The 2018 Connected Kenya Summit was officially launched today by Mr. Joe Mucheru, the CS for ICT. During the early morning event at Nairobi’s Intercontinental Hotel, which also marked the announcement of the fair’s partners and sponsors, it emerged that Telkom Kenya will be the title sponsor of the program that is slated to take place at the Bomas of Kenya from 22nd to 24th October 2018.
The meet, which will gather key ICT leaders from the East Africa region, will also celebrate Connected Kenya’s tenth anniversary.
This year’s theme is Preserving Heritage, Pioneering Technology and targets to profile the successes made in the ICT sector during the decade, which include the shaping of Kenya’s ICT practices.
“As champions in ICT, we fully acknowledge that we must cut through radical transformation or slowly descend into oblivion and that is why we’re aggressively laying the foundation to facilitate interconnection of key sectors,” says Kris Senanu, MD – Enterprise Division, Telkom.
The telco, which is Kenya’s oldest but third largest, continues to laud its countrywide infrastructure that has been leveraged by the government to deploy services such as the roll-out of IFMIS in counties, The County Connectivity Project, Constituency Innovation Hubs (CIH) and powering Huduma Centres.
“As we prepare to deliberate on how to further derive value from ICT investments, let us remember that ICT is no longer about infrastructure, but the relationships between the infrastructure, the people and economic value. Our greatest task at this year’s forum is to identify how human habits are modifying to match technology,” concluded Mr. Senanu.
Telkom continues to upgrade its services, including the ever-expanding 4G coverage, at least in Nairobi. The carrier is also awaiting industry approval to launch LTE services to underserved parts of the country, a project it plans to deploy with the help of Google’s arm, Loon that beams internet signals via high-flying balloons. The service is said to go live sometime in 2019.
