A Kenya - U.S. Free Trade Agreement

Bitange Ndemo is Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. His research centers on the link between ICTs and small and medium enterprises with emphasis on how ICTs influence economic development in Africa. Prof. Ndemo Chaired the Kenya Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce that developed the country’s a road map for digital transformation. He is an advisor and Board member to several organizations including Safaricom one of the leading telecommunication company in Africa, OECD Expert Panel for Blockchain, Foundation, Research ICT Africa that is based in South Africa. Besides having been a Permanent Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication where he was credited with facilitating many transformative ICT projects, he is a member of the Global Learning Council, a member of the Global Blockchain Council (part of the World Economic Forum’s Global Fourth Industrial Revolution Councils), a Senior advisor to UN’s Global Pulse (Big Data initiatives) and the UNCDF’s Better than Cash Alliance. He is an Open Data/Big Data evangelist and dedicated to simplification (visualization) of data for ordinary citizens to consume. He writes two columns every week for the Business Daily and Nation on-line.

Tim is the CEO of Copia Global which brings the power of e-commerce to the middle and base of the economic pyramid, transforming this historically neglected market into empowered global consumers. Copia envisions “e” where there is no internet, commerce where there are no big wallets, deliveries where there are no modern roads or addresses and empowered people where the world sees none.

Tim is originally British and now a Kenya permanent resident, he has a finance background and has 25 years transport and service industry experience leading diverse teams to deliver quality service and fast growth in emerging markets.

After starting his international career in Kenya in a voluntary role running the finances for the Salvation Army in East Africa, Tim joined TNT Express, the European leader in express transportation and headed up TNT’s owned entity operations in Cyprus, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya, living in the countries, managing business turnarounds, building strong teams and achieving above market growth rates often in very challenging environments.

In South Africa and Kenya he underpinned growth strategies by capitalising on the enhanced regional customs unions to implement first to market, cross border road distribution networks delivering speed, reliability and savings to customers.
Whilst in Johannesburg, Tim championed and spearheaded the express industry association’s initiative to provide low cost primary healthcare cover for all employees with the aim of tackling the spread of HIV-AIDS in the transport industry.

From a base in Kenya, Tim then redesigned, built and managed TNT’s $100m franchise model and operation in 83 countries across Asia, Middle East and Africa working with partner agents, local and remote teams to bring a new service/growth strategy to multiple key markets simultaneously. He set up a back-office customer service and data centre in Bangalore India to support franchise partners 24/7 across all time zones.

Tim graduated in History from the University of Ulster and has postgraduate management qualifications from the University of Warwick UK and IMD Switzerland.

Nekesa is the Director of Strategy at AfriLabs, a Pan African network of 225 hubs across 47 African countries. She leads the planning and execution of AfriLabs’ strategy to consistently
elevate innovators across the African continent.

Nekesa has worked at the heart of the tech and innovation ecosystem in Kenya and in Africa for 10 years, 8 of which were with iHub, Kenya’s leading innovation hub. She has more than 15 years experience in leadership, human resource management, operations and communications.

She provides leadership across Africa’s innovation ecosystem by serving on the boards of Creatives Garage a multi-disciplinary space for artistes, the Africa Tech and Creatives Group, a
grassroots movement working to ensure that the Africa Continental Free Trade Area works for African startups and small African businesses, and Missing Child Ke, a community-led portal that works with organizations and individuals in the child protection sector and the public to help share information on missing children using various media platforms and increase search efforts at no cost to the affected families.

Patrick Ndegwa, SEACOM Business Sales Lead for SEACOM East Africa.

As the SEACOM Business Sales Lead for SEACOM East Africa, Patrick Ndegwa is responsible for business development in the enterprise market across the region. In his role, he manages the sales resources to maximise revenue growth for SEACOM Business in line with our Corporate Sales & Marketing Strategy.

With over 16 years of experience and expertise in the ISP sector, Patrick re-joined the company in 2015 to drive sales revenue and client-value thinking, while building strong relationships with key partners and customers.

Andrew Waititu, CEO and Managing Partner of Leapfrog Advisory, a boutique consulting house specializing in market entry strategy formulation and technology commercialization.

Andrew is the immediate past Chief Executive for GE Healthcare in East Africa and is a seasoned business leader whose vision is to open up space for individuals and industry to deliver transformative change in emerging markets.

His dual passion for Africa and ICT has seen him hold several leadership roles across the continent with IBM, Microsoft and SAP. A highly-regarded professional, Andrew’s focus on the use of ICT to drive industry and change in Africa have seen him sit on various advisory boards; including Vice-President of the Kenya chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce and the Vice Chair of the ICT sector committee of KEPSA.

Andrew holds a Master’s in Computer Science and a Master’s in Business Administration both from University of Liverpool.