CIO Africa: December - January 2022

VOL 22 | ISSUE13 | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 EDITION

TOM MBOYA

2021 CIO OF THE YEAR

Inside >>

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Why Do Technology Projects Fail? HOW TO REALISE YOUR POTENTIAL AFRICA CIO100 Symposium & Awards How Jumia Invested in a Non-Existent Market

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The CIO Africa Highlights SURVEYS · OVERVIEWS · TECHNOLOGY · EXPENDITURE · PROJECTIONS Compiled by Insight Wells Research, this year’s edition of CIO Africa highlights a case of the three A’s - namely adaptation, analysis and adoption. Throughout the CIO100 Africa submissions, we witness companies not only brace for the pandemic’s impact, but also adopt new ways of doing things as a business survival strategy with IT taking centre stage as a key enabler to business profitability.

Megatrends Report Highlights 2021

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>> Contents VOL 22 | ISSUE 13| december - january 2022 EDITION

CIO AFRICA EDITORIAL TEAM PUBLISHER Harry Hare

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

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>> GUEST EDITOR

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>> THE ROUNDUP

Andrew Karanja

Commercial Director Aliza Thobani

Editor-in-Chief Carol Odero

WRITERS Kevin Namunwa Steve Mbego Tasha Francis

TECH COLUMNISTS Robert Yawe Michael Michie

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>> THE LEAD

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>> TOP CIO's

MARKETING MANAGER Vanessa Obura

EVENTS MANAGER Ellen Magembe

OPERATIONS MANAGER Naomi Kangethe

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FINANCE MANAGER Teddy Mukabane

EVENT EXECUTIVES Mellisa Dorsila Joan Jepkosgei Justin Maganga Felix Moturi

>> cio100 symposium & awards

Virtual & Hybrid Events Coordinator Stacey Njeri

PHOTOGRAPHY Arthur Kintu

BUSINESS CONSULTANT Njambi Waruhiu

EVENTS PLAN LEAD Bonface Shikuku

ADMIN STAFF

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>> HARD TALK

Videlis Syovata Priscilla Egehitsa Daniel Mwaha

TRAINING Rose Waguthi

CREATIVE DESIGN Samuel g. Ndung’u

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>> THINKING ALOUD

business | technology | leadership WEBINAR SERIES

As we bridge the gap in this new age of social distancing make Our AUDIENCE Your CUSTOMERS

CIO Africa leverages webinar sessions to help the IT enterprise community decision makers stay informed and build stronger business relationships most Seizeto the opportunity to position your brand, products and services on the CIO Eastwith Africathe portal. valued customers and prospects. marketing@cioafrica.co www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> Contributors

>> EXECUTIVE TEAM

Harry Hare Chairman & Publisher

>> ACCOUNTS

Andrew Karanja Director

CAROL ODERO Editor-in-Chief

Kevin Namunwa STAFF Writer

Steve Mbego STAFF Writer

Arthur Kuwashima Lead Photographer

Tasha Francis Editorial Intern

MICHAEL MICHIE Head of IT, TripleOKLaw

Aliza Thobani Commercial Director

>> SALES TEAM

Ambrose Gahene Robert Yawe CEO, SYNAptech Technologies Tech Writer

>> ADMIN

Teddy Mukabane Vanessa Obura NGENGI KAMAU Finance Manager Marketing Manager SENIOR ACCOUNT Manager

BILLY OMINGO ACCOUNT Manager

Videlis Syovata administrator

>> OPERATIONS

>> HYBRID EVENTS >> CREATIVE TEAM

Naomi Kangethe HEAD OF OPERATIONS

Stacey Njeri Virtual & Hybrid Events Coordinator

SAM NDUNG’U IAN WAGGA CREATIVE DIRECTION/ Digital Marketing/ GRAPHIC DESIGN Graphic Design

>> EVENTS TEAM

Ellen Magembe Mellisa Dorsila Events Manager Events Assistant

Joan Jepkosgei Account Executive

Justin Maganga Account Executive

Contacts

Felix Moturi Audience Generation Executive

eDevelopment House 604 Limuru Road Old Muthaiga P O Box 49475 00100 Nairobi, Kenya +254 725 855 249 Email: info@cioAFRICA.co

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The content of CIO Africa is protected by copyright law, full details of which are available from the publisher. While great care has been taken in the receipt and handling of material, production and accuracy of content in this magazine, the publisher will not accept any responsility for any errors, loss or ommisions which may occur.

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>> LETTER FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

“I think there's an artist hidden at the bottom of every single one of us.” - Bob Ros potential

but because no one ever put it in context.

I didn’t realise its promise until I became a journalist.

/pə(ʊ)ˈtɛnʃ(ə)l/ having or showing the capacity to develop into something in the future.

Similar: possible, likely, prospective, future, probable, budding, in the making, latent, embryonic, developing, dormant, inherent, unrealised, undeveloped. noun latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.

Similar: possibilities, potentiality, prospects, promise, capability, capacity, ability, power, aptitude, talent, flair, what it takes.

Every so often I find myself reaching for the dictionary to get the absolute detailed and distilled definition of a word. This time round, it was the word “potential” that got me. It is said one of the most painful things in life is when we fail to realise it. If you don’t know you have potential, does it still count if you don’t succeed?

Existential angst is something we all face – at least I would like to think we are prone to self-reflection!

And along with it, the thought that we might not be living it up as our higher selves.

A self that is actualised when we meet the mysterious ‘potential.’ The problem with potential is that it is a moving target. You get to a place, think arrival, then you find another rung. It can be exhausting – unless, of course, you treat it as an opportunity to be met with aplomb.

I remember report forms promising my parents and teachers that I really did have the capacity to learn, succeed, and maybe even thrive, if only I applied myself. Something I never did with my schoolwork. I drifted through my education, unbothered by the word ‘potential.’ Not because I didn’t grasp it,

Which is why I am ambiguous about the word. I lived for years with unmet potential because I was clueless because how do you miss something you don’t understand? Now I see potential in everything. That blade of grass – yes, really, my writers, the interns, my employers, all the CIOs and CEOs I have interviewed, the one-year-old toddling, women in tech leadership, the seven-yearold weeping over a noisy swing – there is no such thing as a fully self-actualised human because there is always that one other thing. It makes life both arduous and fascinating depending on how you got out of bed that day.

Today, I rose with ‘potential.’ Which is why this letter from the Editor-in-Chief got written. Jill Scott’s Golden came along for the ride because it captures that oh-soelusive higher self we keep promising ourselves we will attain in the New Year.

I'm holding on to my freedom, Can't take it from me I was born into it, It comes naturally I'm strumming my own freedom, Playing the God in me Representing his glory, Hope he's proud of me I know you still make something along the lines of resolutions. It is an inevitability that at one point in your life, you have wished for more from yourself. That, Ambitious One, is the yearning to meet your own ‘potential.’

2022 could be that year.

Here’s to wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year, Ambitious One!

www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> GUEST EDITOR

Wambui Mbesa

CEO, INTRASOFT International East Africa

Why Do Technology Projects Fail?

Recent studies continue to agree that technology projects fail at an astounding rate globally. More specifically, in some studies it was stated that over 70 per cent of big technology projects fail.

In the Standish Group report of February 2019, it was stated that 83.9 per cent of IT projects partially or completely fail. Failure in this context means that a project does not deliver what was required within the agreed-upon time, scope and budget. According to the Standish study, only 16.2 per cent of projects were deemed successful, being completed on time and within scope and budget.

Projects are considered a failure due to a combination of reasons such as a lack of user input or project definition, incomplete or changing requirements and specifications, inadequate executive support, technical incompetence, lack of talent and culture problems among others.

An organisational transformation mindset and technology adoption is a key pillar to unlock success in projects. Amazingly, even if many organisations embrace technology and integrate technological innovations, they continue not to adjust their culture to new conditions and make no technologically relevant choices in regard to their corporate values and practices.

However, a company’s culture can strongly influence the ways in which innovative methodologies are leveraged and 8

used to achieve success in projects within the organization. Thus, by leveraging new technologies, companies should at the same time enhance their organizational culture in order to survive in an everchanging digital environment.

It has been noticed that sometimes organisations’ leaders tend to set unrealistic project expectations in order to meet political agendas, but they do not take into account resources, talent availability and the interdependencies that exist between products (technologies and hardware), partners (vendors), processes and people, in order to deliver a successful project. One way to almost guarantee a successful project is to begin work with a clear project management plan and ensure that all involved stakeholders within the organisation understand what is expected, in order to prevent communication gaps. An adequate implementation approach (whether waterfall or agile methodology) should be defined at the beginning and tailored based on the nature of the project. Project goals, objectives and outcomes should be clearly defined, and alternative scenarios and risks should be evaluated.

Where possible, companies should consider outsourcing the project management role especially for the big technology projects, in order to ensure and increase the chances of project success

www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

Finally, companies should use existing tools, techniques and methodologies that are available for delivering complex technology projects, ensuring that businesses cases and project definitions are well-defined, including project outcome metrics. This also minimises scope problems by ensuring that unclear requirements are clarified and managed and a proper prioritsation is established.

By using these tools, techniques and methodologies the companies make sure that there is a proper internal and external resource management, that project management principles are followed, and a proper communication is established to all internal and external stakeholders.

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>> NEW APPOINTMENTS

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STEVE MBEGO

NEW APPOINTMENT

Writer

SEACOM Appoints Tejpal Bedi As Managing Director ICT service provider SEACOM has appointed Tejpal Bedi to the role of Managing Director and Regional Head of Sales for the ENEA region.

He joins SEACOM with a wealth of experience in leading and driving high performing organisations within the telecommunications and ICT sectors in East Africa.

Before joining SEACOM, he was Managing Director of CloudSmiths East Africa, a position he has held since 2015.

Prior to this, Tejpal held the position of Managing Director for Internet Solutions East Africa where he transformed (Iconnect) into a global player in the industry. He also founded the training and consulting company, Cambridge Africa, which is the IBM training partner across seven African countries. He’s also the past Chairman and Founder of Kenya IT and Outsourcing Service (KITOS), providing policy and direction within the IT-enabled services industry and government.

Commenting on the new appointment, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at SEACOM Group, Steve Briggs, said, “We are delighted to welcome Tejpal Bedi on board. We have every confidence that his wealth of experience will enable us to drive growth in the region, and help us to better serve our wholesale and enterprise clients in this key region. This is an exciting time for Tejpal and the SEACOM Kenya team as a whole.”

