Ambassador Bitange Ndemo has called for provision of seed funding for youth who have startups in the innovation space.
He said we have startups that address some of the issues we face in the health sector, but they end up being bought by foreigners.
"If you go to every hub, you will find young people developing products for example in agriculture and health but they lack seed funding. This is where we have gone wrong,” he said.
The Kenya Kwanza regime pledged to spend Sh50 billion a year to provide MSMEs with 100 per cent access to affordable finance through SACCOs, venture capital, equity funds and long-term debt for startups and growth-oriented SMEs.
In the first three months of 2022, Kenyan startups raised Sh48 billion in venture funding as compared to 2021 when they raised Sh41 billion.
Yearly funding for Kenyan startups is projected to hit Sh100 billion in the next three years.
This was revealed early this year during the 7th edition of the Digital and Technology week.
Ndemo said that most jobs in the global arena have shifted to innovation and technology.
He spoke during the first KCA university interdisciplinary conference on innovations and sustainability.
The conference was officiated by KCA university's Vice Chancellor Isaiah Wakindiki and Deputy Vice Chancellor Joshua Bagaka.
It's aimed at contributing to the achievements of the SDGs through theoretical studies in multidisciplinary areas such as ICT and Innovation, Economics, Finance as well as Accounting.
Speaking at the conference, Ndemo said that the youth have embarked on creating digital products that benefit our agricultural sector.
"Because of these products, young people get to embrace farming and are able to get jobs. Through data culture, they are able to make more money through different farming practices,” he said.
“This changes the mindset of relating agriculture to poor people hence seed funding is very important.”
Ndemo also said that there needs to be a reconceptualisation in terms of the country’s digital space to aid in our agricultural sector.
This is so as to ensure that we achieve economic transformation partnered with technology.
“Data is going to be very crucial in our future. We need to have open and shared data,” Ndemo said.
“For example, you have five acres and you want to make a million Kenyan shillings. Through technology, you can be able to utilise data from different platforms that, in turn, can offer suggestions on how to upscale production like in the type of fertiliser you can use.”
The average age of a farmer in Kenya is 60 years.
Ndemo said that this needs to be brought back down to the youth level.
Kenya needs to leverage on the power of technology in order to establish powerful and better agricultural systems.
This means that farmers will get to know what is needed, where to get what is needed and be able to look for a market for their produce.
All these will require data.
“We also need institutional collaboration from different government and non-governmental agencies, institutional capacity, and human resource development which will involve the education systems,” he noted.
Ndemo said data analytics is essential to know what the nation requires to improve productivity.
“It is happening but it has not been coordinated to strengthen the institutions that are changing and transforming the lives of other people.”
The Kenyan ambassador to Belgium also said that focus needs to shift to informed research that will develop well-informed policies resulting in better economic transformation.
The Kenya Kwanza government pledged to increase funding towards research and development institutions from the current 0.8 per cent to 2 per cent.
This is in accordance with the Science, Technology, and Innovation Act 2013.
The total production of fish in Kenya is around 400,000 tonnes but we consume about 900,000 tonnes.
This means there is a deficit of around 500,000 tonnes of fish.
“The Chinese have started consumption patterns data collection and are able to fill in that gap. We are supposed to expand the fish farming sector in Kenya to feed locals,” Ndemo said.
“We can comfortably create more jobs for our youth locally instead of creating more jobs in China to provide us with fish.”
Ndemo said that the country should embark on having talks on regenerative farming to upscale local production.