According to statistics, Kenya is a fertile ground for technological advancement especially in the grounds of communication and computing. This was highlighted in the opening remarks of a speech made by the US Ambassador to Kenya, His Excellency William M. Bellamy during the 5th IT Conference held at the KICC on 4th September 2004. Strathmore’s ICE department had organized this annual event. Mr. Bellamy was addressing the participants of the conference, dubbed “ICT - Its impact on society and development”. H.E Bellamy told the audience that as a service sector, ICT lay in the heart of the new information age.

Being the fifth year in a row in masterminding this event, ICE has shown continued dexterity to promote technology adaptation in society. The conference was attended by professionals, dignitaries, and students from various institutions of higher learning.

This year’s event was mainly sponsored by Commercial Bank of Africa and co-sponsored by among others myjobseye.com, Nation Media Group, Hewlett Packard and Strathmore University.

The US Ambassador spoke of what he saw as unexploited opportunity for Kenya’s technological progress but added that we have been granted another opportunity to make technology work for us by ushering in a new government and notably the appointment of an ICT professional as a permanent secretary in the Information/communications arena. He accentuated the importance of competition in the ICT sector, which will benefit customers, businessmen and the economy as a whole. He said that if this is observed, it will help improve service quality, control costs, create jobs and boost government revenue.

Other speakers who addressed the audience included Mr. Isaac Awuondo, Managing Director of Commercial Bank of Africa who shed some light on a banking perspective of financing ICT procurements and implementations. He explained the lending options that the enterprise has put in place and the facilities that give the underlying support.

Then came Mr. Ken Mbwaya the Managing Director of HP East Africa who set the ground level on the kind of technologies available for adequate ICT adoption. He spoke about the different technology performances that exist and the variety of processors available in the market. Digital transformation in imaging and publishing, the various data storage technologies that exist like Storage Area Networks (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) were also discussed. Mr Mbwaya pinpointed the need for these technologies to the users and explained the functioning of a data center and the blade System.

Patricia Ithau, Marketing Director of Unilever Kenya made a presentation on the importance of ICT in business and the effects that originate from ICT implementation in business. She said that computer-based technology and digital communication technology have made ICT a worthwhile investment, which has seen business grow from competition to co-operation.

Richard Kiplagat, the Regional Director of SAP enlightened the conference participants on the role the government is playing in the procurement, policy perception and implementation of ICT. This was in regard to business, records management, service delivery and process re-engineering.

CCK’s representative Mwende Njiraini who is an assistant Engineer in the technology field drew attention to CCK’s role in ICT development and the developmental factors. Mention was also made of the business focus on competition and price regulation.

The Internet as a significant technology could not go unstated. The presentation made by Mr Moyez Alibhai CEO myjobseye.com gave hope to the jobseekers in the audience. He spoke about the role of ICT in Human Resource Management and expressed that with the emerging technology, the Internet is used as a tool for recruitment and job seeking.

The day-long conference ended with a raffle being held where several participants won various items and presentation of certificates to the conference participants.

Article by Mercy Ngunjiri