Tejpal has a degree in Business Studies from the University of Wales, UK, and an MBA from the University of Leicester, UK. He still serves as a Director at TESPOK, the body that manages the Kenya Internet Exchange Point and the voice of the Kenyan telecommunication industry.

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George Kuria Appointed Kenya Orient Insurance Managing Director

The Board of Directors of Kenya Orient Insurance has appointed George Kuria as the Managing Director effective September 2021.

Until his appointment, George was the Managing Director Acre Africa since January 2019.

George has a wealth of experience having worked in various firms and management capacities in the financial services sector. He has over 18 years experience in senior roles in the insurance industry.

While announcing the appointment, Kenya Orient Board of Director Chair Julius Muya said George is expected to bring in his expertise in the insurance sector to take the firm to the next level as it seeks to work alongside its business partners and other affiliates to strengthen the organisation and guarantee sustained growth He has a proven track record on delivering innovative ways of driving profitable growth and has been instrumental in building strong relationships with stakeholders in various capacities in the financial sector.

Previously, he served as acting Group Executive Officer and Chief Executive Officer at Sanlam Kenya PLC & Sanlam General Insurance Ltd, Principal Officer at Kenya Alliance Head of Retail and Mass Distribution at UAP and Divisional Director, Insurance Brokers with AON Kenya among others.

George holds a Masters in Business Administration from Strathmore Business School, a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Nairobi and a Diploma from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Insurance. He is an Associate of Insurance Institute if Kenya. He has also attended various courses in leadership, development, marketing and customer service.

Standard Chartered Appoints Bongiwe Gangeni Head of CPBB for Africa, Middle East and Europe Africa & Middle East, and Europe (AME/E), subject to regulatory approval.

Bongiwe will be based in Dubai when she joins the Bank in March 2022, the Company announced on Tuesday.

Bongiwe is joining Standard Chartered from Absa, where she spent the last 14 years, most recently as a member of the Group Executive Committee, with the dual roles of Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Retail and Business Banking, and Head of Relationship Banking.

Standard Chartered has appointed Bongiwe Gangeni as Head, Consumer, Private & Business Banking (CPBB),

Bongiwe’s successful career at Absa entailed roles across businesses including the SME segment, micro-

enterprise finance, commercial cards, inclusive banking, private banking and wealth management. Prior to joining the banking sector, Bongiwe was a consultant with Accenture, and also practised as a pharmacist.

She holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from Wits Business School, a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science and has completed the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School.

Deloitte Africa Appoints First Female CEO under their leadership. I am delighted to be handing over the reins to Ruwayda.

Ruwayda is passionate about the positive contribution the firm and the profession can play in the upliftment of our continent”, Bam, who has been CEO of Deloitte Africa since 1 June 2012, said in a statement.

Deloitte Africa has appointed Ruwayda Redfearn as its incoming CEO, effective 1 June 2022. Redfearn succeeds Lwazi Bam whose term ends on 31 May 2022.

Deloitte also announced Delia Ndlovu as the Chair of the Deloitte Africa Board, effective 1 December 2021.

Redfearn is the first female CEO for Deloitte Africa and its fourth consecutive black CEO. The appointment of two females for the CEO and Chair roles is a historic moment for the Deloitte Africa firm.

“I believe both appointments bring the very best of Deloitte’s talent and capabilities for our people, our clients and the communities within which we operate. I have complete faith that our firm will continue to realise its purpose of “making an impact that matters”

Redfearn started her career as a trainee at the Deloitte Durban office in 1997.

Post her secondment in New York, she returned to Durban as a manager and was appointed to the partnership in 2004. She was appointed to lead the audit practice of the KwaZuluNatal region in 2010, serving some of the region’s most prestigious clients.

Redfearn also chaired the Global Young Partners’ Advisory Council reporting to the global CEO. In 2011, she was appointed to the Deloitte Southern Africa Board and Remuneration Committee. In 2012, Redfearn decided to take up a Chief Financial Officer role at a global commodity trading business for three years and gained invaluable experience, serving as a board member on a number of the group’s companies.

business for the Eastern Cape and KZN regions. She was reappointed to the Deloitte Africa Board in 2016 and chaired the firm’s Remuneration Committee as well as served as a member of the Performance, Reward, Succession & Nominations Committee.

While commenting on the appointment Redfearn said, “I am honoured to be appointed to this role and excited to be part of yet another first in the history of Deloitte Africa. I am enthused about being in a position to be at the forefront of change in our profession, the services we provide and the clients we serve. I look forward to working with our people and clients to address the increasingly complex challenges society faces— including, social inequity, climate change, and economic inequality.”

Ndlovu said, “I am honoured by this appointment. The increasing importance of governance in business, coupled with our critical role as a public interest professional services firm requires that we lead by example on matters of governance. I look forward to continuing to strengthen our corporate governance framework and to lead the Deloitte Africa Board as it responds to various challenges including Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG).

She returned to Deloitte in 2015 as the Office Managing Partner for the KZN region and managed the risk advisory www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> NEW APPOINTMENTS Jumia Turn The Page With New Kenyan CEO one shopping online platform

African e-commerce platform, Jumia, has announced the appointment of one of Africa’s most powerful and influential women in Kenya, Betty Mwangi, as Kenya’s new CEO. She takes over the leadership mantle from former CEO Sam Chappatte. She will focus on accelerating corporate growth as the company continues to expand its already strong position as the number

Betty was recognized as one of the Top 10 most influential women in the mobile telecommunication industry by MCI and was also named twice as one of the Top 20 Most Powerful African women. An engineer with 20 years of experience in the telecommunications, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries, she previously served as Group Commercial Director for Britam Group PLC from 2016 to 2021, a company she originally joined in 2013. She also worked as Director of Financial Services for Safaricom MPESA from inception in 2007 to 2016.

“It is a great honour to be an integral part of Jumia’s journey as we continue to tap the power of the Internet to transform Africa. I look forward to working with the team to expand the Jumia universe and trust that my experience and passion for digital innovation will help to propel Jumia to greater heights. I am excited by the

opportunity to have a positive impact on the everyday lives of Kenyans through e-commerce,” she said.

“Betty has an impressive track record and brings a great breadth and depth of experience to Jumia. She will play an important role in furthering our customer-focused commitment as we reach an inflection point in our growth trajectory,” said Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, co-CEOs of Jumia.

“We extend our sincere thanks to Sam Chappatte as he departs our team after seven years with us, five of which were spent as Jumia Kenya’s CEO. We have achieved tremendous progress under his leadership and wish him the very best in his new endeavors.”

Jumia Kenya employs more than 500 people and more than 15,000 sellers are connected to hundreds of thousands of Kenyan consumers through the Jumia online marketplace

Tavaziva Madzinga Appointed CEO Of Santam Outgoing Britam Group Managing Director Tavaziva Madzinga has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Santam effective 1st July 2022. The Zimbabwean born actuary will replace Santam outgoing CEO Lizé Lambrechts who will retire in 2022.

“Tavaziva will be appointed as Executive Director with effect from 1 April 2022 and Chief Executive with effect from 1 July 2022,” the South Africa Insurance Company said in an announcement.

Commenting on the appointment, the Chair of the Santam Board, Pinky Moholi said: “Tavaziva comes with excellent insurance experience and business credentials. He will be joining a strong executive team and we are looking forward to his contribution”.

Tavaziva has 20 years of experience in insurance and broader financial

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services. He has worked in South Africa, Sub-Sahara Africa and Europe, in both technical and business leadership roles at country and regional levels. After more than 16 years at Old Mutual, he joined Swiss Re for four years, initially as CEO for the Middle East and Africa and later CEO for the UK and Ireland, based in London.

At Britam, he is credited with overseeing the Group’s return to profitability, initiating its transformation to a customer-centric organisation and building a strong executive team that will propel the Group to the next level.

Santam is a South African financial services group that also has business interests in Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

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>> THE ROUND-UP

Kenyan e-Pharmacy Company MYDAWA Awarded $1.2 Million Grant Funding

Kenyan e-pharmacy platform MYDAWA has been awarded a grant of $1.2 Million USD from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This grant is aimed at increasing access to PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) services through MYDAWA’s e-pharmacy model, supporting the fight against HIV& AIDS in Kenya. Approximately 38 million people around the world are living with HIV with close to 21 million of them in Eastern and Southern Africa.

The stigma associated with HIV and the public nature of the current onboarding system of PrEP has been a key challenge in the uptake of the PrEP Program. This challenge facilitated the search for a different approach that directly led to this funding which will go a long way in ensuring increased access of PrEP. Research1 has shown that when taken as prescribed, PrEP is highly effective for preventing HIV. The investment aims to generate evidence on virtual PrEP service delivery. A self-care model can expand the reach of PrEP through the discreet and convenient delivery services that

ODPP FacebookKENYA Account Hack Raises Eyebrows On Cybersecurity In Kenya

MYDAWA is well known for. This is in line with the Gates Foundation’s goal of accelerating the decline of HIV infection worldwide and saving lives through improved interventions to prevent new infections and simplified HIV treatment.

To date, the foundation has committed more than in HIV grants to organizations around the world.

This grant is an endorsement of MYDAWA’s ability and the crucial role the company is playing in the provision of sexual and reproduction health services.

MYDAWA has been at the forefront providing access to simple and affordable self-tests for pregnancy, and HIV on its platforms.

According to MYDAWA CEO Tony Wood, those seeking confidential service delivery can be confident of their privacy. “MYDAWA will adapt its current model that ensures a seamless end to end customer centred delivery solution for those seeking PrEP across the country” he added.

The Office of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions’ (ODPP) Facebook page was hacked by cybercriminals, illustrating just how cybersecurity is still a major issue in Kenya. The ODPP page announced the hack on Twitter at which point Kenyans did not hesitate to point out how they need to educate the country on how to avoid such attacks.

“We wish to inform the members of the public that our Facebook page has been temporarily hacked and we are working towards resolving the issue,” the official ODPP Twitter page stated.

Kenyans responding saying: “Hope you will use your experience to help/educate Kenyans understand how you were hacked. Ways to avoid such and how you resolve the problem,” David Waweru, a tweep, responded to ODPP’s tweet. Another tweep, Calvin Marimu, said that he hoped the hackers wouldn’t come for the servers next time.

In their Facebook account, hackers have renamed the ODPP’s Facebook to Fam Hâm Mô Cúa QuanCon. They even went as far as posting ODPP’s tweet on their own Facebook page just minutes after ODPP tweeted.

It is yet unclear who is responsible for the hack.

www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> THE ROUND-UP

CIOs Take Centre Stage in Organisations

Meta and Microsoft Teams Partner To Integrate Workplace and Teams

Meta has partnered with Microsoft to allow users to integrate Workplace with Microsoft Teams. Workplace and Teams users will now be able to access content and use tools in the two platforms in real-time without having to switch between the apps.

