Sevenett Analytics and Coding, Kenya-USA Tech Forum
as I did when I started my um when I started my my my current um startup uh I have kept that going um if you have a job if you are able to start your business with with a job uh keep that going until the business is profitable and the reason I say that is because you have to be very aware that um Venture capitalists are funding your business investors are funding your business business for the purpose of uh making profit and Venture capitalists have to be very careful about their Investments because four out of five businesses fail that's just Global um and so uh out of those four uh that fail Venture capitalists have to make sure that the one they fund that become successful that they are extremely aggressive about their Investments to make sure that they make up for the four that are going to fail and so if you're that one successful business you better know that venture capital is making sure that they get the most out of you and so push accepting funding as far as you can I recently spoke to a venture capitalist who um told me that uh he's really conflicted because uh he used to be a founder and now that he's in the Venture Capital capitalist world he recognizes that the primary purpose of venture capital is making money and they are vultures about it you know so you can call them venture capitalist or vulture capitalist um and he said he's he's genuinely uh conflicted morally and ethically because the aggressiveness with which they have to approach businesses and so if you are um if you are if you have a startup push accepting any Venture Capital funding as much as you can and if you don't have to accept it do not uh if you can be profitable and fund your business and grow slowly I have a carpet cleaner who cleaned for me and once told me that uh the people he had started business with 20 years ago around 2000 many of them have not stayed and he said the reason for that is because many of them became quite big um and they got Ma you know many massive contracts and eventually because of not being able to keep up with contracts because workers call out sick sometimes and all kinds of stuff um you start to lose customers and you have a big uh payroll to to to maintain and so he said to me that the reason he had managed to stay in business is because he grew he managed his growth he didn't just accept growing um so I don't want to keep going too long because uh I think that today's meeting is really about planning the Forum uh for uh for for January and so in January what I would like uh or what I would commit to do is bringing on speakers that can speak to some of these things about entrepreneurship about funding about Venture Capital um and also um speak to people who have had experience with venture capital and so that is what I would commit to be doing such that at the Forum we you can hear from more than just myself um if if if there's still time to keep going let me know but uh I I can stop there thank you or or if there are questions I can also answer thank you karanja that was very informative and if you don't take anything home from this take one thing don't when you're looking for funding Be Clever about it right karanja absolutely and uh watch the story about the WhatsApp founders the the reason that WhatsApp was bought for 19 billion is because WhatsApp essentially refused to accept any funding and by the time they were being offered $19 billion for a company that had only made $1 million in Revenue not in profits in Revenue um so many people had offered them money and they had kept refusing to the point that Facebook had no choice but to make them an offer that they could not refuse correct uh if you have any questions thank you karanja if you have any questions drop them on the chat below and then kindly see what wesi has written we want to know something extra about you so that when we start the networking we have something to start with um for the next uh speakers I'd like to welcome Brandon and Harriet Brandon and Harriet the floor is yours five minutes thank you thank you so much um I apparently have an issue with my camera I won't be able to share my screen um my face I me um hope you're all doing great first of all my name is Brandon opere um a software engineer with a background in software I'm also a technical instructor and a founder of techops techops is basically just a Tech Community that focuses on upscaling and enhancing uh people to at least ensure that they get to upskill their you know their their their skills in Tech so one of the main things that I'm supposed to talk about today is I think Tech ecosystem if I'm not wrong Oni yes okay thank you so um that was quite an interesting um topic on my end because um that's where I actually am at the moment and there's a lot that I've I've been getting from people a lot of questions especially when it comes to finding how a space where you can be able to to Niche in as you're growing in in the industry and um in Kenya especially um there's been a lot especially in trying to find uh youth getting into Tech and uh there's there there's been that need to create a lot of tech communities especially um in to help people to upskill every single day and this type communities have been very very helpful in ensuring that people are able to understand first of all how can they be able to really enhance their skills and what is in for them at the end of the day so there's this aspect you know first of all of trying to understand where you have to fall especially um you have to first of all understand your Frameworks which kind of Frameworks do you really need to focus on and before you even get there you have to understand do you do do you want want to become a data scientist a data analyst do you want to become a software engineer do you want to become do you want to get into cyber security and we also have um you know other roles in Tech like devop devops we also have developer relations these are just people who Focus mostly on Tech communities so there's quite a lot of roles for you if you really want to get into Tech and um I know there's always that notion of you have to start coding for you to be able to be recognized as one person in Tech that is not always the case um there are other people who are designers they focus mostly on ux design so that is also something that you can try to venture into I understand the issue is always trying to break into Tech but once you've been able to find your first rooll the other things just start flowing because you find um as long as you're building projects and you get to satisfy your clients at the end of the day they'll be able to refer you to more and more clients and that is how you'll be able to start growing growing up in the tech industry apart from that um you realize that in various educational institutes especially um here in Kenya this te communities always try as much as they can to go to these institutions and teach Learners how they can be able to upscale um well in most U institutions in in in in the country realize that they don't always teach students uh what they're