The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) from India have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Kenya ICT Board Thursday evening. Dr. Jai Menon – Bharti, Group Director for Innovation & IT and member of the NASSCOM Executive Board, was part of a 20 member delegation team that visited Kenya between 14 and 16 of this month. This is the second delegation from NASSCOM to visit the country after a similar delegation came in Sepetmber 2010.

The MOU between NASSCOM and the Kenya ICT Board will extend corporation between India and Kenya for the IT and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry. Menon says the first element is cross mutual learning. “Kenya can learn from India’s ICT journey which has been over roughly 20 years resulting in an industry which has approximately US $ 90 billion turn over and employs over 2.5 million professionals across 66 countries,” he says.

The second element is that Kenya is a first stop for Indian IT firms setting up in Africa: “There will be Indian companies opening up entities in Kenya. A number of companies have already set shop in Kenya such as Iridium Interactive and Comviva,” says Menon. This, he says, creates an opportunity for graduates from Kenya to find and create jobs in the education sector, especially for multilingual off shoring capabilities.

The third part of the MOU will be looking at how ICT can help transform businesses, governments, as well as citizens’ lives. As an example, Menon lists his firm, Bharti Airtel, which has already opened a significant presence in Kenya and is working on mobile enablement of egovernance and other forms of Business-Consumer and Business-Business services.

The Kenya ICT board CEO, Paul Kukubo, commented that the Kenya ICT industry was not an easy one, with many firms lacking the maturity to compete locally or internationally. "We want our companies to be like Indian companies at the global arena," he says. Kukubo says India had a big reputation globally which Kenya could benefit from with its growing reputation as a source-bed for emerging technology.