By Musa Maridhawa
Economic sovereignty demands control over resources, market and value creation. Traditional models reliant on foreign investment or extractive industries often dilute this control. For Kenya, home to a 75% youth population under 35, entrepreneurship, particularly in the digital realm, offers a viable alternative. That option comes in homegrown solutions capturing value locally while competing globally.
Kenya’s credentials for a tech-based economy led by the youth are formidable. Let us sample three visible examples.
One, mobile money dominance that has seen M-Pesa command billions of shillings in annual transaction value proved Africa could lead, not follow, in the fintech arena.
Two, AI innovation start-ups associated with Kenyan ingenuity such as like Fastagger have distinguished themselves for deploying tech tools that run on low-end smartphones. These tools upon introduction converted M-Pesa statements into business insights for MSMEs for more than 600 businesses inside a single month. The quick adoption speaks of nothing but applicability.
Three, Kenya is recognised continentally for IT infrastructure projects such as Google’s Umoja undersea cable and 100,000km national fibre rollout that attest to our position as Africa’s digital gateway.
How then does this become a game changer for Kenya’s young people? Three imperatives hold the response to that question.
Firstly, we start by recognising how ICT resources are useful in bypassing capital gaps. With 72% people citing capital access as their top barrier in setting up start-ups, ICT is a sure prop for lowering costs. Platforms like Auni democratise business analytics, while AI-driven lending apps use alternative data for credit scoring thereby helping in bypassing traditional lenders. Estonia’s e-residency model that enables global digital entrepreneurship offers Kenya a template to adapt and customise. This model, if embraced, will allow our youth to build globally scalable ventures whether they are in Kaptengelei, Kwale or Kamukuywa.
Secondly, we look at solving local level challenges and scaling globally. Kenyan innovators target local pain points with globally relevant solutions. Tambua Health uses AI to diagnose cardiopulmonary diseases via lung sounds thus addressing Kenya’s 25% hospital admission rate for such diseases. Similarly, The Third Eye Project deploys AI drones for crop monitoring, boosting an agricultural sector contributing 33% of GDP. These solutions emerge from local context but attract international partnerships and markets. The missing link here is how to monetise such solutions so that they benefit our young innovators.
Thirdly, there are endless opportunities in digitising the informal economy that our young people should be encouraged to go for. It is estimated that hundreds of Kenya’s youth have side hustles that operate largely in the informal sector. Through ICT it is possible to formalise and scale up these enterprises. The fact that global m-commerce transactions exploded from $15.4bn in 2016 to $82.7bn in 2020 thereby creating digital storefronts for artisans, farmers, and freelancers is indicative of where Kenyan youth can take advantage of. India’s UPI system, integrating more than 300 million informal vendors into the digital economy, underscores this potential.
In all, transforming raw tech talent into economic sovereignty requires systemic support. On this score, three examples with local relevance come to mind.
The first one is all about skills for the digital age. Initiatives such as African Development Bank’s TVET Entrepreneurship Project aim at curing skills mismatches by placing 1,200 youth in tech jobs. Meanwhile, programmes like Ajira Digital and Google’s AI First Accelerator provide critical training in AI, cloud computing, and e-commerce.
The second one is the funding of start-ups. Beyond grants from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), Kenya needs venture models that blend public capital and private expertise. The recent push for digital economy collaboration by France signals growing investor confidence in Kenya’s homegrown tech solutions.
The third one has to do with digital penetration. In this case, while 5G rolls out in cities, rural broadband access remains at 40.8% in Kenya, thus denying a huge segment of our population access to the Internet. Here is where Konza Technopolis and county-level tech hubs should consider prioritising affordable connectivity, which is the lifeline for rural youth entrepreneurs. The good news is Kenya’s connectivity is way ahead of many other jurisdictions in Africa.
Kenya’s youth are not waiting. Instead and thankfully so, they are building AI tools on low-bandwidth phones, transforming mobile money data into business intelligence, and leveraging global accelerators to solve local problems. As Carole Kariuki of KEPSA declared, Africa’s youth are not a burden but a “demographic advantage.”
The message to policymakers and investors is clear. We can bet on the young coders in Nairobi’s iHub, the agritech pioneers in Eldoret, and the fintech disruptors in Mombasa. Their success is Kenya’s economic emancipation.
Maridhawa is Kilifi-based ethnographer
