The first ever Cisco expo in Kenya is currently ongoing at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. The event, themed ‘Collaboration and Virtualization beyond borders’  has attracted over 700 customers and business people from various countries around the world, a mark higher than the targeted number of 500 participant.
 

Cisco partners have demonstrated solutions that show how far Kenya has come in the arena of technology. The solutions demonstrate the power of human networks and experience of how real face to face meetings will be in the future.

Speaking at the event, Hon. Samuel Poghisio, Kenya’s Minister of Information and Communication stated that Cisco’s solutions are in line with his ministry’s ambition of using technology to develop Kenya.

Cisco along with its partners, is designing new business models aimed at providing services that are better suited for the end user. Geared towards the quality of service, Cisco is set to deploy quality services to rural areas based on the business case studies in these areas. For instance internet bandwidth is more likely to be used in research on sustainable farming practices than for accessing social media platforms.

The company so far aligns itself with Kenya’s millennium development goals by developing a competitive economy with a high quality of life. It does this through enabling cross investment and transforming the health sector, education sector, industries, businesses and the telecommunication infrastructure.

So far Cisco has trained over 4000 students since the inception of its education programme. In Kenya, the company has established an academy that empowers deaf students in Kibera with IT skills. Together with other partnering institutions, Cisco has taken a bottom up approach and rolled out community knowledge centres in Kenya, injecting over 2 million USD into these knowledge centres so far.

Currently, Cisco capitalizes on video communication which is bound to change the way business is conducted. Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore shared with the delegates on the importance of TelePresence and TeleJustice solutions that can bridge the rural urban divide.

The second day of the expo will see presentations on how to deliver promises of virtualized dynamic data centres, data center switching evolution and the next generation of the wireless technology.