Microsoft Teams users will be able to access Workplace content inside the team apps from December. Equally, Workplace users will be able to access Teams video meetings in the app early next year.

Chief Information Officers (CIOs) now have more prominent roles in their organisations than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV) 2021 report shows. According to the report, the pandemic thrust digital capabilities of organisations into the forefront by accelerating the adoption of new tools and practices in ways previously unanticipated.

“Today’s technology portfolio is a dynamic mix of centralized, decentralized, and federated services. CIOs at large enterprises now manage hundreds, if not thousands, of applications spanning dozens of functions, often at a global scale. And while CIOs continue to deliver the core IT services that power the day-today operations of the business, they are also expected to drive innovation that paves the way to

a successful future,” the report says.

The report highlights that back in 2011, only 1 in 5 CIOs ranked themselves as a critical enabler of business/organization vision. “Now, they’re collaborating with colleagues to meet fast-changing demands and driving value throughout their enterprises and beyond” The study surveyed 5,000 C-Suite technology leaders, including both CIOs and Chief Technology Officers (CTOs).

IBM also asked 3,000 CEOs to identify the C-suite executives most critical to their organisational success, CIOs and CTOs jointly ranked in the top three. “Among CEOs at top-performing organisations, technology leaders were second only to CFOs”.

However, the increasing prominence of CIOs in organisations brings challenges to them. They are not only required to embrace their increasingly diverse set of responsibilities, but also do so under longstanding talent and budget constraints.

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Microsoft and Meta collaboration comes after the two companies recently announced their own versions of the Metaverse.

During the rebranding of Facebook to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg said “Metaverse will not be created by one company. It will be built by creators and developers making new experiences and digital items that are interoperable and unlock a massively larger creative economy than the one constrained by today’s platforms and their policies.”

This means that Meta is open to collaborations that will make the Metaverse, which enables shared experiences across both the physical and digital worlds, a reality. Notably, Microsoft has a jumpstart in the race after it announced it will roll out its version of the metaverse with Microsoft Teams next year.

In terms of users, Microsoft Teams leads with more than 145 million daily active users while the Workplace has only 7 million users. Besides Teams, Microsoft and Meta have collaborated before to allow Workplace users access to the former products such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Office 365 suite and Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory.

Google, AWS Take Disaster Warning To The Next Level With Machine Learning

Google and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have ramped up efforts to tackle climate change effects by controlling floods and wildfires through machine learning.

The companies demonstrated their initiatives during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) held in Glasgow, United Kingdom from 31 October – 12 November 2021.

Google in collaboration with Hebrew University published a research paper about its operational flood forecasting system that uses machine learning to give accurate real-time flood warnings to agencies and the public.

According to Google, the system which became operational in 2018, has been successfully tested in India and Bangladesh which are prone to floods.

Google’s Vice President of Engineering and Crisis states that the flood forecasting initiative which began in

2018, was expanded in 2021 to cover much of India and Bangladesh. “In 2021, our operational systems were further expanded to cover an area with over 360 million people. Thanks to better flood prediction technology, we sent out over 115 million alerts,” he said.

Google alerts, through its new machinelearning models that use Long ShortTerm Memory (LTSM) deep neural networks can now show both the extent and depth of flooding as a layer on Google Maps.

“While previous studies provided encouraging results, it is rare to find actual operational systems with ML models as their core components that are capable of computing timely and accurate flood warnings,” Google’s researchers said.

On the other hand, AusNet, an energy company based in Australia has been

using Google’s LiDAR cameras and AWS SageMaker machine learning to map out the state’s vegetation areas that need to be trimmed to stem bushfire threats.

According to AusNet its collaboration with AWS has increased worker safety by using LiDAR data and reducing the need for engineers, surveyors, and designers to travel to sites.

The energy firm adds that the collaboration has “resulted in 80.53% accuracy across all five segmentation categories, saving AusNet an estimated $366,627 per year through automated classification”.

AusNet manages 54,000 kilometres of power lines and brings energy to more than 1.5 million Victorian homes and businesses. 62% of this network is located in high bushfire risk areas.

www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> THE ROUND-UP

WIOCC Raises $200 Million To Expand Africa Connectivity

Ocean Cable Company WIOCC has announced a $200 million debt and equity capital raise to be used to expand its connectivity within Africa and internationally. WIOCC raised the equity capital from CAPE IV, a fund managed by leading Africa focused private equity fund manager, African Capital Alliance (ACA). Its debt facility was provided by the International Finance Corporation, Proparco and Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund managed by Ninety-One. Verdant Capital acted as financial advisor to WIOCC for the equity capital raise.

The company said in a statement part of the capital raise will be used in funding Open Access Data Centres (OADC) – a newly created WIOCC Group company that is creating interconnected panAfrican network of open-access, carrierneutral data centres.

First-phase locations will house key submarine cable landings in Lagos, Durban and Mogadishu, supporting the

drive to land international submarine capacity directly into carrier-neutral data centres. The data centres in Lagos and Durban will be launched early in 2022, whilst the Mogadishu one will be ready before the end of 2022.

The company disclosed that further phases of deployment will deliver more than 20 new data centres in strategic locations throughout the continent, focusing on major connectivity hubs in each country. The capital will also be used to support WIOCC’s expansion strategy across Africa and accelerate its investments in the new Equiano and 2Africa international subsea.

Commenting on the announcement, Chris Wood, CEO of WIOCC, said: “We are excited to conclude this stage of our capital raise, which will enable a very significant expansion of our hyperscale infrastructure through investment in new high-capacity subsea systems and terrestrial network. The creation of a new Group

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company – Open Access Data Centres – offering a transformational data centre proposition to the market will underpin and accelerate the evolution of cloud ecosystems in Africa, delivering the lowlatency, high-performance capabilities increasingly demanded in Africa’s markets.”

Paul Kokoricha, Partner, ACA, added: “WIOCC is a fast-growing wholesale capacity provider in Africa that has positive market fundamentals given the rate at which internet penetration is growing and the desire for more OTT services. Our partnership with them will deliver their vision of being Africa’s leading carriers’ carrier, setting the standard by which performance is measured in the industry, through the delivery of robust and creative solutions for each client, with exceptional support, leading to successful long-term partnerships”.

KEPSA, Absa Bank Kenya Partnership Targets Youths With Online Jobs

Kenya, South Africa Are KENYA Hackers Favourites

open up job linkage opportunities.

We hope that through our various engagements and activities that we will be conducted in line with this partnership we can unlock thousands of jobs to young people in the creative industry as influencers and content creators,” stated Kariuki.

Absa’s Managing Director Jeremy Awori reiterated the bank’s commitment to supporting Kenyan youth through the partnership with the Ajira Digital Program.

The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) has today announced a partnership with Absa Bank Kenya to provide online job opportunities to young people through their respective youth programmes, Ajira Digital and Ready-to-Work. Absa Bank will use Ajira’s Digital platform to recruit young people for its Ready-to-Work program while leveraging KEPSA’s network to build linkages and alliances that will enable enterprises to outsource work, so improving the impact of their ongoing young people’s placement programs.

Speaking at the announcement ceremony at the Stanley Hotel, KEPSA’s CEO Carole Kariuki said the collaboration aims to improve the government’s skilling and youth empowerment programs to address the high rate of youth unemployment and the inability to find work.

“This partnership provides an opportunity where youth from our ongoing interventions like the Ajira Digital project can access the muchneeded employability skills as well as

“The partnership with KEPSA through the Ajira Program that we are launching today is in line with our ongoing efforts in this critical area of youth empowerment.

We hope to establish digital and technologically enabled job opportunities through this agreement, with the goal of connecting one million competent youth to these opportunities” Awori said.

Absa’s Ready-To-Work seeks to equip youths with work skills, people skills, money skills and entrepreneurial skills. Young people can select their own learning pathway depending on individual needs and complete the learning online using computer, tablet or mobile platforms. Since its inception in 2015, the program has impacted over 200,000 youth in the country to date and with a target of reaching one million by 2023.

According to 2019 census, 5,341,182 or 38.9 percent of the 13,777,600 young Kenyans are jobless.

The growth of the gig economy combined with digital platforms that link job seekers with recruiters offers a lifeline for the jobless youth.

Organisations and users in Kenya and South Africa are more prone to cyberthreats, a 2021 report by global cybersecurity and digital privacy company Kaspersky indicates.

According to Kaspersky, Kenya faced 32.8 million cyberthreats in the first half of the year with South Africa closing trailing with 31.5 million. Nigeria, the populous country in Africa, recorded only 16.7 million cyberthreats during the period.

The three countries recorded significant annual growth in the number of threats targeting companies and users when compared to the same period last year.

Kaspersky recorded a 24.6% increase in Nigeria, followed by South Africa with 16.6% and Kenya with a 15.9% increase respectively.

Kaspersky’s Head of Research Centre, Global Research & Analysis Team, Middle East, Turkey and Africa Amin Hasbini said the increased attacks portrayed how significant the danger has become to organisations and users in the connected world.

“Threats can be categorised as criminal (80% of attacks), targeted (19.9%), and advanced (0.01%). The advanced grouping is significantly more sophisticated and feature increased investment from attack groups. Unfortunately, both criminal and targeted threat vectors learn from the advanced category to enhance their own attack techniques,” he said.

Hasbini stated that “the most threatened industries common across these three countries are government and telecommunications, with diplomatic, education, and healthcare also being the cause for concern”. He also explained that large service-oriented organisations such as telecommunications are being targeted because of the services they provide to high-profile companies. “Threat attacks

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>> THE ROUND-UP are using these as platforms to gain access to other businesses,” The cybersecurity company warned Africa to brace for more attacks as the growth of 5G network in the continent would expose more people and users to hackers.

“The growth of 5G across Africa means

hackers have a new platform to exploit.

As people and companies rely more on technology, the number of threats will continue to increase. People must accept the risks of living a connected lifestyle and embrace the technology and tools available to safeguard themselves,” he said.

Whereas cybercrimes affect all countries, African nations are more susceptible because of weak networks and security. According to the African Cyberthreat Assessment Report 2021, the top five cybercrimes’ threats to Africa include online scams, digital extortion, business email compromise, ransomware and botnets.

Parents Struggle With Tech Usage Rules They Set at Home

Parents around the world are trying to establish healthy digital habits for their kids. But how do they get along? A new global study reveals that worldwide, 61 per cent of parents find it difficult to be role models for their kids and occasionally they don’t follow the rules they set for their little ones. Also, more than half of the parents (54 per cent) try to establish healthy digital habits and rules for all family members.