supposed to learn in the industry they're always mostly taught just the theoretical aspect of things so you find that they always find it so hard for them to be able to fit in the job market at the end of the day so this is now where the need of coming up with tech communities really started from and currently we have lots of them in Kenya we have Google developer student Club coming in to help people a lot we have Microsoft landar ambassadors and also other Tech communities and also you find students coming up with their own Tech communities which have been very very helpful at the end of the day so these are just one of the best places to find yourselves into and I can't realize even graduates who have graduated with good certifications in various career various courses still find it so hard for them to be able to fit in this you know in this market you know so there's that aspect of just upscaling and upscaling starts from you identifying yourself with a specific kind of community and you can be able to first of all understand do I want to become a software developer you want to become a data scientist then identify people who do that thing and there are various Frameworks actually um in software we have various of them in back end we have people who deal with jungle not JS in the front end we have other people who just focus on the user interface you know we also have guys in data who just focus on analyzing data so you have to be able to understand where your passion really lies and focus yourself on that then join these te communities find a mentor start building a through the process and once you start feeling like you can be able to build projects start participating in open source uh projects too there quite a lot of them on GitHub uh we also have a lot of tech communties on on Twitter that you can be able to join to just up skill as you're continuing your journey in Tech you know and the end game always is to ensure that you get to up skill at the end of the day get a role that you've always wanted and networking is also something that we always tend to miss you find that you go to an event but you don't end up interacting with people um you might be so skilled at what you're doing but when you don't reach out to people to talk to them about what you're actually doing it becomes a challenge to really find um to find a role I remember last week when I was interacting in in the WhatsApp platform about uh testing and stuff um my friend Mr Kar just join got into my inbox and uh you know know we had a little chart and I found some contract there you know if at all not have reached out it would have been a problem at the end of the day so remember in as much as you have to build projects you have to have scill and stuff ensure that you also cultivate soft skills you get to know how to talk to people you get to know how to sell yourself and that is one thing that would really put you far much ahead in your career when you're getting into Tech yep um I think that is what I really wanted to share very very important and at the end of the day Kenya is our our space we need to really invest in the country so coming up with tech hubs is one thing that we really focused on at the moment uh Tech hubs that focus on Research currently we're using a lot of social media platforms for countries which are up Road and we were trying to have a challenge I remember U some time back when we attended uh safaricom engineering Summit we had a conversation with um Mr Jo Sorge was telling us why don't we have our own social media platforms here in the country why don't we have our own resar research hubs here in the country why don't we invest in the skills that are here in Kenya you know instead of um doing it from outside the country because you find these countries from abroad come to invest a lot here in the country and um it's so surprising because they they get a lot of talent from here and they go with them outside there so in a way it feels like Kenya doesn't have enough talent but in real sense we have a lot of amazing talents when you get to join this techit will be so surprised at how amazing Kenya is when it comes to Tech and other stuffs and that's one thing that I really wanted to put into consideration because we have amazing people here especially um students in who are still um in campus and even others who are still trying to obscure they're smart all they didn't have is maybe a Direction but that is not where we we CH in with our communities and stuff yep um thank you so much for that that was it for for now um if there's any question um or if you feel like I need to continue the conversation I'm open and uh yep okay thank you very much Brandon take away points Network know what your passion is and go for it thank you Brandon um I can see Kara is answering questions on the chat please keep sending them uh also if you have questions for Brandon keep uh sending them he'll answer them on the chat um I think we'll go back to our earlier speakers Freda and wesi uh you can take over the Forum as you do your networking session all right thank you very much I appreciate it um so we're just going to call out Begin by calling out a couple of answers that we've seen on the chat so um Mark jog has added that he cannot live without his laptop he cannot um the tech Trend that he is particularly excited about is drones and AI so the question I would have for you is when it comes to drones uh what do you think about the Kenyan landscape with I know there are current very many limitations and restrictions about how to use drones and the airspace and it's already such a hustle to do that so um what do you think about that and it comes to AI what do you think we should integrate inside how do you how would you like to integrate it within your part like what more would you like it to do for you U Mark if you would in mind I'd appreciate okay um was that meant for for me uh marog yes okay all right but Mark you can answer too please pleas go ahead I know you have some answers I I would let this pass uh but I know there great people here shiko shiko is here shiko can you hear me shiko hey Mark is it okay to stop the sharing because we have the agenda um at least we get to see each other network uh I think that's just a suggestion I have no problem and can you answer the question then tell Miss okay go ahead I won't be able to answer that uh I had a challenge I just FLW to Kenya the other day and um I had a drone that I wanted to use I couldn't bring it uh so I need some answers from uh boats on the ground yeah can I chime in on that sure yeah yeah so I think we have regulations um that was passed I think was it this year around March on how to the the regulation by the KC K KCA so they categorized um the drones that we use just for under the lower risk so what you need is just to get a certificate from them and explain the operations and you'll be able to be good and go and also if it's Nairobi I think Governor sakaj has also put a framework for the film film uh industry on how they can use their drones to do the oper so it's about just getting the certificate but the