The third edition of connected Kenya has opened today morning at Leisure Lodge Beach Resort in Kenya’s south coast. The event is organized by the ICT Board and sponsored by Safaricom, IBM and CIO amongst many other sponsors. With a theme of “Innovating the citizen”, this year’s event has attracted over 400 delegates from all sectors of the economy. Different from previous events, this year’s event kicked off with a half day golf tournament on Monday and will also feature an exhibition by the various participants. Connected Kenya seeks to bring stakeholders in the ICT sector, mainly technology firms to deliberate on trends and have a unified direction towards realizing Kenya’s vision 2030. The theme for this year’s event is “Innovation for the Citizen.” Some of the attendants include top members of the Judiciary including Justice Waki and several members of parliament. The Kenya ICT Board is employing a reversed innovation approach to encourage local solutions to local problems. The interdisciplinary approach involves both the private and public sector to include a sharing and a sourcing of solutions from different sources. Catherine Wanjiru, Kenya ICT Board chairperson says: “The ICT board will promote local projects that will deliver efficiency of service delivery and transparency for citizens.”Paul Kukubo, CEO of the Kenya ICT Board says: “In order for Kenya to be competitive we need to bring together an ecosystem of education, governance, policy and systems.” He adds that Kenya is ranked at position 106 in the global competitive Index, far off form the board’s mission to have Kenya amongst the world’s top countries. “Safaricom has been at the forefront of innovation in Kenya with the aim of bringing down the cost of doing business in Kenya,” says Bob Collymore, Safaricom CEO. M-PESA is listed as a Safaricom innovation with the biggest impact in the country with more than 13.5 million customers. “Innovation must be linked to identified needs,” he adds. Safaricom is the biggest provider of data connectivity in Kenya with 90% of internet consumers in the country accessing internet via Safaricom. This is done through 22,500 Mbps of capacity from Safaricom’s stake in the EASSY cable and a redundant 620 Mbps on Seacom. Collymore adds that the company now provides fiber connectivity to 500 buildings. Other services from Safaricom include farmer insurance service where farmers insure their farms against drought effects. This is in partnership with other firms such as UAP insurance.  Collymore states that the mobile provider will be launching remote e-health service. Through the service, patients will be able to consult doctors without a physical meeting.