The study by Kaspersky explored the role of healthy digital habits in the family, as well as the effect of parents’ behaviour on children and vice versa.

The study revealed that 68 per cent of the kids receive their first device before the age and this calls for adult supervision on how they use them particularly using the Internet. However, parents often fail to abide by the

rules that they set for their kids. The study shows that 48 per cent of the respondents admitted that they spend three to five hours on devices every day and the majority (62 per cent) consider this time to be normal.

On the other hand, 48 per cent of the kids spend the same amount of time on devices as their parents- three to five hours a day. But 53 per cent of adults felt that kids should spend up to only two hours on devices.

In some instances, adults consider certain behaviours to be acceptable for themselves and not their children. For example, 37 per cent of the parents believe it’s okay to share photos of family members on social media. On the contrary, less than a quarter (24 per cent) of parents think such behaviour is acceptable for their kids.

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The study proposes strategies for parents to ensure safe Internet usage for their kids. Firstly, it advises parents to surf together with their kids so that they can explore how best to keep them safe. Secondly, parents are advised to consider downloading parental control apps on their kid’s devices. Lastly, parents should involve themselves in their children’s online activities from an early age so that they can mentor their kids.

The survey involved adults who live with their children aged 7-12 years old, full-time. The sample included 1,000 respondents from the UK, France, and Germany; and 500 in each of the following: US, Turkey, Egypt, Brazil, Columbia, Russia, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Mexico.

Kenyan Edtech Startup Craydel Raises $1 Million To Upgrade Its Platform

Kenyan education start-up Craydel has raised $1 million to upgrade its search and recommendation engine to help make better suggestions in its career match assessment. Craydel uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) in its search engine to help students and professionals select courses from various universities and compare the costs of those courses.

The pre-seed round was led by pan-African venture capital fund Enza Capital. Others include AI investment fund BriteGaze, Future of Learning Fund and two US-based firms, Bisk Ventures and Tekton Ventures Kenya-based Chandaria Capital and Nigeria-based LoftyInc Afropreneurs joined as well.

Sardana, Craydel’s CEO, said the company aims to transform the way students discover, compare and apply to higher education in Africa by matching them with their right career paths.

“An estimated $30 billion is spent every year on higher education in Africa but the current student experience in accessing higher education is abysmal. There is no aggregation of choices, and decision-making is influenced by biases and misinformation,” he said.

Africa’s higher education sector faces many challenges that require the intervention of various stakeholders including ed-tech start-ups such as Craydel. Edtech start-ups, however, remain underfunded with only $20M in venture capital raised from 2019 to date.

KeNIA, WFP Partner To Establish KENYA Innovation Centres in Counties Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA) has partnered with World Food Program Kenya through its Innovation Accelerator Program to establish innovation centres in the counties.

WFP launched the Innovation Accelerator program in 2015 to pilot new solutions and scale promising innovations to disrupt hunger.

Speaking during the officiating ceremony, Federico Naccarato the Head of Innovation at WFP – Kenya said the partnership will see KeNIA and WFP synergise to maximise on unique strengths from both parties.

“This partnership will help the two bridge the gap between the very technological, developed and innovative Kenya that we experience in Nairobi and other big cities in Kenya and another reality that is represented by the arid and semi-arid areas of Kenya where often innovation and technology and innovative solutions more generally don’t find fertile soil,” he stated.

KeNIA CEO Dr Tonny Omwansa said, “Our measure of success is the number of ideas that find their way into the market. However, do not have the capacity on our own to push every idea into the market and this is where partnerships come in. The WFP has focussed a lot on food security which fits into the Big 4 agenda”.

The WFP Innovation Accelerator sources support and scales highpotential solutions to end hunger worldwide. According to Lauren Landis, Representative and Country Director for WFP Kenya, the innovation centres will provide spaces for county government staff, end-users, and innovators to get access to training on innovation methodologies and to develop, test and scale solutions to problems.

WFP will also finance the innovations by offering a lump-sum loan to selected communities that can then be blended with donor funding to make it adaptable for different contexts. This would provide flexibility to directly link country offices to funds for scaling.

Known as the Silicon Valley of Africa, Kenya has one of the most thriving innovation ecosystems in Africa. It is the home to worldrenowned innovations such as mobile money transfer service Mpesa and crisis mapping tool Ushahidi. www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> THE ROUND-UP

IFC Partners Liquid Intelligent Technologies To Expand Africa’s Digital Infrastructure International Finance Corporation (IFC) has partnered with Liquid Intelligent Technologies to expand data centre capacity and the rollout of fibreoptic cable on the continent.

The partnership with Liquid Intelligent Technologies aims to increase digital connectivity and inclusion in Africa and to support the region’s growing digital ecosystem.

Liquid Intelligent Technologies will use the funding to grow its data centre capacity in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa through its subsidiary, Africa Data Centres.

“We are very pleased that IFC continues to support Liquid. The investments in our data centers and fibre broadband network will directly support our growth plans over the coming years by encouraging the adoption of new services such as Cloud and other digital services that are critical in driving sustainable development across Africa,” said Strive Masiyiwa Liquid Intelligent Technologies Executive Chairman and Founder.

Makhtar Diop, IFC’s Managing Director stated that the partnership will help spur economic growth in Africa. “Digital technologies are rapidly transforming how people, businesses, and governments communicate, transact, and access information and services. By working with Liquid Intelligent Technologies, we can help expand access to infrastructure and digital services that power Africa’s digital economy, creating new opportunities for growth and jobs. This is an essential element for Africa’s economic transformation and building back better,” said Makhtar.

IFC’s equity and debt investments in Liquid Intelligent Technologies, which to date total approximately $250 million. The corporation’s latest investment in Liquid follows its investment in the company in February 2021 through Liquid’s bond placement on Euronext Dublin, Ireland’s main stock exchange. The issuance raised $620 million.

Sub-Saharan Africa needs around $100 billion in investment in digital infrastructure to achieve universal, affordable, and high-quality broadband access by 2030, according to the Broadband Commission on Sustainable Development. The continent needs at least 250,000 km of new fibre to achieve universal broadband access.

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Kenyan Tech Start-Up Wowzi To Create One Million Jobs For African Youth

Kenyan tech start-up Wowzi has announced it will create one million gig jobs for African youth in 2022 through its online marketplace, after successfully delivering over 150,000 paid jobs in 2021.

The firm which does influencer campaigns for brands and companies says it plans to expand partnerships with local, regional, and multinational FMCG companies, Telcos, Banks, Creative Agencies, and Development Institutions to create job opportunities for youth. The company pays out Sh5 million every week to influencers amounting to Sh260 million every year.

Speaking during the company’s official launch in the East African market, Wowzi Co-Founder and CEO Brian Mogeni said companies are increasingly aligning their marketing strategies to tap into micro and nano content creators looking to monetize their social media accounts and develop sustainable income streams outside of traditional or formal employment.

“Mobile use has become a key driver of commerce in African markets, and it’s

where young people already spend their time. Youths only require lightweight remote training to master the key principles of sharing brand messages, so suddenly anyone with a phone can influence their peers through social media. Now that Wowzi has created the technology platform to efficiently distribute and manage job offers to thousands of youth at a time, brands have an opportunity to engage directly with youth and offer meaningful gig work. Wowzi offers a new layer of advertising for brands that can help target niche communities.” he said.

East Africa has 20 million social media users according to Hootsuite Digital 2021 Data Report. Kenya leads the pack with 11 million social media users, 20.2 per cent of the population followed by Tanzania at 5.4 million users representing 8.9 per cent of the population while Uganda has about 3.4 million social media users representing 7.3 per cent of the population.

“Emerging markets are low trust environments, and so the messenger really matters. An endorsement online

from someone you really know goes a lot farther than a celebrity endorsement, for example. As a result, nano and micro-influencers with smaller, more intimate and engaged followers deliver better qualified sales leads. And everyone has influence” he added. “Nano influencers are social media users with 250 to 5000 followers. Engagement on posts by nano-influencers is nearly 3 times higher than celebrity personalities” he explained.

The firm has signed up 60, 000 influencers in the East African Region primarily by word of mouth so far and has carried out 10,000 campaigns for over 150 clients. Mogeni announced the firm plans to enter three new markets including Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa over the next month.

Africa has the second-largest youth population in the world. In 2020, Africa’s population under 35 represents almost a billion people (540.8 million 0–14-yearolds and 454.5 million 15-34-year-olds), amounting to 22.7% of the world’s total youth population, the second largest after Asia’s (58.0%).

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>> THE ROUND-UP

MTN Uganda Partners With TerraPay To Drive Global Money Transfers money transfers should not be limited to borders and the winner in all this, is the MTN Mobile Money customer who will experience a seamless user experience sending and receiving money from China and India, directly on their mobile phones.”

According to Stephen, the popularity of mobile money transfer services continues to rise amongst Uganda’s social and business population.

This, he says, is largely supported by the increasing adoption of mobile payments as well as an increasing need for cashless transactions.

TerraPay, a global payments infrastructure company, has partnered with MTN Group through MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited to facilitate international digital money transfers to beneficiaries in India and China.

“Since last year, TerraPay has partnered with MTN Mobile Money Uganda Limited to deliver inbound cross-border payments to mobile wallets in the East African region.

Now, with the expanded partnership, we will be facilitating outbound international remittance payment to countries such as India and China” Willie Kanyeki, Regional Director, East and Southern Africa, TerraPay said during the occasion on Monday.

Commenting on the partnership, Stephen Mutana, MTN Mobile Money Uganda Ag. Chief Executive Officer said: “This partnership is a true testimony of our MTN Group platform strategy of building strong ecosystems through partnerships and we will continue to invest in expanding the reach of our platform to consumers and businesses beyond Uganda because we believe that everyone deserves the benefits of a modern connected life.

“We further believe that mobile

MTN has a network of 119,077 mobile money agents across 134 districts of Uganda. At end of June 2021, it had 14.9 million subscribers, 8.6 million mobile money users and 4.7 million active data users.

Mobile money transfers in Africa was pioneered in Kenya by telecommunications company Safaricom when it launched Mpesa in 2007 before spreading to other countries including Ghana and China among others.

A 2020 report by American research firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates that the total value of global mobile financial services transactions is from $15 trillion to $20 trillion per year. China has the highest utilization rate followed by Kenya and then Ghana.