regulations actually they're out there already thank you can you get that online or you have to how do you how do you get the certificate and is are there requirements like you got to get it way ahead of time uh before you travel for example yes I I'll try to grab the the website for you but I know it's there um okay so I'm just going to pop in because we have a Time limitation and I'd like one other person to give us an answer however and Elvis you can continue to connect on the chat and kind of you know engage to get more information if that's okay so um I just would like one other participant if you'd like this is a forum do you have the next 30 seconds 15 seconds to speak and say your answer introduce yourself but if not then we can move on so I'll just ask for a 5sec break to find out digital humanitarian welcome hello on mute you're on mute sorry for that my name isol the digital humanitarian and I really love this forum because um it it kind of gives me the balance which I have coming from Kenya where uh for the last two decades I've been on the digital front line um in various fronts supporting the country on the digital space and I'm really Keen to see the kind of of solutions or ideas if they can also include emergency response also include historical archival and I'm also looking at how with my experience especially on the emergency response disaster preparedness how can I also input some of the ideas here to include on Solutions we can bring back to thank you all right thank you thank you so much um we can continue with the agenda and then we'll have another session after the speaker thank you for that okay um didn't Sho wanted to say something oh go ahead shiko my apologies go ahead please no no no no no did I Mark he's just throwing me under the bus I was just listening and I was just posting links for the but please let us hear your voice thank you say something um I have sent you the Drone um Reg culations on the chart and I put it on the group um I'm not sure what I was supposed to say um but uh I am I'm in Kenya I'm actually in the village so you can hear cows and stuff uh but I mean I I operate from Kenya I'm one of those people who decided to come back home even if it was a rubble and stay here uh so I think what I had talked to Mark about he asked me what I want to say and I say um if if you're out there uh try and um and come back home not come back invest back home I'm one of those people who is encouraging people I worked I it would be unfair for me to say don't work outside I worked there got my my my my my thing sharpened my my skills sharpened I say my sword sharpened and I'm coming back I came back home to practice some of that but the biggest thing I've learned is there's lots of potential but potential will remain potential if you're not investing in it and you guys can do it I was telling Mark there's too much diaspora real estate here like every corner there's a diaspora person building like a flat or something but there's little investment in that is going to young people and they don't need a lot of money something as low as 5K USD can help like a small business not necessarily in Tech but a small business start piloting get a product Market feed and go to market and start testing it because we have so many opportunities just needs a lot of money I think at the very beginning of the group The WhatsApp group there was a nice conversation that I joined that was looking at how do you gang up together and create a diaspora fund yeah that can invest back home and that is something that can be done I can connect you with like people who are organizing Angel Investors and you can have a diaspora fund the PS yesterday was talking about the same thing and I mean the PS is super supportive of of having you remit not just to buy real estate state or to support family which is all important but you being able to grow the economy and this is something that can be supported both from a private sector point of view and from a government point of view and number three for me is bringing jobs back home all of you are in great places that you're working you're working with good companies even if it's a small company where somebody needs a social media manager they need like I was hearing Dev Ops they need like support engineer they need call center agents if we aggregated each of your jobs uh into a platform into a a place then guess what we'll have enough jobs that we can send back home yeah um so I I was hearing somebody talking about tech hubs we are working on like we just we yesterday know on Wednesday we launched a teub with our first cohort of 60 people who are being employed and because we have a team out in uh in in in in Silicon Valley who are helping us Aggregate and find jobs it is a matter of coming together knocking doors talking to your startup friends talking to your bosses and saying let's just you're you're building the social um what is it called the the the social impact part of your company as well as building uh resources back home because for every I mean for every dollar that you are putting in employment it's one dollar that you have to send to support somebody pay school fees to support somebody pay for medical services to support something else so for me I feel like the biggest challenge I've been telling people and I mean I come to the US maybe four times a year the biggest support I I I the biggest challenge I give to young people and the people especially in the US is go find jobs send back you have much more impact than sending a dollar cuz you'll be sending three or four or5 doar and hour which is a huge impact to the person who is receiving that money on this end and right now their structures already in place and are being put in place to be able to encourage that finally buy Kenya build Kenya yeah there are lots of startups that actually build being built here in Kenya I mean I've been I'm part of this the big silicon savan conversation I've been part of like that for a while now what we need to do is have you in the US start ing some of our Technologies so I'm going to plug in I don't know if he's here there's if if you need like if you have a small business in Kenya and you want to put like uh support um uh what is it called customer support there are businesses here who are doing instead of going for I'm not going to to mention any of the companies in case you work for them any of the big companies why don't you take one of these companies that are building for Kya and your small business in Kenya or in Africa somewhere can use any of this chart support and your hle can be you're selling Shoes and Handbags and you need somebody on the other side to be able to responding they have automated this whole process and I'm going to post their their details in the group something like that or if you want um I'm trying to think if you want a remittance product for your for your company or something else pick a Kenyan and an African product that is going to do that CU that that way you're building the the the continent and finally and this is to all the phds cuz I've met many of you here is you need to start