Each of these  cities hosts a large tertiary education institution, and is therefore a potential fountain of the skilled labour force essential in beginning the transformation of the country's service sector along India's much vaunted lines.

The KPLC is said to be seeking a license to carry data on the national grid, thus joining the Naushad Meralli Kenya Data Networks in the vanguard of revolutionising information access in Kenya. If  foreign  and  local entrepreneurs can be persuaded to take a roll of the dice on a competent human capital and if Kenyans in the diaspora can be counted on to add their numbers, great progress can be made in the next five years.

With India getting more expensive, major global players are starting to shop elsewhere for cheaper destinations;Intel famously moving to Vietnam. South-Africa is already staking a claim for a bigger  slice of the pie in Africa as are Senegal,Morocco and Tunisia due to their proximity to Europe. There are currently, five  major firms outsourcing communication services in Kenya, the capacity for more is infinite, provided the government can market the country as a good destination for FDI; even as it improves the infrastructure. Here is a link to one of them, Kencall.

There has been talk among some Presidential candidates, and especially thr front-runner Raila Odinga, that the service sector cannot be a driver of economic growth. This however is where the core competencies of Kenya really lie; a cheap, educated workforce should be able to capture with some ease some part of the burgeoning outsourcing cake.

In addition,authentic tourist destinations able to capture the aspirations of the ageing, cash-flush,baby-boomers in the West and a sophisticated financial system  able to offer investment vehicles into an emerging and growing COMESA region promise a bright future if only we can seize on the opportunities. It is vital that we leverage these competencies in the short to medium term and find ourselves providing cutting edge Biotech or Nanotech sectors in the 2040's. As highlighted in the President's speech here.

"The Government’s strategy is to make sure that this country is globally competitive in the communication sector," he said. The objective? "This will position Kenya as one of the most attractive destinations for outsourcing services over the next two years."
That the opportunity is large and profitable can be surmised from the size of KDN's investment,just one of the 3 fibre optic connections reaching the Indian Ocean coast in the near future.