The study title Five Strategies For Mobile Payment Banking In Africa indicates that mobile money transactions represent 87% of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while in Ghana, they account for 82% of GDP. While announcing their 2021 half-year financial results, Kenya’s telco Safaricom said its volume of Mpesa transactions grew by 42%, totalling $65.3 million, while the transaction value grew to $122.5 billion.

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Microsoft Appoints Wael Elkabbany as Head of Africa Transformation Office Microsoft has appointed Wael Elkabbany as the Head of its new Africa Transformation Office (ATO).

Elkabbany moves from leading enterprise sales for Microsoft across the Middle East and Africa, and previously held roles at British Telecom and other leading businesses in the region.

“To enable digital transformation powered by Africans for Africa, Microsoft is doubling down on its investment in the continent with the establishment of the Africa Transformation Office (ATO), led by managing director Wael Elkabbany.

Under Elkabbany’s leadership, the ATO will partner with public and private organizations to empower millions of Africans and foster economic prosperity” the Company said in a statement.

“We’ve been present in Africa for 30 years, with major investments that have tangibly impacted the continent’s economic growth. Now is the time for us to increase this investment and play a larger role in enabling transformation and economic prosperity. With his experience in driving cloud adoption at scale, and deep understanding of Africa, Wael Elkabbany was the ideal choice to lead our new digital engagement strategy.” Said Microsoft Middle East and Africa corporate vice-president and president Samer Abu-Ltaif.

Commenting on his appointment, Elkabbany said: “While the African opportunity is immense, the challenges are complex, and no one company or government can solve them alone.

We are working across sectors, technologies, and borders to foster partnerships and develop solutions that will have a lasting impact.

Microsoft is committed to rethinking how and why we develop digital

solutions and strategies to better serve the needs of Africa, and I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to help build a truly connected continent,”.

Microsoft stated that Elkabbany’s team will focus on enabling growth and fuelling investment in four essential development areas – digital infrastructure, skilling, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and startups.

“Understanding that these ambitious goals cannot be achieved alone, strategic partnerships with governments, international organizations, multinationals, and African enterprises will accelerate investments in Africa and increase the continent’s export of digital services,” it said.

Elkabbany holds a B.Sc. in communication engineering, and postgraduate studies in corporate governance, international trade, and financial planning.

Adanian Labs Launches Venture Building Program Call for Tech Start-ups

Adanian Labs has launched the Adanian Labs Venture Building Program call for startups for the 2022 January cohort.

The program invites applications from tech entrepreneurs to join Adanian Labs in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Nigeria and South Africa.

Africa) with $120,000 worth of preseed funding. It is open to vibrant technology-based startups with a prototype that can be further developed.

Ideal startups should have high impact potential and be led by passionate entrepreneurs.

The program offers a blend of technology development, technical support, business mentorship, access to market, partnerships and funding while helping startups apply lean principles in processes, learning, iteration and scaling of their innovations.

Adanian Lab’s CEO John Kamara said: “We are looking forward to receiving applications from sectors like FinTech, EduTech, AgriTech, HealthTech, EnviroTech, InsurTech, EnergyTech, Smart-City, MobilityTech, EmmersiveTech including IOT, Blockchain and AI startups. We believe in the potential bestowed upon the youth of Africa and are excited to take part in unleashing opportunities to help

It will run for 12 months and includes startups incubated at Adanian Lab’s respective country offices (Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Nigeria and South

them harness tangible value.”

Since its establishment in 2020, Adanian Labs has incubated fourteen (14) groundbreaking tech startups across sectors; have established a first in Africa partnership with Emurgo Africa, a vehicle of EMURGO, the commercial arm of Cardano and have raised seed funding for 4 of its existing startups. Some of these notable startups include Afya Rekod, a consumer-driven digital health data platform, Phema Agri, an agriculture crowdfunding platform, Paylend, an SME credit lending solution and others such as Twaa, eCobba, Reward Adz, Bloow and Ada Animation.

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>> THE LEAD

ARTICLE by

HOW TO REALISE YOUR POTENTIAL CAROL ODERO

Every year, CIO Africa prepares for its fair share of events. The mother of all those events lead up to the ultimate event – the Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards, previously CIO East Africa Symposium & Awards. 2021 reflected pretty remarkable entries. But. There is the one to top them all – the now Africa CIO of the Year. Who would it go to, and why? Here is the why, and Tom Mboya Opiyo, CIO at Unga Holdings, is the who As far as nights go, it was buzzing.

The crowd was certainly beautiful.

The food favoured by a smacking of the lips. There were a couple of rather obvious gatecrashers which as far as a great party goes, was expected and even welcomed. It certainly made for a fun story! The night was, I kid you not, balmy. I promise I am not writing a Mills & Boon introduction…! It held great promise for over a hundred participants, some of whom had turned up with nyadhi. (The Luo word for great style).

Everyone wanted to know who the ultimate winner would be. There was a shortlist of 10, nine of whom are

published in this very magazine. It included a pair of previous winners whose mettle had been tested and found spectacular enough for the win.

Tom Mboya Opiyo, rising well over 6 feet, was albeit quiet and surprisingly blending in. He had no idea what was coming. Which is why when his name was called, there was split second of surprise, followed swiftly with a rush of “Whoa!” at which point he got in the requisite award-winner hugs from the people around him before his long strides took him to the stage to accept his plaque to an apt rendition of Tina Turner’s The Best playing in the

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background.

For a man who had grown up with a father rooting for him to become an engineer, Mboya, I can say confidently, must have done him proud that night.

His emotional win, the culmination of years of toiling. 25 years – he said as he accepted his award. “I wanted to be an electrical and electronics engineer, which was my father’s grand wish,” he revealed. “But during my time, getting into that course was like landing an oasis in the desert. We were competing for like 40 seats at University of Nairobi – the whole country. When I didn’t make the cut, I set eyes on

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>> THE LEAD LISCO. “And developed programmes using Visual Basic & MS Access and offered training from 1994-1996.”

my option B, which was to become a Systems Analyst so I pursued a BSc in Mathematics & Computer Science.”

As he walked from the stage, Mboya was called back by the MC, Eddie Kimani, to share a few words. “I have gotten a lot of support from my team members all through, and I really really appreciate that,” he said, holding his award close, adding, “I know the other colleagues who have won it in the past are people I really respect. I am very very happy and elated.”

An action movie lover, Mboya has watched all the Bourne movies, Money Heist, Click Bait and Fauda. The man is clearly a doer. When we finally sit down for a one-on-one, I ask him if he was expecting to win the Africa CIO of the Year 2021 award. “I was hopeful. One of the laws of the professional jungle is that every dog has their day.” To Mboya, the fact that he was listed alongside Jaine Mwai, the 2021 CIO of the Year, Kevin Ogwang’ the 2016 CIO of the Year, meant that his peers found him, and his work, quite remarkable. And that is what he celebrated.

Mboya’s career started after he attended Serani Primary School, Mombasa, - which makes it fitting that his success be acknowledged in the very same county he grew up in - and did his A Levels (KACE) at H.H. The Aga Khan Kenya Secondary in 1989. He then joined Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT) for a BSc Mathematics & Computer Science, graduating in 1994. His postgraduate studies were at the United States International University (Africa) – USIU, where he graduated with an MBA (Finance) in 2011.

“I have, like a couple of my peers, done a couple of certificate courses – MCSE, ITIL, Lean Focus Yellow Belt, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, ISO 27001, CISM, CCNA, PMP, Coaching/Mentoring and many others. Career wise, I started in Mombasa.” Here is a quick look at his rise and timeline.

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Joined a start-up ICT company –

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Worked with Coast Hauliers/ Highway Carriers – 1996-1997 as a Systems Administrator “where I developed systems I remember to date. One of them that analysed costs of trucks qualifies as a BI system by current naming standards.”

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Joined Caltex Oil (Chevron) in Dec 1997 until April 2008 initially as Analyst/Programmer and later as Systems Analyst. “Dream achieved! I left to join Sony Sugar Company in South Nyanza as Head of ICT.”

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Joined Kenya Airways, the Pride of Africa, in 2011 as Business Systems Implementation Manager before changing departments to Operational Excellence. “That is where I trained on Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.”

•

- After KQ, “I made a cameo at MultiChoice Kenya before moving to Unga Holdings Ltd, where I am currently responsible for ICT.”

You’re one of them so what are the qualities that you think make a good CIO? Apart from being knowledgeable and strategic in the tech space, a good CIO should have business acumen.

They must also be able to balance between achieving the goals of their organisations and making sure their teams remain supported, motivated and successful.

How do you keep up with the latest tech news and trends in your line of work?

Through our vendors and potential service providers, I can get highlights and presentations/demos on different/ emerging technologies. I also do lots of research, attending ICT trainings and conferences like CIO Africa events, as well as benchmarking with our peers and different sectors. There is a lot of learning and as CIO, you have to listen to the ground. The field is very fluid.

I would like to hazard that no one can be successful without a touch of failure coming along for the ride. Can you share an example or two of projects that you did that was not successful?

Failure is not an option for me so maybe I can talk of ‘not as successful as I had envisaged’ – One, I championed implementation of a Time and Attendance System at one of the companies which was meant to use a fingerprint reader to authenticate staff.

During implementation, staff protested, and we had to switch to proximity cards.

The system improved staff attendance and availability to almost 100 per cent but did not eliminate the possibility of staff sharing cards. I’m thinking of a second one!

Well then! Be that way…! Can you share an example of a project that you did that was successful?

These ones have been many throughout my career and I can count a couple at each company.

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I feel very proud of the systems that I did from scratch at Coast Hauliers – a truck cost monitoring system that analysed costs incurred by trucks and trailers telling us whether a truck was profitable. This would then lead to decisions on whether or not to keep operating a truck. It was actually an analytics software by current standards.

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At Unga, we have put in place SAP ECC 6 - 13 modules; and we are very proud of it. SAP runs most of our business processes.

The award happened as the year was rounding up. What is your top priority come 2022 as a CIO? Finalising a new ICT Strategy that is geared towards a connected factory is key in my agenda. This is geared towards a seamless sharing of information between people, machines and sensors.

The world of tech is so fast paced no one can keep up with it all the time.

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•

We have also implemented lots of security systems (user awareness, Firewall, Managed SIEM, Kaseya network monitoring and patch management, DocuSign for digital signing of documents, Office 365, Helpdesk ticketing system & mood meter, Multi Factor Authentication for SAP & O365).

There are many successful projects.

Each project needs to bring along with it a whole slew of staff. How do you get buy-in for projects and who do you need to get it from?

