“Innovation is a thinking process, a useful application of new invention," says Paul Mwachi, the country manager of iSys software development teams, when addressing tech entrepreneurs, ICT innovators and stakeholders of the local developer ecosystem. This was in an event dubbed "Innovation week" currently ongoing at Strathmore University. The event key focus is on the factors affecting ICT innovation in the country.

Speaking at the event, Erick Hersman, the founder of Ushahidi, shared a few ventures in terms of innovation. For instance, R@ihub, a research arm of ihub that is geared towards enhancing ICT research in Africa, is an important move for Africa to continue innovating and increase its footprints at an international level.

The Kenyan population is full of talented individuals, and there is always space for a radical thought despite our congested markets. As the society continues to mature and become tech savvy, it has come to light that there is an increase in acceptance of the values technology brings to how we do things. Therefore, innovation is slowly becoming a norm to society.

Most of the Kenyan innovators are faced with a couple of challenges. At most times, they don’t define their goals properly. They poorly align their actions meant to achieve these goals and carry out insufficient market research in what they are venturing on.

Paul, describes failure in innovation to be inevitable, but again the ideas that fail are usually good ideas. At the end, lessons learned from failure often reside longer.

Kamal, founder of Craft Silicon, urges that people must work towards their goals. “The next Google should be developed in Kenya,” he says. He presented ‘Elma’ an end to end commerce application, which is platform independent. With its entry level at GPRS, the solution gives a lifestyle experience with the numerous payment options.