institutions,
components.
and
corporate
research
6.3.1 Science Technology and Innovation
This policy will cause to be created and
maintained an ecosystem of world-class
research, technology development and
industry. The government will create
incentives, provide funding support for
research and innovation, recognise and reward
outstanding contributions, create and fund
challenges and bounties. It is the intent of this
policy to mainstream the application of science,
technology and innovation in all sectors and
processes of the economy to ensure that
Kenyans benefit from Science, Technology and
Innovation (ST and I) investments.
In the ICT domain the government
specifically commits to:
Biennial Research Priorities: Every two
years the Ministry after industry wide
consultation will set and review 5 research and
investment priority areas. These 5 areas will be
renewed and reviewed every 2 years.
Government will fund capacity building in
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), create
and award scholarships in the priority areas,
build research facilities in support of the
priority areas in HEIs on a competitive basis,
support and subsidize corporate research in
the priority areas.
National ICT Research Lab System: The
government will establish a public research
organisation called the National ICT Research
Laboratory (NIRL) with the specific goal of
developing publicly available technology for
use by and in Kenya. This laboratory system,
established at multiple locations around the
republic, will provide computing support to all
other PROs (KEMRI, KARI etc.), conduct
research in matters of national interest in
computational biology, genomics, defence,
intelligence, energy, environmental security,
high performance computing, physics and the
life sciences and science and engineering
modelling. The NIRL will maintain a close
relationship with industry, academia and
government, and provide special capacity
building to HEIs on national research priority
areas.
Kenya National Innovation System
Administration: The government will create a
new Kenya National Innovation System
Administration (KNISA), which will create,
operate, maintain and evolve a digital platform
to connect and mediate the interactions of ST
and I, stakeholders. The administrations task
Ministry of ICT, Kenya
will be to orchestrate the interactions between
stakeholders dynamically and effectively
respond to national needs. These stakeholders
will include academia at all levels, public
research organizations, corporate research
departments,
government,
enterprise
(corporate and individual), venture capital and
equity funds, and civil society.
National
Research
Medal:
The
government will recognise and reward
outstanding
contributions
to
Science,
Technology,
Engineering,
Mathematics,
Business
Innovation
and
Software
Development with a yearly medal.
6.3.2 The Council for the Future
The Cabinet Secretary shall appoint an
advisory group known as The Council for the
Future. The Council shall consist of industry
leaders, cutting edge entrepreneurs, academia
and global thinkers as key participants
dedicated to the generation and development
of new thinking and strengthening of new ideas
that can be brought to bear on challenges of
globalisation in the 21st century and shape the
role and future of the ICT landscape in Kenya in
the next 50 years.
The National Communications Secretariat
will be provided with resources to enable it
serve as the Secretariat to the Council.
6.3.3 Emerging Technologies
The technology landscape is changing fast,
and the rate of change will accelerate. We think
it is impossible to prognosticate every change,
and thus it is not possible to formulate clear
plans for things unknown we can however
develop a coherent and consistent approach to
the emergence of new trends and technologies
as they emerge. In the short-term technology
trends in section 5.4.3, we give an overview of
immediate trends. These trends point to likely
changes in the following areas:
Networks: Networks will get faster and
faster, we expect wireless peta and terabit
networks in the next 5 years. We expect
everything to be network enabled and to be a
data emitter.
Ubiquity: We expect everybody and
everything to be connected to the network
everywhere in Kenya. We expect all our
environments to have network connected
sensors and continuous monitoring.
Data Volumes: We expect an exponential
increase in data volumes on the networks. Data
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