Which way for the Kenya Internet Exchange Point?

The Structure I proposed to TESPOK

About 7 or 8 years ago, when I was still on the board of directors of TESPOK, I suggested a governance structure that gave KIXP independence from TESPOK, it's 'mother' institution. The main rationale here was to ensure that KIXP maintains a separate, independent existence, regardless of what happened to TESPOK. 

This was during a TESPOK strategy meeting where the key message was "The African ISP is dead, long live the African ISP" based on a paper by Russell Southwood of Balancing Act Africa. The essence of which was that with the onslaught of mobile operators going into internet access provision, the only way that ISPs would survive would be through consolidation via mergers/acquisition or a complete redefinition of business focus and strategy. What was evident to me (but seemingly not to others) was that as the ISP industry transformed, there would be fewer players, and thus, less democracy - especially with regards to governance issues. 

At the same time, KIXP was attracting plenty of interest from non-ISPs and already had non-ISP members such as KENIC, KRA and others - it was evident that the interest would continue, especially as the sector evolved with greater participation from content creators, hosting companies, data-centres etc... KIXP would become the de-facto facility for providing industry actors with data interconnection and interchange.

Current structure as per an Independent study on KIXP, 2006

For those of you unfamiliar with KIXP's history - in 2001 we had to register a company KIXP Ltd, and file for an IXP license from CCK, in order to become operational after the forced closure of the IXP in 2000. My proposal was that KIXP Ltd be given full autonomy from TESPOK, have a board of directors appointed by members in full standing, and be run as a business, similar to LINX in the UK, and other successful IXPs around the world. As part of my proposals I shared the attached diagram (which I have just found in my archives). The Board would identify and appoint a CEO, who would then identify suitable staff to meet organisational growth. Being a business, some implied issues were self-sustainability, a business plan with clear growth, and social or financial returns for the 'shareholders'.

My proposals fell upon deaf ears and it is sad for me now to see a frail and seemingly weak KIXP that cannot seem to consistently engage newcomers to the industry with the benefits of local traffic exchange.

A simple question - how many of the TEAMs/SEACOM/EASSY bandwidth-holders are peering at KIXP? As mentioned by someone else concerned about optimal traffic flows in Kenya, some of our traffic is being exchanged in exotic places like Mumbai, London etc...

So, I continue shaking my head...

Investment Clubs pick up in Kenya

There are many unique and often laughable things about Kenyans but there is also a very serious and interesting set of attributes. In this post I take a look at a recent interesting phenomenon that reflects the growing awareness that Kenyans have with regards to investing, business and collective power.

The Business Daily recently had a piece about how 'chamas' or small social groups that would come together, make small monthly contributions and then individually borrow from the pool for personal projects have evolved into what can only be described as investment clubs.

One of the most famous is the Trans-Century group which consists of a bunch of 50+ age-group men who started their 'chama' over 20 years ago, formalised it about 10 years ago and now are Kenya's largest private equity fund. Last year they event went as far as institutionalising their operation and hiring a professional team of fund managers and analysts to manage and grow their portfolio.

Another, more recent group, with a much younger set of members (30+ age-group) and a seemingly more ambitious outlook is the Baraka Africa Fund, which was set up about two years ago and raised close to 80 Million shillings (US$ 1.3 Million) in it's first closing. Through regular monthly contributions from it's members, the Fund has continued to grow and was recently the talk of the town with the 570 Million (US$ 9.5 Million) takeover of City Finance Bank.

Besides these larger, better organised groups there are hundreds of small clubs that are investing in everything from shares on the Nairobi Stock Exchange to properties all over the country, transport business, credit and finance and many others.

This is a very exciting time as more Kenyans become aware of the power of capital.

Software Industry Association established in Kenya

This past week, the Kenya Information Federation, which is the ICT arm of the Kenya Private Sector Association - KEPSA launched the Kenya Software industry Association (KeSIA). The stated objective of the new Association is to promote locally developed and branded software products and market these both nationally and internationally.

The event which took place on the 19th of June also yielded an ambitious 18 month workplan with the following highlights:

• Through partnerships with universities establish marketable projects initiated by students but with express stakeholder interest from within the local and international private sector.
  
• Establish an Awards system to incentivise the creation of local software products
  
• Attract venture capital providers through a proactive promotion campaign both locally and internationally
  
• Establish access to research labs thereby creating a conducive operating environment for software entrepreneurs - sort of a Dev Incubator
  
• Market segment development through the development of partnerships with other sector industry associations
  
• Develop and enhance the trust of local consumers through adpotion of international standards
  

The Association appointed a coordinator, Bernard Nganga and a deputy coordinator Isayah Okoth - both actors in the local ICT space.

Will this be the watershed for Kenya's developer community?

Kenya Venture Capital Association in the works

An initiative to establish a Venture Capital Association for Kenya is being spearheaded by Guido Boysen of Grofin Capital. This is a very welcome undertaking as it will definitely help nurture and support the growth of Kenya's budding venture capital industry.

With every likelihood of affiliation with the African Venture Capital Association - AVCA - the Kenyan initiative will have a good foothold in establishing its goals, objectives, priorities and ultimately putting in place structures that would lead to a vibrant and active association.

Kudos to the guys behind this!

Equity Bank goes VISA

This week Equity bank announced that it is now part of the global VISA network. It is initially offering a VISA debit card to it's over 2 million customers across the country. This expands the bank's potential service reach via 3rd-party ATMs and point-of-sale devices to enlarge on the service portfolio that the bank is currently offering it's customers.

Formerly considered to be an unconventional, adventurous and trend-setting bank, will Equity be the first Kenyan bank to bite the bullet and offer e-transaction services? Will this be the bank that finally provides local merchants the framework and platform to trade electronically?

Let's wait and see.....