Technology trainer climbs to 'innovation summit' in US

The managing director of a company training Kenyan youth for jobs as developers of mobile phone applications is representing the country at an “Innovation Summit for Young African Leaders” taking place this week in the US.

Ken Mwenda Gikunda, 35, is among 62 Africans chosen by US embassies to come to Washington for a series of workshops and meetings with American executives. Participants are also traveling to other US cities for two-week mentoring partnerships with businesses and NGOs.

“We believe strongly in the future of Africa, of you as individuals, of your communities, and your countries,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared in a summit welcoming address.

“And our goal is to be a partner and a friend as you lead the way.”

Mr Gikunda's Nairobi-based firm, eMobilis, imparts mobile phone software development skills to “Kenyan youth who are very hungry for this knowledge,” he said in an interview in Washington on Friday.

Companies in Kenya, Europe and North America are looking for money-making opportunities in the mobile-phone “revolution” that has swept the country in recent years, Mr Gikunda noted.

“But there are few trained Kenyans for the available jobs, so companies hire a lot of expats,” he added.

Established in 2009, eMobilis now has 10 employees and earns enough revenue to be self-sustaining, Mr Gikunda said.

His company got a big boost by winning a competition for a $330,000 World Bank grant. The funding enabled eMobilis to host an East African mobile-phone research and development laboratory and to serve as an incubator for start-up tech firms.

Google also chose eMobilis as a partner in a project to develop websites for small- and mid-sized Kenyan companies.

Mr Gikunda, who earned a master's degree in business administration at a university in Canada, says the summit is allowing him to learn from other African entrepreneurs whom he would otherwise not have met.

“That's been very inspiring,” he said. “It's given me an appreciation of the power of African youth, and all of us are being challenged now to do more for our communities.”