened in 2009, when the Government of
Kenya helpedintroduce the optic fiber internet network,cables enabled the
country to jump above the existing satellite technology and citizens had
internet access at low cost, both in computers and mobile phones. In
addition, even when technology blossoms, theGovernmentof Kenya
continues to update the existing traditional infrastructure.
The “Silicon Savannah" attracts capitalists of international entrepreneurships,
non-profitorganizations and agencies of foreign assistanceabroad. These

5. were there for the sixth World Entrepreneurship Summit. This was the first
time that the meeting of this Summit was held in sub-Saharan Africa, one
more sign of the robusteconomy that Kenya is currently having. To learn
more about the Summit, please visit their website, you can find more
information there and learn about all the resources thatare available to
aspiring entrepreneurs.
As we all know it is believedthat humanity was born in Africaand although
there have beena lot of setbacks tothis gigantic continent, thesesetbacks
have only been caused because of the purity of its habitants beforethey
were invaded by not so pure habitants of other continents. They have
magnificent survivaltools and amazing ideas, this continent is as diverse and
rich as many other can be all together, do no try to undermine its value
because it is already starting to show that it can be more valuable than your
own continent.