{"id":1329,"date":"2015-10-28T13:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2016-10-27T14:48:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T13:48:39","slug":"google-plans-to-invest-in-kenya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/10\/28\/google-plans-to-invest-in-kenya\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Plans to Invest in Kenya"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A piece of news I read in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\" target=\"_blank\">Wired <\/a>grabbed my attention: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/10\/google-pumps-2b-into-africas-biggest-wind-power-project\/\" target=\"_blank\">Google plans to acquire Vestas\u2019 12.5% share<\/a> in what will be Africa\u2019s largest wind farm<\/strong> \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ltwp.co.ke\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP)<\/a>, in Kenya. Energy is a key input for Google\u2019s business \u2013 they need to ensure reliable provision. This investment may be a sign of Google\u2019s plans for Africa.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In last week\u2019s post, I talked about the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/10\/21\/connectivity\/\" target=\"_blank\">rising trend in connectivity<\/a> that African countries are experiencing.<\/strong> The internet economy is expected to account for 7% of Africa\u2019s GDP by 2025. How will this come about? The necessary conditions are investments in power and in manpower:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1330\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1330\" style=\"width: 444px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/10\/google-kenya.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1330\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/10\/google-kenya-300x106.jpg\" alt=\"Getting ready to tap into African markets\" width=\"444\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/10\/google-kenya-300x106.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/10\/google-kenya.jpg 380w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 444px) 100vw, 444px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1330\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getting ready to tap into African markets<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/07\/15\/africa-powering-ahead\/\" target=\"_blank\">Power<\/a><\/strong>: Kenya has the potential to develop the power infrastructure the country needs to boost socioeconomic development. The Lake Turkana Wind Power project is the largest : Kenyan Shilling (KES) 70 billion (roughly \u20ac624,000 million or US$685,000 million). <strong>It will provide 300 MW of clean power to Kenya&#8217;s national electricity grid, accounting for 17% of Kenya&#8217;s total installed power<\/strong>. It\u2019s expected to be operational next year.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Manpower<\/strong>: Kenya has a growing information technology and communication industry. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.knbs.or.ke\/index.php?option=com_phocadownload&amp;view=category&amp;id=20&amp;Itemid=1107\" target=\"_blank\">latest statistics<\/a> I have found indicate that in 2013 about 92,700 people were officially employed in the information technology and communication industry in 2013. This is 4% of official employment, and is up from 77,900 official jobs in the industry in 2010. <strong>Nairobi has become a technology hub.<\/strong> Some call it <strong>\u201cthe Silicon Savannah\u201d.<\/strong> <strong>Kenya aims to become an alternative to India for offshoring processes. And IBM has opened its worldwide research facility for big data there.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Add to this youth and demographic growth, and my favorite question is served: any doubts about where the future lies?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A piece of news I read in Wired grabbed my attention: Google plans to acquire Vestas\u2019 12.5% share in what will be Africa\u2019s largest wind farm \u2013 Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP), in Kenya. Energy is a key input for Google\u2019s business \u2013 they need to ensure reliable provision. This investment may be a sign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":1330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85385,99314],"tags":[45555,121,14,831,918,951,1010,1080,1148,100365],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-doing-business-in-africa","category-social-and-institutional-context","tag-connectivity","tag-economic-growth","tag-google","tag-ibm","tag-investment","tag-kenya","tag-manpower","tag-nigeria","tag-power","tag-silicon-savannah","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}