Africa's new mega city is set be the next 'Silicon Valley' with £11 billion being put behind it. Also known as Silicon Savannah, Africa's newest technology hub is being built 39 miles south of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, on the way to the port city of Mombasa. Konza Technopolis was approved in 2008 with plans to be completed by the year 2030 as part of a plan known as Kenya Vision 2030. While the project appears to be behind schedule, construction and development is still well underway and the mission of creating this "economic driver for the nation" is still in motion.
Konza Technopolis will have a mix of businesses, workers, residents and urban amenities, developers say. More specifically, the new development aims to attract business process outsourcing, software development, data centres, disaster recovery centres, call centres and light assembly manufacturing industries. It will also include a research-focused university, schools, hotels, hospitals, a convention centre, shopping centres, international schools and a science park.
Konza Technopolis is being developed on 5,000 acres spanning three counties in Kenya. The African country already stands as one of the most prosperous on the continent, ranked 7th in terms of GDP behind South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Ehtiopia, Morocco and Nigeria.
This new development aims to cement Kenya as one of Africa's big global players. Kenya's new mega city has receivved investment from other countries, namely South Korea.
Last year, South Korea signed a project financing agreement of 284.1 Million USD towards the establishment of a state-of-the-art Digital Media City at Konza Technopolis. This media city is "designed to position Kenya as a creative and content industry leader in Africa by providing a state-of-the-art facility to promote the emerging creative sector space to enable the country to unlock the opportunities that the creative sector in a tech sector presents to the country’s economic development ambitions".
Additionally, it will be home to "multi-media training institutes, digital media enterprises, post-production studios (gaming and animation), and music production, among other digital media content".
Managing director at eMobilis Mobile Technology Academy, Ken Mwenda, told The Guardian: "You need to start somewhere and [Konza] is that somewhere.
"There have been many other disjointed government efforts and initiatives but the scale of this project means that one would have to try hard not to notice that Kenya is seriously committed to its tech industry."
When construction on Konza Technopolis began in 2015, it was estimated that it would create around 200,000 jobs by 2030.
Chungwon Park, CEO and president of KEA, said last year: "We intend to establish an electronic manufacturing support centre in Konza Technopolis, capable of producing electronic products, developing appropriate and skilled workforce and providing technical support."
Meanwhile, when work on the new city started, Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, said: "What we’re seeing in Kenya is what we need to see in every part of the developing world. We also need to find ways of building business environments that will allow the development of small and medium-sized enterprises to create jobs, and we know that jobs are really the way that we’re going to end poverty."
