Safar­icom, the lead­ing integ­rated com­mu­nic­a­tions com­pany in East Africa partnered with Strath­more Uni­ver­sity and Voda­fone to estab­lish a facil­ity for devel­op­ing mobile applic­a­tions to exploit oppor­tun­it­ies cre­ated by the fast grow­ing tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion industry in the country.

The facil­ity called Safar­icom Academy was launched on Thursday, 10^th March 2011 at Safar­icom headquar­ters in Nairobi. Its first pro­gram is the MAS­TER OF SCI­ENCE IN MOBILE TELE­COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS AND INNOV­A­TION (MSc.MTI), a col­lab­or­at­ive effort with the University.

@iLabAfrica will work in col­lab­or­a­tion with the Safar­icom Academy as a con­tinu­ation of the cur­rent part­ner­ship to provide stu­dents who go through the Safar­icom Academy pro­gramme a con­tin­ued sup­port as they under­take their stud­ies as well as a follow-​up sup­port once they graduate.

Many stu­dents are devel­op­ing mature applic­a­tions ripe for the local mar­ket. Unfor­tu­nately, they have a num­ber of bar­ri­ers to over­come before they can set-​up suc­cess­ful busi­nesses: lack of cap­ital, lack of busi­ness exper­i­ence and lack of phys­ical resources. @iLabAfrica will provide sup­port to these stu­dents in a vari­ety of ways:

• Access to seed cap­ital and to poten­tial investors
• Ment­or­ing pro­grammes to help them develop real­istic busi­ness plans, register their busi­ness, as well as provid­ing advice on IP issues, oppor­tun­it­ies of net­work­ing, etc.
• Phys­ical resources such as office space and facilities.
• Access to rel­ev­ant Lib­rary resources.
• Access to a vari­ety of mobile phones, short codes, SMS gate­ways, mPesa pay accounts, etc. for test­ing their applications.