um mentoring and coaching back home so right now I I had somebody I know George very well I used to work for Safar con some point um uh asking about setting up research lab we we we just we we are setting up we have like it's in very stealth mode uh research lab for AI we are looking for Africans who are able to contribute knowledge in building it up because we know we if we start the moment you start fundraising for an AI lab you'll get the money but will your message be what you want to do it will be highly diluted we need people who are able to offer their time to be able to contribute to these uh conversations that at some point have money but we need it not to be diluted by the person who is funding so for me that's it thank you so much for having me and if you're in Kenya ping me we might have coffee and I mean it's really exciting to be part of this committee thank you so much Mark for having me as well thank you thank you so much uh because of time Grace I think uh we stole your time um I think you may want to introduce the next the next um speaker and I think we passed one person called hstone is he here hstone are you here if if he's not then Grace proceed okay thank you shiko for that it's interesting to know that AI will be African and it w have biases against Africans because we will train it in our data that's good so attached to that is training and skill development uh is M and omasa around we can you can take the floor and let us know more about that great sorry you you sing one person so there was a this har yeah I think before then there's Harriet is it Harriet or haret is she here har Brandon and arant yes oh hi everyone um my name is Harriet haret Oda I'm a blockchain engineer as well I'm a co-founder of bechain Academy it's a blockchain tech startup that focuses on building capacity in blockchain and also Building Solutions we have three solutions that run on top of blockchain so I was supposed to talk about the tech ecosystem the about the techical system just to start most of the things have already been said by my colleague Brandon I would just like to brush through by saying that uh Techo system has majorly three players You'll Always Find the end users the enthusiasts and the designers the designers Brandon talked about at length when he mentioned about the engineers the back end the front end the devops those fall under between under the designers then we always have the end users where most of us at some point we've been end users of some software products so end users we can relate with then the enthusiasts are the mediators in between here that make the that seal the bridge between the designers and the end users they make the designers understand the needs of the end users and vice versa is also true so talking about Tech we can also look if I just want to remind my listeners about let's look at Kenya like 30 years ago in the early 90s when the world the Cold War had just come to an end in the west and people are looking forward to welcoming the the Millennium but lo and behold that is the first time the internet the iteration of the internet came in and that was the the web one of the internet so at that point the internet if we remember so well the the web was the the web was not interactive it was just the kind of web that you could just access and read materials but you could do nothing much to it and that flew from around 1991 to 2004 then thereafter we had the web two which is the social and the iterative web platform which we have up to right now where the players can be anybody you don't have to be a tech person to be a player in the in the iteration of web to the direction of the internet which is the web too you don't have to be a technical person that means we that is something that we are seeing even today we can see our users people accessing the internet you can write an email you can read from it you can write we have the content creators then we have the web three now that comes comes into play that is just being introduced currently that also enhances the future of data privacy and security that one is powered by the blockchain technology so maybe we can ask ourselves is is Tech ecosystem really worth it I would say that the tech ecosystem is worth it look at the internet internet in itself contributes to about 70% of the GDP of Kenya so there is so much hope in the te in the technology e e economy also besides that with the fourth with the fourth industrial re Evolution whereby we are digitalizing the the manufacturing sector we realize that currently what happens is that Kenya exports about just 3% of is whatever Ken exports 3% is just worth whatever has been manufactured that software product so that tells us again there is so much room for improve for improvement around that area talking about the incubation we didn't emphasize so much on that incubators help entrepreneurs to find a journey in their startups to be successful most of the incubators will run with a startup for some length of time say between 6 months to 12 months and uh also the incubators most of them in most cases incubators don't invest any capital in the startup what they do is just that they give the mentorship program the up killing and they walk you through the Journey that means also in return they will not be expecting equ any Equity from your startup because they have not invested some capital on it uh finally I would just like to mention something brief about the the digital hubs digital hubs comes in different shapes as I understand I've been in the space for a little while uh currently like less in the software uh in the soft for the software developers the they H can the The Hub are relevant because they provide the kind of skills that you will not find in the universities for example you have the up Skilling you have the mentorship you have the job opportunities and these are geared so much you find that a a group of of companies would bring together Synergy in the logic of knowledge transfer developing training and also building capacity so in such an aspect of those hubs they come in form of things like boot cams and hackathons where you have the opportunity to participate in such events and we we have seen so many talents have been born from boot camps from hackathons even startups have been started from those bans and hackathons those are things that you cannot find in the learning institution so then we have the other Hub that currently the ministry of ICT through the ICT authori also issuing like you go at the constituency levels we realize that there are hubs the the kind of hubs where you walk you you anyone can walk in you access internet for free then there are Center managers there who can help you to get some training online they they they can assist you with those hands on and then there is the other Hub still being supplied by the ICT authority to the ministry of ICT where now the Wi-Fi hotspots are being created in random places we have seen the CS4 for ICT do that so just to summarize on that is to say that there is a a lot of room and a lot of opportunities in the tech space only that you need to find