The answer is self evident. CIOs are concerned with technology fit against total cost of ownership. Mny open source systems are more expensive to deploy that proprietary systems. And many of the vanilla (take it ouf of the box and deploy) implementations are suited to certain organizations because they force the said organization to align to best practice.

Technology options these days are plenty. The issue is purpose strategy project management, maintenance, scalability, interoperabilty and total cost of onwnership. These are all very strategic rather than technical issues.

Even these open source system need to be written by someone. I have seen plenty of usage of open source systems . I have not seen much origination of open source systems whose code was then published back for others to reuse in Kenya. We need to encourage more of it. And because code is written again processes, we hope that we don't have a culture of writing code against processes that are not good themselves otherwise you automate inefficiency.

Also, for many open source environment, certification is also required, red hat etc. and even if there was no code certification, it would be prudent to seek project management and other process management certifications as a way of getting a culture of excellence to set in.

There is room for both approaches. And there are other considerations beyond code in terms of implementer pedigree. Many customers feel locked to code that was developed by a few people who have since moved on and abandoned it. They like the comfort of big company references.

Our houses tell us a story, even in a country with architects and clear laws we still have many buildings that make the cut. Imagine the world of 'invisible software'.

My thoughts

Paul Kukubo

On Thursday, September 20, 2012, Barrack Otieno wrote:

Hi Paul,

I look forwad to an answer to my question while i understand the benefits of SAP and other ERPs that you and Walu correctly outline and having been involved in some local projects in end user training i am still concerned with the ultimate objective vis the Vision 2030 strategy that is mentioned at the beginning of the press release. I have raised this issue during SAP sponsored events but it is always laughed off, at one point i even challenged some of their representatives why the development work cannot be done locally but i never got any substantive answer should we invest in users or developers from a strategic angle as a country ? as it is we have too many users which is contributing to the unemployment problem and the best the guys can do is to be deployed elsewhere then we start the brain drain chorus which is no news to most of us, I would have loved to see the ICT board promote local success cases the Alliance Technologies with their ERP one and the Open Worlds and many others who are hitherto unknown yet they are employing Kenyans and doing amazing stuff for the local community. Anyway we need local solutions to local problems and the onus of building that community is on us in simple terms.

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:32 PM, Paul Kukubo <pkukubo@ict.go.ke> wrote:
Areba

This project is about jobs. 100 Kenyans will develop skills that are imediately required by the market.
The installed base of SAP in Kenya is substantial from Nation Media Group, to Bidco, to many other large and medium sized business and some state corporations. This base is growing.

The ICT Board intends to extend these partnerships to drive high talent development. This is the first. There are many areas and many projects that don't have the requisite skills and there are even more Kenyans who don't have jobs. Many parents will not agree to pay for a child to certify further once he is out of college. Indeed many can't afford it.

Skinning this cat of ICT job creation requires many knives.

Regards

Paul KUKUBO
CEO Kenya ICT Board

On Thursday, September 20, 2012, Areba Collins [ @BrainiacKE ® ] wrote:
I wonder how this bodes with the recent discussion about the Government 's Intention to go Open Source.....

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 4:26 PM, Paul Kukubo <pkukubo@ict.go.ke> wrote:

Kenyan Government and SAP to expand skill set of local graduates

Training aims at improving youth employability in the country’s robust ICT sector and is inline with vision 2030

Nairobi 20th September, 2012…The government of Kenya through the Kenya ICT Board and SAP has today announced a partnership that will see 100 bright but underprivileged studentsundergo training to become certified SAP Software engineers.

Dubbed “SAP Skills for Africa”, the Programme commits to deliver professional training and certification to Kenyan university graduates. The programme will seek to substantially improve the employability of young, bright university

Barrack O. Otieno
+254721325277
+254-20-2498789
Skype: barrack.otieno

http://www.otienobarrack.me.ke/