IBM Partners with KENET/UON to Launch Corporate Services.

The IBM Corporate Service Core (IBM CSC) which was launched on 4th July 2011 at the new KENET training room at the Jomo Kenyatta Memorial Library University of Nairobi, gave their first Interim report on 20 July, 2011.

The launch event was attended by representatives from various KENET member institutions who inluded Vice Chancellors, Principals and Heads of ICT. The guest of Honor was Prof. Crispin Kiamba who is the Parmanent Secretary in the ministry of Higher Education, Science.

During the launch, the IBM team outlined thier work plan for the next 30 days when they will be studying KENET after which they will offer recommendations on how to improve our services and Technology. The University of Nairobi was represented by Prof. Henry Mutoro, the Principal of College of Education and External Studies.

 

The team of four senior employees of IBM coming from four different countries (China, Finland, Germany and Spain) arrived in Kenya on July 1, 2011 and started their work immediately after the launch. It is part of the IBM Corporate Social Responsibility to emerging economies. There are also two other IBM CSC teams in Kenya that will be working with the directorate of E-government and with Ministry of Information and Communication.

The team was asked by KENET to provide pro bono consulting study that aims to develop strategies for increasing the research (and education) and local traffic coming out of the KENET network which is currently very low at less than 5% (most traffic is still to Google, Yahoo, and other non-research and education sites). They will interview a representative number of VCs, ICT directors, faculty and researchers to establish the reasons that keep the research traffic relatively low and why researchers remain isolated from the Global Research and Innovation Networks despite the fact the Internet bandwidth has increased by a factor of more than 10 times in the past two years. They will also be helping KENET and Universities ultimately, to benchmark themselves with other Research and Education Networks in terms of operations and organizational and governance structures. This is all consistent with University of Nairobi's reviewed Strategic plan.