your Niche and align yourself to to to your Niche being in the teex space doesn't mean everybody has to be a software engineer just find your Niche and run with it thank you thank you haret one one take away from that is you're the niche don't look at what someone else is doing just get your KNE and go with it thank you Harriet for that we'll go on to omasa is ombas in or Mory I hope I'm pronouncing that properly it'sa so here or just one dryed yeah thank you okay just a minute okay good morning good evening everyone so welcome again to this forum my name is Dr Mory I am a training and research lead at a startup in Nairobi we Callas lab I am also the coordinator of 7obi campus and I also presently business analytics at usiu and also as so some have talked about mentorship I am passionate also about mentorship and currently do mentorship with our new B leadership program these are my research interest that's NLB fintech and also generative AI my B was from ukn so for today basically for the next three or four minutes I'm going to talk about training the training and skill development H which will also try to link with 7eventh where basically at 7 we just trying to prach the C we just trying to breach the C for Africans through upskilling for our programs where presently we are just trying to focus on building that capacity in terms of data analytics so when you talk about data analytics and even the current training landscape so we've got what we are calling it micr credentials and stackable certifications so there's now a presen ship from long-term degrees to now more Focus skills and also ifications we've got people focusing on for example Cloud certification L for example AWS python for S Asha Etc and then also there's also the aspect of trying to combine this micro credentials so that now we can be able to build a prod skill set so even whether you are in Tech or when you are a beginner even going forward even with the progress as more people even shift Cloud it's also good to be able to not only even even what I normally tell my students yes focus on that degree but also look for t-shir t-shir certifications that actually prepare the industry another Trend we actually seeing is what we are calling it personalized learning and adaptive platforms so find for example someone has has been in finance but now they want example to switch to AI examp analytics so be able to find now some platforms to be able to recommend learning parts based on for example individual skills so for those who whove learn through edx or for example Datacom you'll be able to see them having different tracks So based on your interest they'll be able to recomend for you person personalized learning and even adaptive platforms and then another thing also is emphasis on handson and learning projects for the data science interviews I've been able to do and even what I normally to to my students and even our current training at 7 is emphasis on practical application can you be able to can you be able to tell us your data story from your data collection how are you able to this problem ITC that's actually what employers are actually looking for they'll be able to ask you for example what is your K portfolio this project what did you why did you choose for example this approach why this approach so that's presently the current train again in data science training and the the current landscape then also the aspect of collaboration recently even in the industry even in Academia it's you cannot be able to work individually so want to be able to have people can work in a team so in the project you are showcasing in your portfolio would did you work with what was what was your role what was your what was your contribution and then the other thing we we are calling it emerging skill focus so in this case demand for skills in cutting age areas like ml NLP H Computing explainable AI Etc and then now there's now the aspect of domain specific knowledge yes there is AI yes there is machine learning but we we can also not downplay the importance of domain knowledge when we talk about domain knowledge let's say for example you are in finance yes I'm coming from ACH a technical background as a machine learning researcher EDC but but as an accountant you still have that domain Knowledge from your IFRS from your from your accounts from your CPA yes there is AI but at the end of the day at the end of the day also there still there still a place and even importance for for domain knowledge and then the other thing is accessible and flexible learning in this case there been even University right now there has been right of online online and planed learning reach to students who are present physically but Al but also but also those who may not be may not be able to access the classes physically and then the aspect of soft skills as I earlier talked about the projects and even portfolios those portfolios and also the projects when when for example assessing the student and students and even also in the industry employers would want to know would want to know would want to also to to be able to find out how are your soft skills how can you be able to commun to communicate yes you are able to go this project from a set but can you be able to to be able to convince non technical audience can you be able to critically think can you be able to able to tell your to tell your story well so so recently these are some of the what's happening basically in data science and even in the in the current in the current training landscape and then now Alternative Learning providers is not is is no longer only the university only but also we have various organizations and even organizations actually signing up for on various Platforms in fact I was surprised I don't know if I should mention but one of the leading TCO companies here in Kenya actually signing up an organization I think is in India so that now their staff can actually be able to Learn Python can actually be able to learn our online yeah those are actually some of the things Kenyan companies we can actually be able to easily but now we still have organizations collaborating with with other companies so that they can be able to build a capacity build a capacity for even their employees the next thing I want to mention is despite increase in this online online platforms there is still the there is still the importance of instructor learning yes we have MS yes we havex yes we have forer but at the end of the day we can we cannot also downplay the aspect of instructor Le learning basically instructor Le learning is where like a session like this a student has to be able to attend class either physical or online so that they can actually be so some of the importance this is that that aspect of personal guidance during mostly in online platforms you may be able maybe experience a challenge and you may not be able to have that direct question where you can be able to ask your lecturer so that's why there's still that value of instructor Le learning and then just ability to be able to interact and even engage even engage with your with your colleagues in class