Three Researchers from @iLabAfrica Research Centre were selected to present their papers in the IST Conference 2016 held in Durban, South Africa. Tabitha Mberi, Collins Oduor and Lorna Mutegi presented their individual papers to an audience comprising of senior public, private and education and research sector Innovation stakeholders from South Africa, the European Commission, the African Union Commission, Southern African Development Community, Ubuntu Alliance among others. There were over 200 presentations from 36 countries.

 

Tabitha’s paper focused on the online revenue collection system that @iLabAfrica has implemented in Taita Taveta County  and her attendance in the conference was funded by Kenya Education Network (KENET). Tabitha’s research looked at how devolvement of government from local authorities to county governments in Kenya has resulted in many counties adopting online revenue collection systems that consists of two integrated systems; an online system dubbed “CountyPro” for processing services such as Business Permits, General Billing and Property Rates. The second part is  a Point of Sale (PoS) system used by county revenue collectors to charge for various fees.  Her study assessed the success and challenges in adoption of the integrated system.

 

Lorna’s paper was based on a model of commoditization of IT Security Services for Financial Institutions in Kenya. Organizations in the financial sector are moving towards networks that are more open and susceptible to cyber security threats. Individual efforts by these companies to mitigate the financial and reputational loss attributed to cyber-attacks have proven futile. Through commoditization, companies can come together and collectively contract out their IT Security requirements in a MSS environment. Pooling together their resources, in areas in which they are not in competition, would achieve a more efficient and potentially cheaper service.

 

Collins based his research on the online revenue collection  system that @iLabAfrica has implemented in Kiambu County.

 

The IST Africa Conference provides a platform to strengthen Information Society, ICT and Innovation related policy dialogues both within Africa and between Africa and Europe, through Plenary Sessions, the rich thematic knowledge exchange facilitated by Scientific Programme and co-located multi-lateral (eg. JEG8, eu-Africa HLPD on STI) and private bi-lateral meetings. (Source: IST Africa).

 

Participation in the IST Africa 2016 conference will contribute to @iLabAfrica’s exploitation and research and innovation strategy. In addition, the networking opportunity will continue to help build the research Centre ties with leading Public, Private, Education, and Research organizations from more than 39 countries who took part in the conference.