Kenya is considered a leading nation for information technology in Africa, but the country has not yet fully exploited its digital potential. Many projects go to international companies in the USA and India because Kenya does not have enough skilled IT experts. While its software developers may have the necessary programming skills, they often lack practical experience of project management – expertise that is crucial to delivering complex projects successfully. As a result, the country is frequently unable to meet local demand for complex IT services. The Dutch IT service provider Competa IT B.V. has first-hand experience of the challenges the sector poses. To enable it to gain a foothold on the African market, it joined forces with the Kenyan IT companies BTI Millman Ltd and Dew CIS Solutions. However, Competa still found it difficult to recruit suitable experts to manage local and international contracts. The solution To enable it to recruit skilled software developers for its projects in Kenya, Competa decided to invest in locally based practical training and embarked on a development partnership with sequa gGmbH. The cooperation centred on a training programme specially developed by Competa to train software developers and IT students in the basics of Agile software development. Competa contributed its expertise in IT sector methodology, while sequa has several years of experience in vocational training. Support for the project was provided by develoPPP.de, a programme run by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) that promotes private sector involvement in projects combining business opportunities with scope for develop-
ment policy action.
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At the heart of the development partnership was the design of the CodePamoja training programme. CodePamoja translates as ‘Programming together’ and reflects the project’s core aims. Andy Haxby, Director of Competa, says: ‘We believe that Kenyans have a very promising future in information technology, but they lack role models to show them how best to use the technology.’ Through CodePamoja, Competa provided Kenyan software
developers with experienced mentors familiar with the standards Achieving goals with Agile and Scrum
Kenya: Competa and sequa train IT experts in Agile software development Photo credits: © GIZ/Tristan Vostry ‘The scale of the develoPPP.de programme is just right for a mid-sized company like ours to try out an idea without having to commit to an excessively large inves…