and then the aspect of critical skills where now where now the instructors can actually be able to PR that theoretical knowledge and then now practical application through real world case studies like what we are currently doing both in our data analytics put cam we actually try to be to be able to relate each and every problem to what is actually happening in the industry and of course the aspect of accountability and then also access to exper experts and also industry connections our instructors both are experts both in Academia and and then also in the industry so I am a great of of instructor instructor instructor learning either online and then also either physically and then basically in Regional Tech ecosystem there is r in data engineering skills in Cloud platforms and Asia if you are planning to go into de are some of the things you should actually focus on certification along thisle maybe based on your interest and then also you also interested in AI you also have to be able to not only just train your models but also be able to deploy them at the end of the day considering the aspects of Ethics I've mentioned the aspect of Storytelling and data visualization we are training on both and Barbi Python and R has also visualization tools at the end of the day you have to be able to communicate those data in insights well through compelling in visuals and then also the narratives I still in domain spef domain specific knowledge I may not be in healthare but but someone in healthare but now but now with with tech knowledge would actually be able explain better for example the prevalence this of this disease maybe in finance the trends why the buets are not working Etc so that's basically what happening within the ecosystem skills NLB natural language processing with the increase in unstructured data now with social media there's a lot of data that now we need we have to be able to I think we've lost Dr Mercy yeah yes okay uh umasa you can take over yes yes hello everybody I think we have just lost Dr M who is my colleague at at CET and basically what Dr mus was taking us through was the program part of the program that we have at at CET my name is Eric comasa so I'm faculty I'm part of the faculty at snet where we do we have developed the data and analytics training program where we're training various cohosts on various what you call data analysis and data analytics for for various sector for various sectors whether it is Health Care financial and so on and so forth and uh part of the training or training emphasis and skill Acquisitions that um basically we are emphasizing on is what you call a Project based learning where we're not just providing what you call theoretical skills like for example when you do this data analytics using these various softwares such as powerbi even Exel and so on and so forth we are developing what you call a Project based I can see Dr m is back Project based learning where the cohosts are actually now acquiring essential or critical data analytics skills across a various what you call across various uh softwares or across various data analytics uh softwares Dr m is back I don't know do you want to proceed Dr yeah so just to connect with yeah just sorry about that so just to connect with saying these are some of the tools we are currently training on with both R and and and also machine learning so we are focusing this both in the US cohort but also for na for Nairobi students and and in the previous slide so so for this year we've done success two successful Gos in Nair we are also finalizing the first one basically our main actually our main aim is to be able to bre that to be able to build that capacity yes there may be other institutions but there's a lot there's a lot for each and every one of us to be able to contribute in even be able to build Capac build capacity because all of us even in each and every organization even even in this session we are generating a lot of data and without so we are trying to be able to build IND idual capacity even inter interet data and then lastly she mention about the aspect of research I am an believer and in research I believe for Academia and Industry there should be collaboration in terms of research can only be able to Sol solutions that actually affects us to to research in Academia industry can be able to with Academia because in Academia we have that time to do research and then industry can be able to try to apply that so I am I am and as see so if you are a student and interested in AI we have great instructors mentors I and some of the team members who are here please feel free to reach out at 7 and then we can be able to whether you are in Nairobi or outside Nairobi please feel free to reach us so as I conclude I'll ask these two questions and then maybei can come in later so first what are your Pi challenges pain points when it comes to acquiring data analytics skills and then the other one is what are actually your prepared learning formats for acquiring this new skills is it instructor Le is it online is it mentorship or is it where you are able to to to learn by yourself yeah so thank you so much that's it from our end Grace in case of any questions we are here ask to answer thank you thank you Dr mcy for that I can see there are some questions in the chat you can answer them via chat uh due to time I'd like to invite Freda to handle the topic on networking collaboration and knowledge exchange kibu Freda thank you so much grace and Dr musy that was wonderful uh so I've been going through the responses for the questions that some of you have chosen to answer and it's very interesting because it's all mostly focusing on fintech and I was wondering whether do we have any resources or connections or contact for networking resources and sharing resources to people who wants to be over interested in fintech I know um someone shared that their proudest product was the on demand Insurance um for tourism and I would like them to talk more about that do you remember who said it oh it seems like they just left okay okay so we can just proceed because of time um would you want to address that later or what do you think I think that if anyone has resources for fintech you can just take 35 seconds and share those just a question what what do you mean by resources in fintech uh so one wants to interest and inj uh uh Financial Technologies and learning more about financial technology so it's a repeat recurring question that has no clarification whatsoever so that's why I I would have wanted the person to be able to share so that we can know what really they need and then we can help them get those resources mayy yeah and I can just chime in quickly to say as I said earlier my background was primarily on Wall Street and I started out um in straight Finance but I ended up in the project space um which is where they build their internal um Technologies and um I do not have a tech background but I found myself working in in the tech space where what I guess technologists don't like to refer to us as Tech so they refer to us as adjacent which is as a business analyst and uh it's