Buy-in is very important for a project to succeed. Our strategy is to first do a POC (proof of concept) and get to know all the associated costs. We then do a business case and calculate ROI (return on investment), and IRR (internal rate of return). When we present a business case for approval, it should make sense to the leadership and the board. Luckily, we have a very switched-on leadership and they have been very supportive of the projects that show a positive ROI. Since we engage with the business in terms of identifying possible projects, this makes the projects a push from the business which works out well for us.

You must work with a crossgenerational team. How big is your team and what are they like?

I have a small, agile and very focused team. Including me, we are eight. This includes four in the SAP Center of Excellence (Certified Business Analysts in SAP modules), two in infrastructure, and one cybersecurity and doubling up as a Programmer, as well as the Digital Transformation Manager, who has a dual reporting to me and the General Manager.

You must have had thoughts on how to build your team so what do you look for when you are building a team?

and take on new challenges, have energy and flexibility. I have had a very exciting time working with Millennials and I view them like my own children. As long as you provide an enabling environment for them, you get exemplary results. All my team members are Millennials.

From working at home to working from anywhere and now hybrid workplaces, hHow have you and your team prepared for the new world of work?

We tightly secured our network and systems – with remote working comes increased cyber threats. There is also opening up our systems for remote access with implemented collaboration tools. Having adopted a Cloud First approach, many of the systems we have acquired in the past five years are cloud based so staff can access them from anywhere. When COVID-19 happened, we did not have any challenges transitioning into the work from home arrangement other than buying extra laptops.

One of the things a CIO needs to do in their line of work includes strong leadership. How do you manage your team?

I use proven models like SWOT Analysis to gauge their Strengths & Weaknesses | Growth Opportunities and Threats.

Through this, I can mentor and support accordingly. This is also aligned via the Performance Management System for tracking and management. I also invite ideas from the team and always try not to impose my ideas on them. It allows the team to express themselves, problem solve and feel valued and motivated.

I’m betting every year has something of a resolution or area of transformation for your team. What are some of the technologies you see you and your team embracing in the coming year and why?

Integrity, passion and a team player. The rest can easily be taught.

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IoT- to improve production processes,

What has been your experience working with Millennials?

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RPA- to automate manual and repetitive tasks.

They are vibrant, ready to push limits

Right now, in the US, they are

experiencing what is being called The Great Resignation. So far about 4 million Americans have quit because the pandemic made them realise there has to be more to work than they are currently experiencing. They are saying they want more – not necessarily money, but specifically, purpose. How do you make sure that you retain your employees?

Through our Performance Development Plan – PDP. This programme looks into how my team can be developed at a personal and professional level and prepared for internal growth opportunities. Opportunities are open for staff to move and grow within the company. I also try to engage with HR to ensure we stay competitive in terms of compensation. A good environment plus compensation equals a motivated employee.

Your career spans two and a half decades, and you have explained how it has been coming along. When it comes to now, in what ways would you say you have moved Unga Holdings forward?

I have used technology to: 1. Empower our employees: a.

Our robust SAP system helps them have a smooth workflow.

b.

Our link which has 99.9 per cent uptime ensures the employees are not interrupted while working.

c.

Secured and remotely accessible systems- employees can work from anywhere at any time securely with the help of modern tools.

d.

Employee training on cyber security awareness – KnowBe4

e.

SLA adherence of over 95 per cent per month and CSI of between 8589 per cent.

f.

Digital signing of solutions using DocuSign – we must have been the first local company to do this

2. Optimise operations: We have automated material control both in Inbound and Outbound Delivery Processes in all five Unga sites by

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>> THE LEAD rebuilding our weigh bridge system.

This plus other innovations have led to optimised operations.

3. Opening up new markets for Unga through the implementation of an ecommerce platform.

4. Improved customer engagement by putting in place a customer’s management system where customers directly engages with us.

5. Reduced our spend in support by having a certified and dedicated inhouse SAP CCOE. 6. Reduced printing costs by about 60 per cent. Actually, we now do very little printing and can actually lower printing numbers further, but we have to balance convenience and cost.

A CIO is expected to be a visionary with insights into trends well into the future. Where do you see your industry heading in the next two to five?

We are moving in to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) where the Operation Technology (OT) is merging with the Information Technology (IT).

This will be achieved by the already exponential growth of technologies such as Mobile Internet, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual & Augmented Reality (AR & VR), Internet of Things (IoT), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), etc.

You’ve been at this for sometime now.

What would you say you like about your career?

I play a central point in supporting business in achieving its goals and objectives by leveraging on technology.

Seeing the positive results of these transformations is very satisfying. It’s also never boring – it is continuously changing.

CIOs are expected to be business strategists, partners with the CEO and have leadership, interpersonal and even intrapersonal and technical skills. Do you think we are asking a lot of our CIOs? Not at all. CIOs should be all-rounders since technology has now evolved from being a support tool to a business

enabler now, making any business model possible. A CIO must be agile, be a good communicator sideways, upwards and downwards. The holder must also learn from peers, business users (who are experts in their own fields), and other partners.

ensures you maintain the same wavelength with your partner. Very sensible advise.

•

Kenya Airways – Henry Obare, Head of IS Development and Paul Obiero, Head of Operational Excellence.

They helped me succeed and grow in my career at Kenya Airways in both Project Management and Kaizen / Lean Six Sigma.

•

Unga Holdings – James Nyutu, Group Finance Director and Nick Hutchinson, Group Managing Director. They are thoughtful, ready to share coaching tips and give me a free hand to implement what I think can make a difference to the business. I am so grateful for their support.

You must have stacks of data as Unga Holdings. Would you say that you are GDPR compliant?

We are working on a journey towards Data Protection Act 2019 compliance.

This is our version of GDPR. We have done well as a business, but it’s a journey that we hope to complete in the near future.

How quickly would you say you can scale your IT? Very quickly, actually thanks to public and private cloud options. With Microsoft, AWS and Google setting up shop in the continent, scaling up or down is now very easy and this makes business move quicker. The era of buying boxes is dying off and what a great convenience this brings!

So, how do you get the most out of your data?

As it’s usually said in many forums, ‘Data is the new oil.’ We are using SAP BI/Business Warehouse to analyse our data to make business sense. Owing to the lack of skillsets in this area, we have been able to make very nice dashboards using Power BI. The demand is coming from the users, and I must say – there is room for further enhancement in this area.

I believe there is no such thing as selfmade. Who have been some of your mentors in your IT journey?

I have had mentors throughout my career and would lie to first apologise to those I might not mention today.

•

At Chevron – Jona Owitti, our then Regional Audit Manager, was a great mentor. He challenged me to always learn especially CISM/CISA. One piece of advice he gave me that I stuck with is to always ensure I don’t leave my wife behind. That

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Others have taken you along their journey. Who are you taking along with you? Who are some of your mentees?

I can count 20 plus ICT Managers in the country who I have coached or have been part of my team. I am very impressed that many of them have done exemplarily well in their careers and are now Directors, Heads or IT Managers. Back to Unga I can count Pauline Karanja, Digital Transformation Manager, Njukia Benard – Infrastructure Lead, Ronald Ouma – SAP technical Lead, Emmanuel Kimathi – ICT Business Analyst and Security Architect, Raymond Osoro – SAP BASIS Lead, Joyce Rutto – SAP SD/MM Business Analyst and Dennis Too – ICt Systems Administrator.

I also provide mentorship to relatives, young people who are not necessarily in ICT field.

Enough about work. What do you do for fun?

- I watch Arsenal (an extreme sport)!

Play Chess and Scrabble. I like travelling but COVID-19 has slowed that down.

But so far, I have visited all the continents except Australia and New Zealand.

- I also like spending time on social impact activities. I have planted over 20,000 trees back home in Homabay and Migori, planted banana trees and keep

about 400 improved kienyeji chicks. This is mainly to challenge my people that it can be done. I hope that with time, the disposable income in my region will rise as people learn best practice from my investment and other similar ones.

Your wife congratulated you on LinkedIn, and Unga threw you a congratulatory party.

Would you say that you have a solid support system?

My wife is my No. 1 fan, literally. She is also bright, professionally aggressive and pushes me to scale up. She is also my No. 1 critic other than my four daughters.

How did you family celebrate you when they heard that you had won?

They threw me a lovely party. My little girl now calls me CIO and it sounds so funny.

CIOs, like lawyers, seem destined for a life of perusing. What are you currently reading?

I am reading Start with Why by Simon Sinek.

The book looks at a key aspect of what is important in business success and that is – ‘why’ do you do something. What you do only goes to support the Why. And which music are you currently listening to?

I am a reggae, Lingala and Ohangla fan so I will listen to Gregory Isaacs one moment and then switch to Franko Luanzo Makiadi the next and before you know, I am listening to Osogo Winyo and Musa Jakadala. I used to like Whitney Houston’s songs when I was younger.

Finally, one last but very critical question.

If a computer is on the fritz at home, who repairs it?

My girls have taken over. My first born, Zawadi, is studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering and is very passionate about ICT. She got an A in Computer and does some serious things in Excel and programming that make me wonder what I learnt in college. Her sisters are also equally into ICT and before any of them comes to me for a solution, they have tried to restart, uninstall and reinstall and other troubleshooting options. I feel really blessed having such talented girls. My wife also has a background in ICT so literally everyone is ICT savvy at home. www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> THE TOP CIO's

ARTICLE by

CAROL ODERO

Editorial Intern

Tasha Francis

THE CRÈME DE LA CRÈME

When the Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards lands in town, it brings with it brilliant minds in the world of technology. This year’s shortlist was no exception.

Success in technology is one thing that you have to earn. The accolades take time to acquire. Years of smart work and the application of technologies identifies a winning CIO. The top 10 CIOs are shortlisted by a team of judges who narrow the names down to the best.

Here are the 2021 contenders for Africa CIO of the Year.

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>> THE TOP CIO's

Edgar Okioga - British American Tobacco Kenya PLC Okiaga has been at BAT for 13 years. He is the Head of Information and Digital Technology at BAT as well as the Digital DNA Lead. With over 20 years’ experience, his role is primarily focused on driving technology adoption and innovation aimed at improving businesses, industries and countries through accelerating digital transformation.

Edgar is also a Sunday school teacher who has interests in photography and community work.

Ramakrishna Potluri Dangote Projects Ltd Potluri is the Head of IT and Business Applications at Dangote Projects with 34 years’ experience in the industry.

He debuted in the industry as a Marketing Executive at Eicher before joining Ramco Systems, I&M Global Services, SAP, and Rotary Bangalore Lakeside. He joined SAP as a senior consultant and rose the ranks in the eight years he was at the firm to become the Director – Solution Management. Ramakrishna returned to SAP as a Chief Product Owner, a position he held for three years before joining Dangote Industries Limited where he is presently.

