The first Safaricom Engineering Summit revolved around the challenges of talent acquisition and the competition for limited resources. However, in its second edition, the focus shifted towards finding the best technology talent for Africa, with the aim of expanding the talent pool and creating more opportunities. In essence, the goal was to bake a bigger cake.
Paul Kasimu, who has worked in HR for five companies across the globe, understands the pressure.
Serving now as Safaricom’s Chief Human Resources Officer, he has first-hand experience with the talent pool stating that “in 2022, Kenya had over 56,000 students who graduated in IT, technical and IT courses, but most of them were not ready for the workplace. Today, we have roles we cannot resource and yet I have a heap of CVs where I am told recruit.”
By 2030, there will be a global shortage of more than 85 million tech workers, representing $8.5 trillion in lost annual revenue, according to Los Angeles-based management consulting firm Korn Ferry.
Setting up of offices in Kenya by tech giants – Microsoft, AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google – in the last couple of years shook up the local tech ecosystem. Safaricom, a big player in the telecommunication sector and which aspires to be a tech company by 2025, had no choice but to answer the distress call.
“So far, we’ve partnered with six universities, which are now targeting specific programmes. We also have 14 training partners, five tech hubs, community organisations, and seven government agencies. Since the start of the programme, and this is the exciting part, 1,300 students have graduated with various technical skills, which is really something that we should applaud and celebrate. Safaricom aims to be known as the home for digital talent in Africa,” says Kasimu.
The deliberate training of Kenyan tech talent is yielding positive results as the fruits of their efforts are now beginning to emerge.
From a team of 250, Safaricom’s Digital and IT department has grown to 850. Birthed from Decode 1.0, the Safaricom Engineering Community has now grown to 5,000 members.
The community aims to upskill 1,400 Kenyan youth with 10 in-demand digital skill sets by building 10 centres of excellence across 10 universities. By working with universities, the community is also upgrading the current tech curriculum to make it industry-ready.
In addition to bagging opportunities at Safaricom, trained students will be placed on a talent portal which other companies can also draw from. Additionally, to start them early, the community offers digital training for high school students under the Mizizi programme.
“Once tech talent is onboarded in Safaricom, they become a core part of our business and the heart of our transformation from a telco to a tech co,” says Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.
The CEO’s sentiments were echoed by George Njuguna, Safaricom’s Director of Information Technology, who said: “We believe at Safaricom we are best poised to offer this platform and we not only do it here in Nairobi, but also across this country. You can see the work being done in Chapa Dimba, as we bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the forefront and other technologies (GPS vests). We are also looking to inspire, to spin off and plant seeds in the most rural parts of Kenya, that we have the potential to solve our problems through software engineering.”
Kenya can learn a lot from Estonia. Building from the 1996 blueprint of creating a knowledge-based and digital society, Estonia has established itself as one of the world’s most digitally advanced nations. With a population of 1.3 million, Estonian ICT companies are in operation in 128 countries across the globe.
According to Kadri Ayal, the Honorary Consul of Estonia in Kenya, “This is the impact of an education system that emphasises digital entrepreneurship. A start-up mentality is taught in secondary school. No student graduates from high school without having started a business. Estonian education does not produce people who look for jobs but rather those who create jobs. From a young age, willingness to take risks, fail forward, to learn and improve is ingrained.”
Even as Safaricom positions itself to lead Africa’s digital renaissance, the democratisation of AI poses a challenge. It was thus apt that Decode 2.0 had a panel discussion on the future of jobs in an AI world.
Chris Otundo, the CEO at Brighter Monday, who incidentally started his career as a techie more than two decades ago had a word of advice to attendees: “Your career is now akin to a tent used by pastoralists who are constantly on the move. You need to be a person who is consistently learning. So, learning agility will be a key trait. Resilience will also be critical as it is not going to be easy to constantly have to keep reinventing yourself. Truth is AI will disrupt jobs.”
In recognition of the power of technology to propel economic growth, the Kenya Kwanza administration has identified the digital superhighway as one of the key levers of its development agenda. The digital superhighway will ensure connectivity across the country with the establishment of 1450 innovation hubs, and 25,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the country.
Engineer John Tanui, the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of ICT and Digital, has two and a half decades of experience in the tech space, and fully understands what is required to ignite long-term vibrancy in a country’s tech ecosystem. “Within our ministry, we are working on the establishment of the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, which will be our equivalent of Stanford, to be able to grow a similar ecosystem that we have seen in the Silicon Valley,” he says.
The chief guest at Decode 2.0 was the Head of the Public Service and Chief of Staff, Felix Koskei, who incidentally worked at the defunct Kenya Post and Telecommunications Corporation when Safaricom began as a small department in the parastatal.
Almost 25 years later, Koskei was pleasantly impressed by what he saw at Decode 2.0. “I want to confess that I didn’t know that you were at this level. Now I’m very confident that I can stand here and invite you to Decode GoK, please come and Decode the Government of Kenya. I want to invite Safaricom, as confident as I am today, to join us and help us to make Jamhuri Day in which we are hosting the youth and creative economy, a success,” he said.
