a) For a start there is no catalyst. If you develop any software and want to charge for it, your billing charges have to include VAT charges i.e services rendered. For some company that can easily download pirated software and deploy it, there could cares less about the anything developed locally especially for sale. This is where the ICT Board or even the Min of Info in govt need to streamline. Since piracy cannot be totally eradicated, we need to compete against it. Produce local software and badge it locally = no VAT for product or services rendered.

b) Because a lot of a developers time is spent on research, testing and debugging, the time utilized is counter productive towards a final product. During this period, any serious developer will not be able to sustain themselves just on research and therefore need a cushion. This cushion can be in the form of tax incentives where the goal is NOT to produce a big bang project per year but produce multiple low priced apps. The more the apps produced, the more the tax incentives earned that will be re-introduced into research. Bottonline = If one can do 50 apps a year with a succes rate of some, well they can be laughing to the bank. Maybe they may not pay any taxes, so there is need to establish a threshold.

c) ICT Board ( developer/software companies section ) needs to produce a monthly summary of kenyan applications that have met requirements and are badged accordingly. This also goes for websites. It can then take this summary and help bridge the gap between investors and the developers. It does not need to be in this manner but the concept of marketing locally and within the region. If the ICT Board feels that there is plenty of potential with a certain app or website etc, they can even connect to further sources.

d) When there are students who leave local universities and are very good at programming, ICT Board should have a fund for such. They should be able to walk out of the Uni and go straight to the ICT Board ( some fund section ) and pickup a laptop, modem and a loan based on good results or programming abilities. The loans will be low interest, and one requirement is that the student will not go and open an expensive office. They will be required to work from home to keep their overheads very low and that within the first year they will be expected to produce at least 2 commercial successful applications. These applications will be hosted on the ICT Board server, and publicly available for purchase or further investments.

e) To build local companies: ICT Board should encourage a monthly meet of developers, investors and potential clients. If ICT Board can bring together even 5 kenyans who share a common goal of creating a developer business, then the process will surely have begun. Therefore, the core of the meet is to build long term partnerships and local investments. Because everyone has a particular skillset, these meets could create a powerful business system that is aware of investor needs and also business projections.

I could go on but let me brake here! There is much ICT Board and govt can do to nurture the industry in its infant stage. Once we are able to build on at least 50 SME companies with certain turnovers, then the Tech Parks and the coffee/lounges seem a likely possibility. The next step would be to take this young companies, and look at the Tech Parks. Bang! We have started a proper system that could lead to Kenya really becoming a top developer hub within a few years.

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:28 PM, Joram Mwinamo <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com> wrote:

My opinion is that there are endless opportunities to develop software in Kenya. I find that we almost want the incentives to come before we even write a line of code. I would rather have a group of software coders petitioning the govt after they have created something and have challenges selling or pushing it into the market because of piracy, taxation or unfair competition

Lets just say, people are not patient enough to create,test and sell over the long term, everyone(exaggerated of course) wants VCs to put in 1 million USD before they even write a single line of code.