Starting a business in Kenya has not been a walk in the park and most of the enterprises have not been lucky to celebrate their third birthday and cease operations. Platform businesses often struggle with scalability due to challenges in identifying and addressing market needs and building network effects. This results in significant capital investment in products that may not meet market demands or have limited appeal.

It is on this note that the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) through its ongoing project, Ajira Digital Program, in partnership with Tactive Consulting yesterday launched an accelerator Program for platforms dubbed, “Ajira-PAP” to support digital work platforms in their development and provide capacity building to improve their commercial acumen and better understand the markets. The launch was well attended by the digital work platforms offering solutions in different sectors, the private sector organizations as well as the government through the Ministry of Information, Communication and Digital Economy.

Through the Ajira Digital Program, KEPSA continues to support digitization in both the public and private sectors while supporting the growth of digital platforms through different interventions including market visibility and provision of digital talents. One of the successful stories in the public sector digitization is how KEPSA engaged a local Business Process Outsourcing organization to offer the digitization services of the Judiciary pilot program. Additionally, KEPSA members in the SME category have also been sensitized on digitization and enterprise matchmaking between the SMEs and digital platforms carried out as tools for digitization.

Based on the lessons learnt through these engagements with digital economy enablers Ajira Digital developed an initiative that will help accelerate the growth of digital platforms with the potential to scale jobs for youth. This is also aligned with KEPSA's strategic role in the business ecosystem.

The three-month accelerator course which starts with about 20 digital work platforms will focus on helping these entrepreneurs pivot their businesses to serve adjacent markets and expand into new ones by identifying market opportunities and scaling accordingly. The courses will cover various skills from developing a market-first approach to business strategy and operations through customer centricity, fundamentals of market positioning for competitiveness and optimal value creation and value capture, optimizing internal business capacity such as HR, Operations, and Finance, as well as how to increase efficiency, productivity and profitability and understanding market dynamics for penetration into adjacent markets.

Here are insights highlighted from the remarks and panel session during the launch:

“Start-ups in Kenya have been on the rise in recent years, and they play a crucial role in driving innovation, economic growth, and job creation. The work platforms which majority of them are in their early stage are key in driving the growth of the digital economy as we look forward to realizing our country’s dream of becoming the Silicon Savannah. This is why we are here to launch this important program, Ajira-PAP, as we also discuss in-depth challenges that platforms face which the program hopes to solve and help scale up these businesses.”- Dr. Ehud Gachugu – Director Ajira Digital and Youth Employment at KEPSA

“Kenya has a vision to be a globally competitive knowledge-based economy by the year 2030 and one way to achieve this vision includes the development and promotion of the ICT and Digital Economy sector to spur investments and create employment for Kenyans. Recently cabinet secretary at the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Digital Economy, Mr. Eliud Owalo, established a sectoral working group to evaluate the sector and its role in fostering agility, innovation, and value creation and to review existing policy, legislative, regulatory and institutional frameworks underpinning the sector and make recommendations. Digital work platforms among other key stakeholders in the digital economy are therefore invited to make contributions to the reform of the sector through the link: https://forms.gle/UZTcM7TCqeDCH8zS9. The government welcomes collaborations and partnerships that will help in the development of the sector and such initiatives as the accelerator programs are encouraged.” - Priscilla Maina – Priscilla Maina, Assistant Director State Department of ICT and Digital Economy.

“As an implementing partner of the Ajira Digital Program charged with training and operationalization of the Ajira Youth Empowerment Centres and Clubs in the institutions of higher learning, eMobilis understands that the rapid growth of the gig economy is an opportunity for more work opportunities for the young people which will result in a dignified livelihood. Digital platforms create an opportunity for innovation and entrepreneurship and hence the creation of work helps reduce youth unemployment in the country and across the globe. We then can capitalize on the work platforms to allow more start-ups and them to compete globally.” -  Edna Karijo – Program Manager at eMobilis Institute of Technology

“As Tactive, our work is to figure out what the commercial strategy required to scale up a business. This capacity-building series is designed to facilitate a better understanding of the tools and concepts that can be used to unlock the sustainable growth of the participating enterprises. By unraveling the opportunities within these enterprises, we will also be helping create jobs for many young people in Kenya. Tactive Consulting is collaborating with Ajira Digital Program to empower platform businesses within their ecosystem to achieve market access and unlock scale.” – Kaye Matereke, Co-Founder of Tactive Consulting.

“In the future, there will be more jobs requiring different skills and hence there is a need for better strategies in the industry to ensure businesses get the right and keep the right talents. Mentorship plays a key role in anchoring what is already in the industry and ensuring the talents are tapped and pushed to support emerging trends, especially in digital transformation. Such accelerator program is an interconnected solution to what the industry currently needs.” - Andrew Masila, Head of Innovation at Safaricom PLC.

“How can we nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs? It is by working with the people at the grassroots and understanding their needs that require solutions. As we think about innovation, we need to think about the element of practicality. Hence, there is a need to decentralize access to knowledge, access to resources, and access to opportunities which will then help solve enormous problems in the society and design great products and solutions.” – Lisa Kimondo, Director Academy at Founders Factory Africa

“There is a need to include the youth in the design thinking of innovation as they are both resources and potential markets. One of the projects WFP Kenya runs is Empact which has taught us valuable lessons including the need for mentorship to lock in the youth in the project connect them to potential work opportunities and help them build their earnings. Hence, such accelerator program is built on the basis of mentorship which is very crucial in ensuring its success.” – Rosemary Gatahi, Business Transformation Officer at WFP Kenya

“As a content creators and social e-commerce platform, our strategy is to push more of the young content creators to earn and develop the entrepreneurship spirit. It is important for them to think about how they can earn from their ideas and keep on improving to tap into available business opportunities. Innovation demonstrates the various solutions that young people can access earnings and work opportunities.” -  Jane Kaiga, Head of Business Development at Twiva.
 

“There is a need to rethink the quality of mass education and see if it supports innovation and entrepreneurship. Skilled people attract jobs and great work opportunities hence, integrating such cultures that promote innovation and entrepreneurship in our education system will help diffuse these skills at an early stage of a young person and increase their chances of becoming great entrepreneurs and innovators. The digital economy is one major solution at the moment that provides room for everybody to be involved in entrepreneurship and offer solutions to the community.” – Louis Majanja, Product Leader at Tappi Kenya.

The launch of the Ajira-PAP brought about great insights, experiences, and collective ideas that will hep steer the program and the courses that are aimed at redefining the future of start-ups in Kenya and in this case the digital work platforms.