Kisumu City, the third largest city after Nairobi and Mombasa is on the verge of building its own Technology Hub.
Nairobi, being globally recognised as a technology hub and recently ranked the most intelligent city in Africa, has provided an opportunity for other cities in Kenya to play along the same line.
LakeHub, a technology co-working space opened in Kisumu in September 2014 has over 1,200 members most of which are students is taking good advantage of the opportunity and hopes to become the central nerve of tech innovation in western Kenya.
With the aim of imparting technological skills and spurring job creation and entrepreneurship among local youths, the innovation space organizes monthly events that bring together entrepreneurs to develop solutions to their everyday challenges.
Although the hub operates in a small office in the middle of Kisumu City, the space hosts about 20 people in a day – mostly programmers, creatives and recently entrepreneurs whose eyes are on financial resources, networking, partnerships, training, mentor-ship and networking opportunities.
Erik Hersman, iHub co-founder and advisor to LakeHub acknowledges that Nairobi will always have more money, more start-ups, more media, but the people who go to Nairobi come from some place far away.
He says that there is need to start seeding those environments with small tech hubs urging youths to take advantage of the devolved systems.
Paul Kajulu, a young techie at LakeHub says that the space has helped him develop his skill in programming since he has been able to share knowledge and skills with other programmers. He is hoping to launch his career through networking with established Tech-preneurs who are already swarming the place.
Youths in Kenya have been urged to take up innovation and seek solutions to some of the daily challenges in their communities.