one of the highest sought after uh positions in um in finance in particular because it's extremely important to be able to translate uh what the business does to technology it's um very lucrative high high paying and and high in demand so even with without uh coding experience um you can get into uh business analysis and also data analysis so uh if you're if you're already in technology I would go the python uh data analyst route uh if you don't have technology I would go um the business analyst route or if you're a very organized person the project management route uh product manager um and uh there other roles also like um product architect and and product Engineers which sound very technical but are not necessarily very technical roles and they will take you if you have a finance background I'm a sociology major myself and I still ended up um there although granted I I I live in New York which is um Finance Center but uh it's very much and now thank thank thankfully because of remote remote work you don't have to live in York you can live absolutely anywhere and just um send you know um app skill to have the business analysis courses and certifications I never got them myself but it was a different world then but now there are some certifications that can help you thank you so much so that answers the questions for Andre aniu and bety so if you need more clarification or more support you can see Mr Kanger G and then move on uh Grace are you are you unable to say the the last name is that why you call it g no no I don't know the the last name it's GHA your your your name appears as karanja G I see gotcha okay yes thank you uh Grace you can take us to the next session thank you so much uh thank you for that uh let's move on to the most asked question I've been looking through the chat and I've noticed a lot of people asking about job opportunities career parts so we have two people who can demystify that for us uh David and mashar kib David uh maybe masar can can can start okay M go ahead yes good evening everyone uh you are forgive me because of my camera because of where I am and uh I want to take a few minute can I share my screen can I be able to share my screen yes yes go ahead all right [Music] okay yes maybe a bit of my background because of time my name is gabri mat I work at aatf that's why I've just used my uh logo in my presentation just to make it uh more you know visible to those people who might like to maybe follow me in various platform um a bit of my background I have a BC in mathematics and computer science and also a masters in biomathematics uh professionally I'm a data scientist in um institution called aatf where we support U 24 countries so I support 24 countries and that project because we support small scale farmers in terms of transfer of Technology uh like uh various seeds varieties let's talk about mechanization we offer tools like um you know tractors to Farmers we give them of course not for free but at a low price at a cheaper price where they can be able to afford it and um we have been in existence for the last 20 years so I joined this uh organization last year I've been working at stmo as a t and also as a data scientist now I was T to talk about my journey as a career path in this case and mostly I'll talk in the area that are more conversent with which is data sense and I want to Echo most of the uh statement made by DR is it Mercy or Mercy or something of the sort I don't know how to pronounce it depend on where you are if you're in America you say Mercy it's Mercy in Kenya yes so technically um he has mentioned quite a number of things that as a as a as a as a starter or as a beginner you can be able to you know learn from the institution but now I want to talk for the the STS the beginners not the gurus you know not the senior Chiefs here I'm talking for the young ones who like maybe to uh you know uh pursue the career of data science and they don't know where to start maybe you're in business you want to shift from you know being a Commerce or let's say somebody who can be able to do in accounting but you want have to come into data analytics but data science is quite big it's a profession which is when we talk of data science it's a collaboration it's a it's a component that HS analytics you know uh what do you call them um data migrations uh specialist you know those work in cloud computing a lot of them now um how do we learn you know the path of data SS from scratch and there something that is so many people uh are going through a lot they don't know how to answer these kind of questions because they don't know where to start and I just thought maybe I can share some insight which can be able to help them you know know build from something so number one we need you need to have a you know like a strong foundation in statistics and math and I believe if you have gone through undergraduate there are some Basics you know uh mathematics and statistics that were being taught in First Years and second years they called the fundamentals you you know you learn about probability and statistics calculus and something of the sort and now after gaining some statistic background and I would like maybe to recommend you can maybe learn something to do with you know test of hypothesis which is mainly used in analysis in this case now we diving into what we call programming with python and R one of the key thing about Python and R they are open source and they are free languages actually you can just learn from anywhere you don't have to you know like pay thousands of dollars to go to a school you can just teach yourself through YouTube okay through some platforms like which I'll mention later where you can be able to get maybe free data science projects just to you know train yourself in that various areas and then after that after you learn about Python and R you go to famili to familiarize yourself with the databases uh database is mainly a platform whereby you can be able like to fetch your data and of course upload after you work through your project in this case and some of the database that we have is know structured um query language which is called the SQL but I believe as a beginner yes you can have the basics but it's not uh you know quite important you know like for you to know much about database we leave that to database administrator just learn a few techniques here and there the kind of database you know how to create tables update table delete and something of the sort uh after that we go to the analysis method which is the key point or key area as a data analyst analyst in this case we have various um method analys like uh what we call um reg regession analysis we have what you call clustering and something of the sort but just get you know to have an understanding of how they operate because uh various data uh demands different types of analysis and therefore you just only have to have an understanding how do I connect this type of data with the kind of analysis that is being needed so just have some Basics you know how to connect you know the programmatic analytical uh methods with the kind of project