Malili: Kenya’s Planned High Tech Metropolis
Posted by Administrator on February 5, 2010
By Hash,
I’ve had two meetings with Kenya’s Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo (Ministry of Information and Communications) in the last week. Both times a certain project kept coming up in the conversation. It’s called Malili – a 5,000 acre East African technopolis – a city built up for technology firms and it’s the Kenyan government’s way of creating a regional ICT brand.
My first thought up on seeing the pictures: it looks like Dubai has come to Kenya.
The Malili project is modeled off of other large technology and research parks around the world. One often cited in comparison is Smart Village Cairo, which currently hosts 120 companies and 20,000 professionals and they’re expecting that to increase to 500 companies and 100,000 professionals by 2012.
One of Kenya’s goals is to grow IT contribution to GDP from 3% to more than 10% in three years. This won’t happen using Malili as it’s yet to be built. In the interim, PS Ndemo has moved to secure a good portion of the Sameer Business Park, which is on Mombasa road and is almost finished being constructed. This type of space will be available for companies who eventually want to move to Malili in the future, and it also sets the stage for Nairobi being an even more prominent tech hub in Africa.
Location, Location, Location
I like this project, it shows Kenya as a forward thinking country with ambitious plans. My only misgiving is in the location. It’s 60km from Nairobi, and though the Mombasa road is much better, it’s still the most congested and prone-to-jams point on the Kenya roadway system. Yes, it will be a city all it’s own, over time, but Nairobi will still be the “place to be”, so there will be a great deal of traffic.
The airport sits between Malili and Nairobi, so for incoming people, it will be easier to get to than having to drive into, or through, Nairobi.
There’s a lot of discussion within the Kenyan tech community about Malili. It’s a big government project, with private sector participation, and Kenya’s track record of completing these types of big projects has been spotty (think Nyayo Car). Time will tell though, I’m of the mindset to not discount it. It’s time for us to start being optimistic about the possibilities that this country offers in technology.
Some, like the Nairobi tech community and the new Nairobi iHub tend to start small and grow from there. But, government has a different role to play, and it’s good for them to aim high and use their size to make big things happen.
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By Harry Hare
Jim Collins, the renowned professor at Stanford University, introduced a concept he and his co-author, Jerry Porras, refer to as a BHAG in his bestseller book “Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.” A BHAG pronounced, Bee-Hag is short for Big Hairy Audacious Goals. He says that a BHAG encourages companies to define visionary goals that are more strategic and emotionally compelling.
Collins used this concept in Built to Last to examine 18 visionary companies and also studied 18 comparison companies with the view of establishing the characteristics of visionary companies and why some companies make the leap while others don’t.
According to Collins, a BHAG is as a form of vision statement “…an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future.
However, a true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organisation can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.
So what all this about BHAGs and visionary companies you ask. Last week I attended what was dubbed as a Town Hall meeting of the Malili Technopolis. This is a technology business park project under the Ministry of Information and Communication aimed at transforming the Kenyan economy using IT enabled services (ITES) by the year 2030.
Yes, this hinges on the vision 2030 but the results are expected sooner than that. The tech city will host a BPO park, a financial district, a science park, a world-class convention centre, a mega mall and several hotels. The technopolis will also have amenities such as schools, hospitals and other recreational facilities. Planned to serve the metropolis is also a high-speed train that will take 11 minutes from Malili to JKIA.
Now, is that a BHAG or not! It’s visionary, its big, its audacious. All the attendees of the town hall meeting left the room wound up and some were spotted in Malili Farm checking out the place and possibly looking to buy some land around the proposed technopolis.
But having a BHAG in itself does not stimulate progress. It requires commitment by all the stakeholders to actualise it. It was clear that the Ministry of Information and Communication, PS and his counterparts in the Kenya ICT Board are committed to this goal. And this is good. The entire government should be behind this project and make it happen for Kenyans.
Technology parks have proved to be useful vehicles for research-industry interactions and for stimulating growth of technologically intensive, knowledge-based businesses. They also facilitate the links between the research and industrial communities. Different Technology Parks exhibit different characteristics due to the environments in which they are set up and the actors involved. Lets not loose this opportunity to create a new, planned technology driven city that has the promise to move the country to the next level of development.
Source-Business Daily Africa
5 Responses to “Malili: Kenya’s Planned High Tech Metropolis”
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Shazam said
Are these the same people who come to the west and encourage us to invest back home? They are very accessible in USA where they are even willing to visit your house. However, try to contact them in Kenya. They are mini-gods who have layers of “protection”…their assistants will never give you an audience with their bosses. I am so dissappointed and anything out of their mouths is untrustworthy!
Godfrey said
The land where the proposed ICT hub will stand is already the subject of controversy. It is a group ranch and, apparently, the directors got into a deal with the government without the knowledge of shareholders. Hundreds of millions were paid to the said directors, then one of them died, then politicians got involved, then the police and the whole issue has raised lots of controversy. Let me stop at that because the case is ongoing.
Edward said
The goverment talks, builds a ficticial project in the paper starts handing out ‘contracts’ with huge kick backs to them on this proejct and in a year every one will forget about it while they sit on a pile of money. When is the last time any big goverment program ever took place. Kenya can not keep the power on (useful in high tech thing) it made education free but that just drove class sizes to huge numbers, and when is the last time you saw a computer class in a ‘free’ school. Ones in the rural areas don’t have chalk. So you will be providing the cleaners and askari’s for this park while the companies have to send skilled people from around the world. Where is the fiber optic cable connections that where to be here 5 years ago. And finally most of your goverment agencies are not computerized Police write everytimg into a book Offices I piled floor to ceiling with paper. So would you invest in a Tech Venture led by a goverment that hasn’t figured out the invention of the typewriter.
Felix Datche said
As an architect i find this Tech city very interesting on many fronts and it is my sincere hope that somehow it is gonna take off and also that it is not gonna be the last themed city in this country. There is great need to decentralise from Nairobi and such an idea gives a better answer than telling people to go back to their villages because Nairobi is full et al. I hope other themed cities will be developed across the country with considerations given to the dominant potential of the given regions.
SUCCESS!!!
juma ogai said
The Malili concept is interesting. Given the way our towns are run down I’m certainly one person who hopes to go and live there. Unless the private sector can take up the challenge and provide us with modern towns to live in. Today Nairobi is a dump with pockets of modernity. Malili should be the other way round. It will appeal to more than just people in the ICT industry as it opens another concept of urban living. It has the concept of a gated community but on the scale of a town. Certainly a welcome idea!