“Exceeded my expectations “says a participant at the Connected East Africa Summit 2015
Twelve IT and ITES, Kenyan and Ugandan beneficiary companies of the NTF III Programme have just come back to their respective offices, energized by the business linkage opportunities they uncovered at the Connected East Africa Summit 2015, held in Mombasa, Kenya, early April 2015. These companies, mostly small and medium enterprises, offer information technology services or business process outsourcing services and were looking for opportunities to grow their business.
The companies were accompanied by ITC’s consultants Pierre Oberholzer and Patricia Russ, both working for the Kenya and Uganda NTF III IT&ITES project.
The conference gave participants an opportunity to network with potential clients, notably the Kenyan government, establish partnerships with other service providers and better understand the offering from key IT vendors.
For the first time, the Summit stressed regional cooperation, changing its former name, Connect Kenya, to Connected East Africa. This name change crystallised the rising business opportunities that are emerging in the region. The Summit offered participants from Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan and Somalia a platform where all ICT stakeholders, whether from government, academia or private sector could exchange ideas on how to use ICT to deliver better services to citizens and engage concretely in business ventures to address these opportunities.
Business linkages are a key component of the NTF III programme which aims at boosting the export capacity of the IT and IT Enabled Services (ITES) industry by connecting services providers in Uganda and Kenya with their target customers in foreign markets. As part of the programme, the International Trade Centre has selected Kenyan and Ugandan companies in a large pool of companies having expressed their interest in benefiting from ITC’s export support measures. These companies will benefit from B2B matchmaking activities, knowledge sharing and training focused on enhancing their skillset.