that you're working because different organization demands different output uh from there the next step is to learn love and practice and repeat this I'm talking about now practicing you get some what you call sudo project from the Google you get some metadata you get some data in the online platform like carago they have some what you call training projects you can get there for free it is open source train yourself you know know familiarize yourself with what you have learned in the past and something of the S so just can be able to build some confidence in it therefore after that now you go to use some tools we have different types of tools that we use like for example in ATF I use Python that is Jupiter notebook uh for most of my analysis and of course there are programs uh basically to do what we call quantive uh um uh analysis and I believe that um the other tools like T and powerbi for visualization we have SPSS and sta of course still you can be able to familiarize yourself and learn how they you know they operate in different types of data set in this case after that let's now go to work on data science project now after you feel that confidence enough like you know I can be able to interpret data if someone gives you a certain data I'm able to understand how do I connect this data with the type of the analysis that is required by maybe a St and so and something of the sort Now work on real projects now in this case maybe you can even join like a a school whereby maybe they teaching data science just to build up that capacity you know like you have fundamental knowledge you have fundamental understanding that will help you now to move faster because the most important thing is to have some basics in this case uh after that now you know try to build you know stories in data you have a LinkedIn account communicate talk about data tell us something that you're passionate about what what did you learn last week what are you planning to learn next week what is your you know road map to becoming a data science so you see now you are building something that you are becoming and when you're passionate about something of course you know you you grow faster at the end of the day and then after that this is the best platform that we talking about now the Kenya us you know Forum where you can be able to network with those guys who are in dat s like myself you know come to me ask me questions ask me where maybe I can be able to volunteer myself maybe perhaps you in Kenya we have some organization in Africa who are looking for data SS where maybe they can be able to teach you a few things here and there as long as you're available and maybe they're looking for you know remote data analyst you know try to network with those people who have got higher rank up there who can be able you know to open up a platform for you and of course last but not the least continue learning because every day I say it is a learning day so basically here I have a small picture sorry before I go to my last slide I had a small picture of how you can be able maybe to start you can start maybe learning Python and I just have said learn some statistical methods and Analysis like uh you know like the analysis methods you know learn some basic calculators Integrations and differentiations here and there build your communication skill because of course uh if you cannot be able to communicate what the data says then you cannot be able to give insights in what you're trying to analyze I mean at the end of the day then after that go to data cleaning of course in the 30 day dat visualization like I've just mentioned powerbi you know tabl and some other platform because of course even python is has got that capability of data visualization as well now after now you have mastered let's go now to machine learning and AI definitely but these are far end of now you have understood critically what is needed in your area as well lastly start now creating some sudo project push them in the GitHub let's let you have some portolio whereby you can be able to Showcase to the recruiter if at all he ask you what you have buil in the past like for myself when I'm looking for interns I have to ask him do you have a GitHub account send me the link something of the sort so therefore the last one is keep on keep on learning keep on learning and I believe we we we you're going to get your utmost you know desire uh thank you guys maybe there's some question something maybe be able to answer thank you and thank you for moderating sorry Grace um so thank you so muchar I mean not masar for what you're doing trying to help people who are not able to join the group um and I think uh we need your services at one point thank you thanks thank [Music] you so Grace I think uh we may want to go to the next person David if he's here is David David the floor is yours you can unmute yourself and David I don't think yeah we can proceed to the next pass which is also a question that was asked earlier about policy and regulations surrounding Tech so Danson and danish will be taking us through this so Danon or Danish the floor is yours okay thank you so much grace um my name is Danon M I live here in in Dallas Texas the United States um basically I just some of the things have already been mentioned but um most of us we are so Innovative we want to sell our products there we want to look for opportunities but we forget that also we have policies and regulation that govern our operations you know most of the time you go to school you're just excited they have this idea I to do coding I want to do analytics but little do you know that um sometimes or most of the time we have the rules that govern what we do so when you look at what Isen with the AI most of the countries and before I go to that part um my friends have been asking me this question how come Danon uh American companies always prefer to hire Indians like you have meetings you just find oh these guys even don't know how to speak maybe correct English but they're always there every industry you know especially it world but in 1934 there was an act that was established by Indian and American company which was later amended to be title 7 in 1975 or 74 there so they gave preference that all American companies they prefer to hire Indians so meaning they give them preference over other countries so that is a policy that was adapted all the way from the federal government of us to the states and that is why you'll find that all those companies you'll try to look for opportunties you working with there are so many so how can you also leverage on that as Kenya so that we can bring our people um on board like the way Indian India has done so that we can we speak good English we we are we can compare English with the Indian uh Community I'm not it's not discriminatory but it's a fact we speak good English over them so now with with this it comes in with policy because why the federal government of the US will look for be like what are some of the laws that you have passed what are some of the policies what are some of the regulations that protect our our ou
2023-12-31 09:47
