- Hopefully, media sector leaders will attend the summit and network with other ICT players.
- A study by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) established that digital technologies are central in the current business structures in many media houses.
Image: HANDOUT
Kenya hosting the Connected Africa Summit 2024 at Uhuru Gardens in Nairobi this April offers the country another opportunity to promote its brand not only as an investment destination and networking hub but also show progress in connectivity.
The summit will address the critical challenges and opportunities within Africa’s ICT sector including Artificial Intelligence (AI), disruptive technologies, start-up opportunities for SMEs and digital tools for doing business.
Hopefully, media sector leaders will attend the summit and network with other ICT players, given the impact and place of technology in the new media landscape like is the case with other sectors.
That Kenya is among the leading nations in connectivity on the continent cannot be disputed and given the infrastructure investment, it remains a major hub for its uin the ICT sector. But what remains is how this investment is contributing to her digital superhighway dream.
Challenges in the achieved success to help the country realise the ICT potential include lack of a digital ecosystem for extending the digital services and tools to all areas of the country that would have enabled citizens access learning digital services, and lack of transparency in market prices.
This is in the sense that most of the existing advisories and apps that provide access to market price information expose most people wishing to use them at the mercy of brokers.
Most of the technologies still remain inaccessible and expensive while there has been little focus on exposing citizens to entrepreneurial approaches into our country’s business realm.
I know a lot is being done to address the challenges as seen in the many investments both the government and the private sector have made.
For example, according to the World Bank, Kenya accounts for 23 per cent of all African Agri-tech start-ups on the continent.
Despite being the digital innovation hub of Africa and home to many innovative start-ups in digital agriculture in Africa, Kenya’s agricultural sector has not been able to achieve significant agricultural transformation.
A lot still needs scaling up; investments in research and knowledge creation and financial support to enable the full realisation of ICT on national development and changing the lives of citizens.
A study by the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) established that digital technologies are central in the current business structures in many media houses.
IT has enhanced the speed of news production, influenced journalists' working culture including news gathering, packaging and distribution and already, use of AI has reduced printing and content production costs.
The study noted that technology has influenced the way media outlets and journalists operate, which has seen several of them re-strategise and restructure their businesses with different levels of success and completion.
The developments mean readers can now consume and produce content (they are now aptly referred to as prosumers), and sometimes inform media decisions.
This active involvement means they can challenge mainstream media dominance.
In effect, some of the marginalised communities, or those who feel their issues are hardly given space in mainstream media, can utilise the technologies to articulate their issues.
Will media industry leaders get the opportunity to network and pressure ICT sector players on ventures that can save the industry from the current operating pressures?
Could, for example, ICT players link with the many press clubs and digital content production centres in and outside urban centers to provide free internet, working tools for freelancers to generate content for both local and international media without them being permanently attached to the media houses?
Can such support help journalists and media houses concentrate on public interest stories from the countrywide while showcasing investment opportunities in such areas to attract investors?
While there is a debate on the likely negative impact of things like AI, the future of jobs for journalists and streamlining operations, we cannot ignore digital technologies given the changing trends and effects on both media productions and consumption.
Technology has seen even what was termed traditional media (TV, radio and print) become digital in operation and media leaders must collaborate with ICT sector players to ensure they move with time.
The Summit is expected to foster Africa and global partnership towards the achievement of the global Sustainable Development Goals, Africa Union’s Agenda 2063, Africa Union’s Digital Transformation Strategy, Kenya Vision 2030, the Digital Economy Strategy of Kenya, and the Kenya National Digital Masterplan 2022-2023.
The Summit has attracted leading industry players including Safaricom, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell Technologies, CISCO, Huawei, Airtel, Jamii Telcom and Telkom Kenya.
The media landscape in Kenya has changed and the business environment is very harsh, coupled with huge production and printing costs, taxes on newsprint and circulation costs, which as a recent visit to a Huawei factory in China demonstrated, can be reduced through the use of AI in many of these operations.
With roughly 180,000 employees working for Huawei, the tech giant's revenue stood at $100 billion (Sh10 trillion) in 2018, making it one of the largest organizations ever.
The current battle with the techno tensions pitting the USA and China goes just to show how tech is the next frontier including in the media business.
Interventions from the ICT sector towards creating digital media hubs in the counties for content production will be very much welcome.