Assessing Kenya’s Technology Innovation Ecosystem Towards Digital Entrepreneurship Success

Kenya is ranked highly in Africa as a business haven for digital entrepreneurs or technology start-up innovators. In the last decade, Kenya has gained the name Silicon Savannah due to the technological advancements and innovation witnessed in the country. This Silicon Valley narrative is seen as a disregard of epistemologies of the Global South on technology innovation or digital entrepreneurship. This paper presents an empirical assessment of the unique traits that make-up Kenya’s Digital Innovation Ecosystem, based on the opinions of 20 digital innovation stakeholders comprising of digital innovators, industry, government, and academia engaged via semi-structured interviews, and augmented with document reviews and media analysis. A thematic analysis of the data revealed that the ecosystem is in its nascent stages, with social and economic challenges reported as both a hindrance and an opportunity to build successful digital enterprises. An understanding of the ecosystem is important in establishing its strengths and weaknesses to inform policy and action by policy makers, digital entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders towards its improvement. A longitudinal research approach is recommended for a comparison with ecosystems or ‘ideal models’ in the Global North.