Jaine Mwai - Standard Charted Bank Kenya Ltd Mwai made history as the first-ever woman to win the East African CIO of the Year Award 2020. She has over 22 years of experience working in technology, 20 of those years at Standard Chartered Bank across roles. Her experience was gained through working in and with countries across Africa.

She has expert knowledge in project planning and execution, as well as leading multi-functional and multi-cultural teams to exceed objectives. Prior to her appointment as CIO, she was the Country Technology Manager, Kenya and East Africa Head of Programme and Change Management.

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Brettah Muthuri Association of Kenya Insurers Muthuri leads the ICT team at AKI and is responsible for Technology Strategy, Enterprise Architecture and industry-wide digital technology enabling platforms.

Her focus is based on the deployment of converged information and communication technologies and services aimed at providing effective service delivery mechanisms and processes. She has successfully overseen the implementation of technological innovations in the industry - Integrated Motor Insurance Database Systems (IMIDS) a data warehouse of motor insurance data across the industry – delivering business intelligence, Digital Motor Vehicle Insurance Certificates (DMVIC) that has transformed motor insurance by cutting down on and eliminating the non-value adding tasks, Claims Registration Automation (CRA) - system leverages the power of AI and ML enabling motor insurance claims to be reported instantly and the digitalization of Life Insurance certificates – like motor certificates, life certificates were digitalised.

Kelvin Ebole Safaricom Sacco Ltd Ebole is the ICT and Business Innovations Manager at Safaricom SACCO since June 2020. He is well experienced in Information Technology yet chose to focus his skills on Database Management. He acquired numerous skills after undergoing a training in Oracle Databases at the Institute of Software Technologies. These include the following but not limited to; Oracle 10g/11g Forms Developer, Oracle 10g/11g Reports Developer: Build Reports, Oracle Database 11g: SQL Fundamentals, System Administration (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6) and Database Administration Workshop (Oracle Database 11g ).

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>> THE TOP CIO's

Kenneth Ogwang’- East African Breweries Ltd Ogwang’ is the Head of Digital and Technology – Eastern and Southern Africa at Diageo. He began his career as an IT Business Analyst at British American Tobacco where he rose through the ranks for the eight years he was at the firm. He joined as an IT Business Analyst, rising to IT Service Level Manager, Regional Implementation Manager for Africa and Middle East regions then Head of IT Services, East and Central African area in that order. He later joined Diageo as the Head of DBS (Information Services) but has since promoted to his current position. He was the CIO of the Year in 2016.

Francis Kamuyu Multichoice Kenya Ltd Kamuyu has been the Senior Information Technology Manager for over five years at MultiChoice Kenya. He holds expertise in various fields including Data Science (data cleanup, machine learning customer segmentation/ categorization), IT Infrastructure (IT Management: Lean IT, ITIL 4, Agile Project Management- Prince2 and Agile PMP) and General Management (Innovation Management, Six Sigma Black Belt, Contract and Vendor Management). Fun fact. Francis was brought into MultiChoice Kenya by the current CIO of the Year, Tom Mboya Opiyo.

Stephen Obare - National Social Security Fund (NSSF) Stephen is the CIO at the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) Kenya, and an Associate Researcher at the Formal Structures, Algorithms, and Industrial Applications Research Cluster, Department of Applied Information Systems at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Obare is a seasoned technology executive and successful in the accomplishment of developing and implementing innovative ICT solutions in areas of enterprise architecture and e-government projects (across domains such as social security, finance, energy, transport, trade, customs, construction, cyber security systems and applying latest technology).

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AFRICA CIO100 Symposium & Awards STEVE MBEGO

Writer

Kevin Namunwa

Writer

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T A K E

A W A Y

The Future of Security is Zero Trust

The Future of TV And Internet In Kenya

Cybersecurity has grown to be a big issue in the tech world especially now that it’s the age of digital transformation.

Security has always been an important subject and firms that are transforming digitally have got to be secure.

As per the 2019 Kenya Census data, there are 12.1 million homes in Kenya out of which 4.9 million have television sets and only 2 million have internet. What is the future of these two? The number of Kenyan homes with Television sets has been rising steadily while Kenyans being plugged to the internet are fast rising.

Security has evolved and many are now recommending a zero-trust approach when it comes to cybersecurity. Zero Trust is the new paradigm in cyber security. Security has evolved over the years and cybersecurity has been evolving over time and zero trust seems to now be the only way you can be safe from hackers.

The landscape has changed as well. Today we want to have an organization that is digitally led, data driven, insight led, and platform enabled. Tony Muiyuro, the cybersecurity lead at KPMG gave a presentation on Zero Trust at the CIO 100 Symposium and awards at the Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort, Mombasa. He gives an illustration on why you need to trust no one and nothing when it comes to cyber security.

“Zero Trust is an approach. A model at which you build your infrastructure to enable some if these principle. There’s nothing like ‘once trusted always trusted,” he explained “What is the natural thing to do when someone gets a USB stick? They’ll plug it in, right? We once did an experiment where we gave people USB sticks, and they all did that. They plugged it in,” Muiyuro noted.

He went on to say that according to research, in future 60 per cent of organisations will be using the Zero Trust approach and fewer firms will be using VPN. Zero Trust approach has various benefits over firewalls and VPN which is basically what people are using now.

With this kind of approach, you get to improve your network visibility, breach detection and vulnerability management. You will also be able to breakdown the interdepartmental silos.

Zero Trust approach will enable and support business digital transformation as well as reduce both capital and operational expenditures on security.

The data also shows how Kenyans who have radio have been rising slowly as the census recorded that 6.9 million homes have a radio. When giving his talk on the future of TV and internet at the CIO 100 Symposium and awards, Francis Kamuyu the IT Manager at MultiChoice Kenya said that where radio is right now is where TV is headed to.

With digital transformation having started in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, the data shows well the future of TV and Radio and how they are both dependent on internet for their growth.

In Nairobi, TV and Radio are not growing anymore and what is growing is the internet. The capital is transforming digitally as the rest of the country transforms, then the trend will reflect on the respective regions as well.

“As we looked at this data, we found out that if a subcounty has a high percentage of homes with internet, that subcounty does not have a high percentage of TV,” Kamuyu noted.

“At multichoice, we also looked at data of where our customers are paying from. We realized that people living in the urban areas use GOTv while those living in the outskirts of towns use DSTV,” People living in urban areas have access to the internet and would prefer to pay less for TV as they can access a lot more via the internet.

TV and Internet need to grow side by side or else one just might replace the other. www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards

How Organisations Can Accelerate Time To Value For Their Digital Transformation Journey

ERP Implementation That Improved Efficiency At NCPB Iansoft Technologies was given the task to improve the business process at the National Cereal and Produce Board (NCPB) and basically help the parastatal to digitally transform.

According to Iansoft Technologies Ltd’s Founder and CEO Geoffrey Rono, they had initially planned for the activity to only take 12 months, but it dragged on for 18 months. Rono said this when he was speaking at the CIO 100 symposium and awards. At the event held at Sarova Whitesands Beach Resort, the Iansoft CEO talked of the company’s experience working with NCPB.

Most companies have a form of a digital transformation initiative that they are running. The headache for IT vendors who are managing digital transformation for these firms is the promise they give to their client in terms of value and time to deliver the initiatives.

Doug Hunter mentioned that most companies are not looking at the Return on Investments when it comes to digital transformation initiatives so then it makes it difficult for them to gauge the impact.

“We did research recently and found out that most Kenyan CEOs and CFOs don’t look at ROI so that can be one reason why digital transformation in Kenya is a bit slow,” Doug noted, “If you want to get value you need to look at ROI. From our research, we found out that people are not measuring that. Most people are looking at what they have and doing renovation rather than innovation.”

He further explained how it is easy to get value for a firm’s digital transformation initiative. A firm needs to take a specific business project that’s relevant to its business and is not just a low-hanging fruit that’s easy. The firm will then be looking at the ROI of the project, look at a software vendor who can improve the business processes and come back later to look at the difference brought about by the improved business system (processes).

When IT companies are hired to take a firm through their digital transformation journey, they are normally giving a lot of promises or rather pressured to do so. This has forced some IT companies to even over-promise what they cannot deliver.

In response to this, the Head of Customer and Ecosystem Enablement at SYSPRO Africa said that the technology is about getting innovations and getting them to work (Basically promise and deliver) “I do not think it’s the tech companies that over-promise, it is the clients that over-estimate the time it will take to deliver. There’s an element of over-promising but you also need to weigh the risk in terms of the time it will take to deliver,” Hunter said.

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“During our work at NCPB there were a few shake ups in top management. We worked with four different CEOs and three different CIOs during the implementation period. We, however, delivered well and NCPB is now enjoying better business processes,” Rono noted. “The initial plan was to develop the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) but the vision became bigger and we ended up also delivering CRM (Client Relations Management), an intranet and an extranet, BMS and a warehouse receipt system council,” he said.

NCPB wanted to do this project for various reasons. The parastatal was looking to improve transparency and accountability, and also improve standardisation of business processes. They conceived the project with Iansoft to facilitate business processes re-engineering in various functions because the system they were using at the time was inefficient.

Iansoft Technologies came in with a main objective of achieving quality of service, efficiency, effectiveness, and improve controls at NCPB. The tech firm was also looking to establish uniform standards and bring in global best practice in business processes. “We were able to involve entirely the whole organization at NCPB. We had representation from the Board, the Senior Level Management, the Media Level Management and the Operations team. This was important for us to deliver the best system to NCPB. After Iansoft changed the systems at NCPB, the outcomes spoke for themselves. There was improved service experience by all stakeholders, enhanced competitiveness, enhanced quality efficiency and effectiveness, reduced cost of operations among others.

The Journey To Migrate To The Cloud Moving to the cloud will see a firm move its infrastructure to a data centre. This is just the first step of this journey as later the company will have hardware visualization, computing the data in a public cloud (hybrid cloud). The end to this journey is the multi-cloud. The cloud comes with a lot of benefits.

However, most companies are moving to the cloud because of its flexibility.

Camadro spoke of the benefits of moving to the cloud, urging firms to make the move and begin their journey to the cloud.

“When using the cloud, performance on connectivity gets better as there are no outages. Outages could affect mission critical workloads,” he noted.

In the digital transformation journey for organisations, moving to the cloud is something that more people are beginning to embrace. However, in moving, the journey is crucial and ought to be taken carefully.

