What William Ruto’s Presidency Means for Innovation in East Africa.
Dubbed Hustler, William Ruto has made it through the ranks to the top. Now Kenya’s 5th President Elect as of 15th August 2022, Ruto will be at the helm of Kenya — the top second tech hub in sub-Saharan Africa.
While the world congratulates President Elect William Ruto on winning the election today, his childhood was marred with hardships and struggle. In his campaigns, Ruto mentioned that he acquired his first shoes at 15. While this story resonates with young people who believe in the “Rugs to Riches” testimony of the protagonist, Ruto continuously urged Kenya’s young people who mostly hustle their way out of poverty, are hard-working and ambitious to vote wisely. In several interviews, Mr. Ruto has always asked “How do we bring the majority to the table, where their talents, energies and ideas are also part of the making of the nation?”.
According to the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2019 report, Kenya was ranked the second leading innovation hub in sub-Saharan Africa by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
With a track record for recording high levels of innovation, outperforming on levels of innovation relative to GDP for the ninth consecutive year, an excellent record at par with other lower-middle-income countries like India, the Republic of Moldova, and Vietnam,” report. Kenya’s innovative strength has been attributed to startups’ easy access to credit and microfinance loans.
Reinforcing this, Ruto emphasized that “the Kenya Vision 2030 is very clear on the role of technology and innovation in our journey to prosperity and transformation”.
While receiving his 2018 Lifetime Award at the Young Achiever’s Awards in Kampala, President Elect William Ruto encouraged youths to “know that a new day is on the horizon. And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because a number of daring young people born by commoners, many of whom are right here in this room, will become the leaders who take the mantle of new Pan-Africanism and deliver agenda 2063 ahead of time”.
When the greats like Nkrumah, Nyerere, Obote and Kenyatta fought for liberation, they aspired for a continent where national barriers will stand as bridges, not barriers to the free and unhindered movement of young people across making possible the economic renaissance of the 1.3 billion people in our economies and in Africa.
With Kenya’s 5th president elect cognizant of the power of innovation, the rest of the East African Community can hope to benefit from forward thinking examples that the new president will instigate.
We therefore hope that President Elect William Ruto, as a new president for one of the countries in the East African Community, will ignite the conversation on the significant role that technology can play in us realizing our ambition to transition from the margins into the mainstream of the global economy.
Consequently, as a face for the hustler nation, we hope that President Elect William Ruto will acclimatize technology as a decisive variable in pushing the region’s production function towards the frontiers of production possibility. For this reason, it is important that the East African Community quickly becomes a leading producer and exporter of technological innovation, intensifying our focus on higher education and, particularly, STEM disciplines.
Lastly, as the East African citizens navigate the current Socio-economic status quo, we hop that transformation is increasingly technology-reliant to ensure that the future finds us ready and waiting in every sector, including manufacturing, affordable housing, universal health care coverage and food security. You might ask, what is the role of technology in this?
By becoming the 5th President of Kenya, every young person across the world will watch to see if William Ruto will truly fulfill his pledge to a robust Kenya and East African Community.
Its not that we imagined it was impossible, but it is truly great to see a mere hustler, a believer in Innovation and Entrepreneurship leading a republic. We look forward to a thriving tech and innovation space.
