Nairobi has seen the rise of Kenya’s first tech hub, iHub as series of investments have been initiated to promote the development of Kenya’s technology sector.

The iHub offers free internet access and specialist forums for entrepreneurs and promotes the innovation-intensive industries. Kenya’s tech hub, which was funded by Hivos and Omidyar Network, has been expanding continuously, becoming a benchmark for tech hubs in Africa.

It has over 10,000 members, over 150 incubated companies and the backing of multinationals such as Intel, Google and Samsung.

“The iHub turned out to be only the beginning of things to come, since as a result of its creation, a series of publicly and privately funded areas were set up with the aim of deepening Kenya’s commitment to upgrade its production sector,” Tomas Blanco, a research assistant at ASADEgeo in the latest frontier markets report.

“As a result of this public-private cooperation, several successful projects saw the light, such as the startup incubator, NaiLab, and the research and entrepreneurship institute, @ilabAfrica, inaugurated in 2011, followed by the startup accelerator, 88mph, in 2012, and the proposal to build a technology city which has been dubbed Africa’s Silicon Valley: Silicon Savannah.”

Blanco said this technology city project, planned to be carried out in four phases, the last of which is expected to be completed in 2030, will be built on a 2,000-hectare site in the city of Konza (a settlement 160 km from Nairobi).

Almost $14,500 million will be mobilised for this project, of which only 5 percent will be provided by the government.

The Kenyan government hopes this ambitious project will convert the country into a benchmark for the production and distribution of technological components in Africa.

This will create two hundred thousand jobs in the ICT sector and positioning Kenya as a tech hub of world renown.

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