 Welcome to the ITU Planning Potentials Conference 2022, PP22 here in Bucharest, Romania, where I've got the great pleasure of being joined in the studio today by Ezra Ciloba, who's the Director General of the Communications Authority for Kenya. Ezra, welcome to the studio. Thank you very much. What is the status of ICT development in Kenya? Well, I will say that if you look at the entire Africa, Kenya, I think among the countries that has made significant progress in terms of that sector, we now talk of the digital economy. That has been powered by a significant number of extend of connectivity of the population. Today we are talking about 96% of citizens who are able to actually have an opportunity to access broadband services. And for us that is significant given that a lot of investment enabled by the government and the private sector towards connectivity through laying of the infrastructure, fiber infrastructure and also working closely with the mobile service providers. So in terms of development, that is like the mark of progress. The other bit maybe if you may know is that we pioneered mobile money. M-PESA? M-PESA. And that has kind of, it's part of development and more and more incentive to innovate in that specific area. And Kenya also remains like the hub of innovation for the region. A lot more multinationals who are interested in looking at how to invest in Africa have come to set best in Kenya. And for us that means the country is opened up for these digital economy opportunities, not just for Kenya but also for the entire region. Yeah, so... Silicon Savannah? Silicon Savannah of Africa. That's how we call it. No, absolutely. I mean I've been there a couple of times and we've had, ICU has had conferences there and we've visited technological hubs there too. There seems to be a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm certainly for technology and technological innovation there. Exactly. And if you look at how the future is going to unfold, the government has realized the potential in the digital economy. It launched our 10-year second master plan on the digital economy. And we want to deepen a little bit more when it comes to access to technology and the value that we gain out of technology investment. So the next 10 years are going to be very significant for the country when it comes to ICD development. Let's talk about strategy. What is Kenya's strategy to ensure the attainment of the two goals of universal connectivity and sustainable digital transformation? Maybe the best way to start looking at it is to look at perhaps the challenge that we've experienced so far. While we talk about 96% of Kenyans having access, having the opportunity to access broadband for example, this will have challenges in terms of utilizing or having that meaningful access. And what the government has done now is opening up the space for more and more investment from a regulatory point of view. It's a free market and what we've been trying to do is to ensure that as many players as possible come into that particular space to ensure that we have products and services that are fit for the context in which we are operating in. The second bit we may need to look at is you look at the government structure where traditionally we've been offering services from the traditional way away from the value that is brought about by digital inclusion. So what the government has decided is to go to automate a lot of its services and for us that is an easier way of ensuring this greater access to quality public services. So we have one stream that the government has allowed private sector to invest but the other stream is where government itself is actually investing to ensure that citizens have the greatest benefit arising from ICTs. So in the next 10 years as I mentioned earlier is that we're going to see a lot more investment in infrastructure a lot more investment in the content that is being provided by the different ICT service providers a lot more investment in skills and powered by automating government services as well as opening up the market for more private investment. Let's talk about challenges. What are the challenges facing developing countries in their efforts to ensure digital inclusion and that no one is left behind? I think that's an important question. If you look at it again going back to the same question why is greater potential for connectivity this huge investment infrastructure the main challenge we are facing today is the cost of access. You can have connectivity but that is not meaningful unless you have a smart device for example smart phone or smart tablet. A lot of many African countries citizens cannot afford those devices and we've been having this idea that perhaps it is high time the manufacturers of these devices and the global community coming in that city space to come together to figure out how we can enable access to smart devices by the poor and imagining a smart device that costs not more than $500. I was going to say like a mobile phone equivalent to the $100 laptop for example. Exactly. So we do not have access to cheaper devices and the cost has been going up and up. Currently when we have global inflation rising it affects that category of citizens as well so we need to get cheaper smart devices across. We need to work around relevant content because each country in Africa is special to itself and a lot of content that is being consumed is really from outside Africa. And that means therefore the appetite to use those devices or the opportunity provided by for example connectivity is not there. So for us to be able to fully tap into that potential we need to get relevant content for the region and this is a challenge to developers and the last bit of course is skills. Skills in terms of enabling younger new generation to come up with solutions that fit their context but at the same time skills for the users. So we also have challenges there. So the urban dwellers have different skills and opportunities to be able to access and utilize the connectivity opportunities. The rural communities have got their own challenges as well when it comes to skills. So when you're deploying strategies to improve skills we also have to look at those diverse interests and you know situational status of skills capabilities. So yeah from a strategy point of view focus on skills focus on access to cheaper and smart devices as well as content that is relevant for the region. Thank you very much for joining us in the studio. I hope that some of those will come to fruition in the not too distant future and hopefully we'll get to catch up with you very soon. To watch this best the next day. Excellent. All right. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much.