Young online banking entrepreneurs from Kenya are getting a chance to promote their new products and meet potential business partners at an upcoming banking conference.
This year's AITEC Banking and Mobile Money Comesa Conference is to be held in Nairobi on 2 and 3 March, at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre.
AITEC chairman Sean Moroney says this will expose East Africa's leading young software designers to the exciting opportunities that Africa's rapidly expanding mobile money services offer.
The Young Innovators Mobile Applications Hub, organised by AITEC, in partnership with iHub and the Kenya ICT Board, is sponsored by Google.
The Hub aims to enable Kenya's emerging mobile money innovators to promote their products outside the East African region and identify market needs and potential business opportunities.
Moroney points out that African entrepreneurs have created world-class innovations, especially in reaching the unbanked and in providing the easiest and most complete access for banking customers via mobile phones.
They only need opportunities like the Hub to showcase their products in order to become market leaders, he adds.
Paul Kukubo, CEO of the Kenya ICT Board, says the initiative is vital to the further development of Kenya's burgeoning software industry.
“Kenya has a wealth of software expertise to offer regional and international markets and we are delighted to have this opportunity for our young innovators to show what they can do in a world-class business event.”
Software developers who will be showcasing at the Hub include: Media Edge Communications, with a mobile banking system and an agricultural-inputs mobile transaction solution for farmers; Jumuika, an opt-in mobile advertising company; and OTB Africa, which offers a range of customised software solutions for mobile business systems.
One of the young innovators, Kariuki Gathitu, a systems architect at Zege Technologies, will make a Young Innovator Showcase presentation on 'Mobile money frenzy - the search for system unification' at the conference.
He will be part of a speaker line-up of over 100 local and international experts who will share knowledge in a wide range of key subject areas.
According to AITEC, the conference marks a new era in regional banking, as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) region works to integrate its trading and financial platforms.
Moroney says the Comesa region's banking industry is at crossroads. “If the industry now moves swiftly, it will deliver the platform for trading and economic take-off. If it moves slowly, it will hold back the region's potential growth and the spreading of wealth for citizens across our entire region.”
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