Analysis at scale, and Knowledge engineering
will progressively become the value
differentiators in business.
New Architectures: We can expect a
disaggregation and a de-colocation of
functionality in every device and service.
Maybe screens will not have to be in the same
place as the computer, maybe all storage will be
cloud based and local storage no longer
necessary.
Near Intelligence: With the rapid
improvement in big data machine learning, in
the very near term we can expect to see better
than human performance of from networked
machines on many tasks.
Changing Ownership Models: Extreme
sharing (compared to now) will become the
norm, people will pay less for and own less of
each device and have more connected devices
in every part of their lives.
Informatisation: All aspects of our lives
will be digital or digitally mediated, from
payments, asset use and rental, work,
manufacturing, agricultural, health and mining
will all be digitally controlled.
We anticipate several challenges to emerge
from these developments:
Carrying Capacity: As network carrying
capacity demands increase, we will constantly
have to update our core network. Thankfully
physics does not evolve, and we will not in the
short term have to put new cables in the
ground, just change the routing/switching
devices.
Interoperability: We need to develop
national policies on data sharing and
interoperability to ensure that all systems in
Kenya can work synergistically to yield the
operational and administrative benefits from a
coherent national instrumentation.
Balkanisation of Systems: Companies
will try to lock their customers in my defining
proprietary protocols and data formats to try
increase the barriers to entry for the
competition. These data silos are inimical to
our national progress and are strongly
discouraged.
Data Superpowers: Current and future
data sinks will become significant holders of
identity, transactional and profile data of the
Kenyan citizenry, and will have inordinate
power over the analysis, partitioning,
understanding, discrimination and fine grained
manipulation of public perception. Policy
subsidiary to this will create rules and
Ministry of ICT, Kenya
guidelines for equitable sharing and access to
profile data by all legitimate and licensed
players with the need, and establish principles
for the use, disclosure and storage of personally
identifiable data.
Out-dated Laws: As new models of
interaction, concepts of operation and norms of
conduct emerge our laws, regulations and
statutes need to keep track with and fairly
arbitrate the rights, obligations and
expectations of our citizens. Our laws should
not stand in the way of progress, nor should
they use outmoded principles that have been
superseded by globalised norms. Significant
new principles will have to be established
around ownership and use of sharing economy
devices and data.
Challenges
to
privacy:
As
instrumentation increases and the data held
about individuals and machines become siloed,
enhanced and derived, the data superpowers
know more and more about individuals. It is
now established as policy, in conformance to
the Constitution, that citizens have an
indefeasible right to privacy and to ownership
of all data about them however and wherever
held and to determine how and whether that
data is used, distributed, analysed, enhanced or
converted to other forms. It is further
established as policy that citizens of Kenya may
request and will promptly receive a copy of any
and all data held on them, by any and all entities
public or private, identified or not, and may so
dispose, use and store that data as they see fit.
The Government of Kenya will retain a copy of
such data, and note the demand and establish
rules and regulations for the use of such
deactivated data.
Skills Scarcity: The new technological
landscape brings with it new opportunities and
challenges, which we need the skills to manage,
operate and understand at scale. Precisely
because the skills required are new, there is a
shortage. Our training and manpower
development infrastructure needs to become
responsive to these needs.
Incoherent
Approaches:
Different
aspects of the new economy and technological
landscape are managed, regulated and
overseen by different government ministries,
departments and agencies, with different
approaches, understandings, focus areas and
concerns. As the environment converges
towards a consistent, coherent data-centric
approach (informatisation), everything from
finance, health, agriculture, work and speech,
the approach of government to regulation,
almost by definition, becomes Incoherent and
inconsistent. This policy and subsequent
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November-2019