ACM DEV 2016

Prof. Bitange Ndemo is a former Permanent Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication. After his tenure with the Government, Prof. Ndemo now teaches entrepreneurship, and research methods at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. Most of his research centers on the link between ICTs and small and medium enterprises in Kenya with an emphasis on how ICTs influence economic development in Kenya. Prof. Ndemo is credited with facilitating many transformative ICT projects including East Africa’s first undersea cable, TEAMS, Open Data initiatives Mpesa. He still plays a key role in building sustainable models of innovation hubs in Kenya. He an advisor to I-Hub, the premier innovation hub in Africa, UNCDF’s Better than cash alliance, and UN’s Global Pulse and he is past Chairman of the Alliance for Affordable Internet. He also sits in the Board of Research ICT Africa that is based in South Africa. Prof. Ndemo holds a PhD in Industrial Economics from the University of Sheffield in the UK and bachelor’s degree in Finance and Accounting from the University of Minnesota. He is a Big Data enthusiast and founder member of the World Data Lab.

This talk will focus on leveraging Big Data to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015. These global agenda has been prioritized by development institutions and other Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) hoping to grasp the question of how to measure the progress of these goals. The 17 goals with 169 indicators include not only existing millennium development goals (MDGs) such as no poverty, zero hunger, good health, but also broader goals pertaining to water, the environment, industrialization, urbanization, etc. These goals cover a broad range of sustainable development issues, and it is hoped that governments will use these goals to fight against extreme poverty and address the challenges of ensuring environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable development in their respective communities (Choi et al, 2015). Crucial to the success of the SDGs will be strong government systems and, in particular, strong statistical systems that can measure and incentivize progress across the goals (SDSN 2016). Increased data analytics by non-state organizations lie the IBM, offers great promise for countries that have been slow to embrace the data revolution. Unfortunately, Africa faces the risk of remaining behind this revolution.