The government is in the final stages of setting up a startup fund to help tech firms grow. This was revealed by President William Ruto during the Jamhuri Innovation and Tech Summit at the Kenya International Convention Centre in Nairobi on Sunday evening.
“Aside from the Hustler Fund, we are going to have startup fund. The preliminary work has been done and shortly we will take the bill to Parliament so that we can de-risk all startups and make sure that they are supported,” president Ruto said.
He added: “We will put up a legal framework that will assist startups in the tech space to grow their ideas and innovations.
He also revealed that by February next year, there will be the second edition of Hustler Fund that will enable small businesses to access capital.
The President revealed that he will be meeting the leadership of Meta in the United States to help Kenyans unlock monetisation opportunities from its platforms including Facebook.
He added: “I have had a candid discussion and we have tried to sort out the challenges from monetization to getting remote jobs. We have also had conversations on how to grow our tech skills with coding being now part of the curriculum.
“This is to make sure that the whole tech ecosystem becomes part of our educational curriculum from primary school to university. This fifth Jamhuri is dedicated to innovation and technology because Kenya can no longer underestimate the power of innovation and technology. Therefore.”
He announced that Thunderbird University, in collaboration with Arizona State University, will offer free digital courses. The President said that the 16-unit course, which costs $1000 is already paid for.
“These are opportunities we are looking for with Mastercard, Microsoft, Google, Visa, and other tech firms as this will open opportunities for young Kenyans,” he added.
He said that Konza will supply 20, 000 computers to make sure students in our TVETs will have an opportunity for the space to run.
Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa said Kenyans need to acknowledge that the future is digital.
“The future is about seeking skills that help young people find relevant jobs,” Mr Ndegwa said.
He added: “As Safaricom, we have joined others to form an industry-wide digital programme to help schools and partners such as Kodris Africa to focus on coding. We are also providing an ecosystem to help improve these skills. For example, in the M-Pesa ecosystem, we have over 52, 000 developers working on this system and that’s job creation.
He added that Safaricom is helping young people in monetizing the content, adding that the country and tech industry need to help them get the capacity to find these opportunities.
