 Y254, imaji. Welcome back to the broadcast. My name is Yvona Anula. Tonight we are talking about opportunities in ICT, the state of ICT and the importance of ICT to the society. Remember you can be part of our conversation tonight by simply tweeting us at Yvona Anula Y254 channel. The hashtag to use is Y254 updates. My guest tonight is Simon Okoth who is the managing director of Upking Solutions Limited. So as we continue with our conversation, many young people have come up with these new ideas but the problem is they complain there is not enough sufficient funding in this particular sector. So are there readily available platforms for this young people? Yes, there are readily available platforms and again the funding problem is I think it's a worldwide problem that is so magnified in Africa. So in Africa sadly we have to survive with the funding problem. Yes, because sometimes you because you are talking from outside, I've never been in government so I don't know how it is inside but from outside there are a lot of gaps in terms of the priorities but the funding problem is not very deep because you can start from as low as possible. How low? If you are innovative enough you see today you have a very big audience even on Facebook, you have a very big audience on Twitter you can easily start posting what you do. So you can do a small app from free Android Studio that you can download and do a small app you can even do a small app in chicken rearing and you will find quite a lot of traffic in it. These are some of the things that very many people are interested in but again you can just Google and have your own research and compile it and have it there. You see when you have it on the place a lot of things will start going on and if the traffic on it is high people will now come to you trying to do their adverts on it. So in terms of ICT there's quite a number of things you can do without capital. So we blame everything on funding but at the moment the situation does not look like it is changing faster soon so we need to be creative ourselves and create our own internal ways. Let us move away from that and talk about security issues. How am I as an innovator guaranteed that whatever I've come up with is actually protected from especially cyber crimes? Yes. The legislative bit in this country is not very adequate to handle that. There are rumors of several people having lost quite innovative ideas to praying individuals who are trying to capitalize on someone's brilliance especially if the brilliance is with someone who is still not very vast with what the law says. Yes but your effort will still be rewarded because even if someone tries to run away with your idea ICT is how they will still have to need you because it is you who can still continue improving it. But again security again comes back to individuals. It is the cyber crime issue. There are several situations like fishing. Fishing as an example of cyber crime. You see quite a number of people you can even go into Facebook and you find very funny links before you get there you say you put your password but this person is picking your username and password then tomorrow you start crying that someone is posting on my page. Somebody has hacked my page but you see it is this site that we visit. So most of the security bit is also internal but the ones that are global like hacking and the rest are managed at a bit higher level but as an individual as a young person when you get an opportunity to do something however might someone may try to run with it they will still need you in the process. Alright having worked with this particular sector for quite some time so there are any investment gaps existing in ICT? ICT development is still believed is a gap. Yes. There is a conventional thinking that ICT is difficult. Yes. So very many people are trying to hang on the easier bit. Yes but nothing comes easy. It might be difficult to start but when you get in you realize that it is one of the simplest sectors. So there are gaps. Every big part of ICT is a gap because every single organization running in this country in the world needs a system. Every single person almost every single person has some phone they need to access Facebook. Then there is already something that we need to do to capture that kind of audience and that's a gap. Like let's say every wedding we need a card. You can design it. So Simon maybe as we continue move away from the wedding. Yes. Is there any support that the government at the private sector sector should contribute towards developing the ICT sector? I think for the government the private sector is somehow neglected in a way. The government is seeing it as a source of funds. Yes and most of the legislation sometimes even infringe it because you find a small organization struggling to rise there is already a very high imposed tax yet the government can say today that don't pay tax have this number of people to support you see or the tax even comes to something around 10% it would make sense but for me in terms of the relationship between the government and the private sector it is not directed towards developing it to grow but the government see it as a source of money Alright maybe as we wind up what is the future of ICT where are we expecting to see this particular platform in the next 2-3 years? The sector is so good first growing what we need is at least to focus more on relevant training so that at least when we produce people into the sector they don't take 2 years trying to understand what they are supposed to do yet they have taken 4 years in their colleges training a specific thing so we need to narrow down into that but the government is trying with the introduction of laptops and that and trying to regulate that but from where you see that gesture is good but targeting the wrong audience yes if we can have good labs in primary schools good labs especially I would focus on secondary schools because again you find a good secondary school trying to with the 10 computers but this secondary school is admitting 400 students so someone from the village would leave it to people who have come from Nairobi because they are the ones who see computers there Exactly thank you Simon for coming through so for you it's actually training is key in all this very key it is the training that we are lacking and again the training we are lacking but it should start from some level in fact if I would be the one running the policies computer studies should be mandatory in high school with that you will bring people who are objective into the colleges Thank you so much Simon Okot that has been Simon Okot Managing Director at Afghan Solutions Limited Thank you so much for joining us tonight on the bulletin and keeping me company until next time Enjoy the rest of your viewing