Speaking at the Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards, Paix Data Centre’s Managing Director Vincent Camadro talked about the journey of moving to the cloud. There are a lot of benefits that come around with moving to the cloud for firms; big and small. Generally, the performance of cloud is better as it reduces latency and outages.

He went ahead to mention other benefits of moving to the cloud. The features are better for analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and machine learning. With the cloud it is also easier to compute and store data.

When it comes to storing data, firms will now have to put everything in the cloud. As the world is digitally transforming, the cloud will be highly tasked to store massive amount of data.

This will only raise the issue of security. In the past data was stored in files which were then put in rooms secured with locks. In the digital world, data also needs to be locked. They say that data is the new gold and the cloud is the new storage place for data.

Money or Environment? Why Tech Talent Switch Employers That Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards brought together big players in the IT sector in Africa is not in doubt. One of the Symposium’s most exciting moments had to be Kahawa Thungu Fireside Chat. It brought together George Njuguna (CIO Safaricom), Phares Kariuki (Co-Founder Pure Infrastructure), Kamal Bhudhabhati (CEO – Craft Silicon), Cecilia Nyawira (Partner – Millar Cameron) and Ahmed Salim (Managing Partner – Disruptive Media Ltd) as panelists.

One very heated panel discussion ensued as soon as Kahawa Thungu: Talent Wars and How Big Tech Reaps Where They Have Not Sown. Moderated by AHK’s Ali Hussein, the beachside discussion was heated. Kariuki spoke of money as the big motivation for switching employers. “For a long time, if you worked for a person who does not pay you well, you walked away. We don’t have a shortage talent.

The fundamental problem is all people are in business. As a businessperson, you should pay well. We underprice our employees.”

Njuguna chimed in stating that big tech needs to train their own talent instead of poaching from institutions such as Safaricom because they of course have the resources,

and there exist so many Kenyans in need of jobs. “What we should think about is how to develop talent from the grassroots. We need to look at how we can make the pie bigger.”

Kamal and Cecilia both agreed that money is not always the biggest motivation. “You need to have a team that you really take care for. Money is not the only thing that motivates people. When there is a purpose, money becomes secondary,” Kamal noted, adding that as far as he was concerned, if Big Tech came knocking on Little’s doors, his employees would not leave.

According to Nyawira, the greatest asset in any organisation are the people.” The war, it quickly became evident, was not about Microsoft poaching Safaricom staff – or rather, Big Tech versus smaller enterprises. All IT sectors are in need of talent. As it so happens, if an organisation does not engage in the right process or employ the right people that will align with the company’s culture, talent may just leave. “Employees want to work in organisations that they feel motivated, get training opportunities. Companies need to invest in retention strategies,” Nyawira concluded. www.cioafrica.co | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2022 | CIO AFRICA

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>> Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards

Reimagine A New Era of Business - VMware Cloud Lead

Creating Secure, Transparent Digital Infrastructures ~Entrust

Security begins with secure infrastructure and with strong security practices and procedures. For hardware-based security systems, the most basic building block is a physical Root of Trust (RoT) Juan Rodriquez, the European Sales Director - Digital Identity at Entrust Juan Rodriguez explained the most secure and preferred way of creating secure and transparent digital infrastructure at the Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards.

The pandemic has changed everything. We are clearly in a new era and almost everything has had to change. The business world has also changed a lot. It is a new era in business. Businesses are still finding their feet since, upending our way of life. It is something that no one could have predicted. It inspired digital transformation especially when businesses chose not to accept crippling circumstances.

There’s no denying the fluidity and volatility of doing business right now. The complex transition to a new blended business model known as “hybrid” is raising a plethora of issues — from safety concerns, corporate governance, risk/liability factors, real estate, physical/virtual work, new operating models, to employee engagement and retention.

In this new age, technology is key to business strategy as VMWare Cloud Technology Lead, Lee Syse pointed out. “For organisations, CIOs are having new roles and are being put at the forefront because in this era technology matters a lot. CIOs are helping organizations get into the new era of business.”

All kinds of businesses have been forced to reexamine operations in this unchartered territory. One thing has become universally clear: how organisations operated in the past will likely not translate unless they become dynamic, multi-faceted working environments.

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In a year, cyber-attacks have cost $18.3 million with 27 per cent of these attacks mostly originating from internal staff. This data makes clear the importance of having a secure and transparent digital infrastructure. Rising cyberattacks, new data privacy regulation, smart devices usage and the Cloud all pose threats and risk to your digital infrastructure.

To shield your organisation from these risks, you’ll need to consider a couple of things.

•

Check your connection because breaches in your network will come from your connection. It is important to get protection from your connection accessing your data.

•

Breaches can also originate from updates and upgrades done to your digital infrastructure. For this you will have to get a software that will manage your installations, updates and upgrades.

•

To develop a secure digital infrastructure you will follow the following steps as advised by Entrust’s Rodriguez, you would need to

•

Design a strategy.

•

Secure the data and encrypt the information

•

Data in motion _ To connect and protect integrity and privacy

•

Data access – Identity and device

•

Build a strong trust environment

JOIN US AS WE PREDICT...

3rd February 2022 To Register Contact: Events@cioafrica.co For More Information Contact: Marketing@cioafrica.co @CIOAFRICA

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>> Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards

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>> THINKING ALOUD

The Devil is in the Michael Michie

Head of IT, TripleOKLaw

Details

Discerning a consumer’s needs is the next frontier for organisations who want to compete in the Blue Ocean If you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, go together. When it comes to winning, it’s clearly meant to be a team sport. During the year, there was a thought that stuck with me and at the end of the year during the Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards, I relearnt a years’ worth of thoughts in a very short time frame.

The thought revolved around some key words: 1. Winning

2. Collaboration 3. Ecosystem 4. Competition During the early years when digital transformation was all the rage for companies to get into, the definition of competition changed and changed drastically. We saw industry boundaries being destroyed and new competitors begin stressing incumbents. Tech companies went into multiple industries and challenged the status quo. Airbnb

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leveraged technology to challenge the hotel industry, Uber used technology to challenge the taxi industry and various fintech rose to redefine the financial industry. Competition was no longer about who is in your space playing by your rules to who can solve my clients/ customer problems. The boundaries of industry started to erode.

During this era, competition was also digitally transformed, and it showed how small the cake was and how many forks were aiming for it.

Collaboration was the next to be transformed. It started off by incumbents and disruptors realising that they need each other to take the next visible steps which at the time was survival. This drove competition even further. Fintech collaborated with banks to avoid the need for banking licenses while banks could ship out the risk of new products and services to fintech. Both benefiting to see the next day.

The next stage of the collaboration was dissolving the boundaries and the term competition. It became more about the consumer. The consumer at this stage wanted more than a good product or service.

They wanted to see an ecosystem that they were part of and could use with ease. Consumers had already accepted no one shoe will ever be the best fit.

This is when competition as we have previously known it became the extinct. The focus was having a product or service that would fit into the consumers ecosystem. Being realistic enough to realise that one stop shops don’t exist anymore (yes - super apps are coming and they fit everything into one, but they are more of ecosystems with multiple parties using a single platform).

During the Awards at CIO100, it was evident that a lot of the projects winners submitted had very little to do with competitive advantage. The consumer was the priority. So, I wonder, do organisations really need to compete? The short answer is NO. Why?

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Competition is still there but it is mostly now focused on consumer attention and time. Consumers having access to your digital service or product was the old form of competition. In this modern world, the competition is keeping users active, engaged, and stuck on your service or product. Almost embedding it into other aspects of their lives. To achieve this, you don’t compete with a rival institution. You compete with the consumer’s needs and desires, and these change constantly. That is your biggest competitor.

The organisations that won at the recently concluded Africa CIO100 Symposium & Awards, I have come to learn, treat consumers’ desire as the true competitor. Trying to match them brings about very creative, innovative, and meaningful solutions that keep the consumer happy and the organisation operational. This form of competition leads to a lot of improvement for products and services and a unique perspective into the nature of the consumer.

It allows organisations to take a more fluid shape, getting ahead of the consumer to predict their next desire and preparing to fulfil it.

On that note, congratulations to all the winners.

Keep keeping your eye on the competition, and keep building great solutions.

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>> HARD TALK

ROBERT YAWE CEO, Synaptech Solutions

The End of the IT Profession The actions of the IT industry do not appear to reflect a yearning for developing the local IT ecosystem.

I am sure the heading of this article might make you feel alarmed; and you should. Even though we keep hearing about the shortage of skilled IT professionals, it is likely a temporary glut as was experienced soon after the Millennium Bug crises - nothing to do with the Millennials.

Unlike India, which leveraged the Millennium Bug diffusion skillset demand to build local capacity we keep wishing.

The professionals I am referring to here are mainly those in infrastructure, cybersecurity, networking (including switching and routing), database administration and a few others.

Most of the professionals I have mentioned are getting quickly replaced due to the prevalence of the cloud, colocation with managed services and shared services across unrelated organisations.

When we started instigating for cloud over 10 years ago, what kept the big cloud players at bay was the regulatory environment on data sovereignty and location which meant that the large consumers of technology such as banks and insurance companies were not allowed to store their data outside the country.

I believe this was best experienced when Safaricom was required to relocate the mpesa servers from Germany to Kenya due to the role it was playing in the local financial sector. With the determination of Huduma Number as unconstitutional based on the Data Protection Act (2019) and something called public participation so expect more of the same.

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would allow for local capacity to be developed. But the fact that Safaricom opted to vend someone else’s offering as opposed to building local capacity brought that idea to nought.

I believe many of you are familiar with what transpired with our indigenous initiatives to develop cloud platforms and by extension, capacity. So today we watch as the hens come home to roost.

What happened there was not new. We had seen the same happen when AfricaOnline opted to become a pipe to the west instead of building local capacity. They were then followed by the likes of Wananchi and ISP Kenya who sold out to larger players for what today are clearly a pittance.

As we were busy using legislation to keep the large cloud providers out, we did nothing to develop the local capacity.

Now that Moore’s Law has turned compute and storage into a commodity, those players we were trying to keep out are able to setup nodes in country and deliver their offerings cost effectively while meeting the data localisation requirements.

First to arrive was Microsoft with Azure which meant that Exchange, Dynamics, Office 365 and the killer Temenos core banking were now in-country. More recently, AWS touched down with fanfare and celebration from many whose jobs they would take away.

So, as we move our servers into the cloud, remember that we are also moving certain skillsets. I therefore suggest you review your skillset for continued relevance in the event that your organisation was to move into the cloud or take on managed services remembering once there they can be handled easily from Asia or Eastern Europe.

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