American IT company Cisco has announced the launch of a Ksh69 million Incubation hub in Kenya.
The Incubation Centre targets Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMME’s) in the ICT space. This centre will be hosted at the University of Nairobi and is a first for Cisco in East Africa and the second in Africa, having launched a Hub in South Africa last year.
“This Hub known as the ‘Cisco EDGE Incubation Centre,’ is aimed at providing a platform for SMMEs to collaborate with Cisco’s experts across the globe to enable the small businesses to bring customers into the centre to experience Cisco solutions. The SMMEs will gain EDGE: Experience, Design, GTM (Go to Market) and Earn,” read a statement from the company.
SMMEs will be able to connect with global Cisco experts, who can help them develop business ideas and concepts in a digital world.
“The centre is targeting to enable small medium business to accelerate their growth through access technologies that are globally competitive,” says General Manager for Cisco East Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, David Bunei.
“Cisco recognizes that Kenya’s Big Four Agenda and one of the drivers of this is technology as the country accelerates towards achieving vision 2030. We want to contribute to the country’s job creation efforts via support to small medium businesses.”
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The Vice Chancellor of The University of Nairobi during the launch said, “The University of Nairobi supports of innovation and creativity among the youth providing them various platforms like our C4D Lab. We are happy to extend our support further by hosting the Cisco EDGE Incubation Centre. We congratulate Cisco on opening of this centre that will benefit many young people and entrepreneurs.”
Bunei added that some SMMEs namely Tujenge Pay and Botlab have signed up and are already getting training at the Cisco Edge Incubation Centre.
“This centre will provide the opportunity for SMMEs to employ graduates from the NetAcad program and give them with workplace experience, and in turn the SMMEs will leverage the graduates’ skills from the University of Nairobi,” added the statement.
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