Tag Archive for 'Grants'

Kenya ICT Board’s (Tandaa) Local Content Grants Statistics.

NOTE: The statistics and review results for this blog post have been taken from publicly available information currently being circulated by the Tandaa initiative of the Kenya ICT Board.

As reported on this blog over 2 months ago, The Kenya ICT Board though its local content initiative dubbed “Tandaa” issued a call for proposals from Kenyan firms and software application developers for grants to support local content and software applications.

The proposals submitted for grants are currently being reviewed by the Tandaa team at Kenya ICT Board after applications closed. They recorded a total of 2,154 applications on their online system. Of these, 667 were complete and submitted within the deadline.  With the support of the Tandaa Team at Kenya ICT Board, an independent consultant is now reviewing and grading these 667 proposals.

Given the large number of grants received, the board had had to push the announcement date for successful proposals from the 15th August 2010 to the 31st August 2010. A full report will be submitted to an independent Grants Committee in mid-August 2010. The Committee will then make the final decision and select the successful grantees. Grantees will be announced on the 31st August 2010.

The day after the grants deadline, Kenya ICT Board’s Tandaa Team will send out an evaluation form to get feedback from everyone who had participated in the grant process. Below are some highlights from the evaluation and statistics on the grant process:

  • Total numbers of approved applications we’re split between 103 females and 608 males. Barely 15% of applicants were women.
  • Overall, participants were satisfied with the grant application process with 39.2% indicating they were ‘very satisfied’ and 38.4% ‘satisfied’.
  • Of respondents that did not complete the grant application process, 64% cited ‘lack of supporting documents’ as the leading cause for non-completion, while 7.4% cited ‘lack of internet access’.
  • 20% of respondents have attended a Tandaa Symposium. That comes up to almost 34% of Tandaa participants also participating in the grant application process.
  • And finally… most people submitted their proposals on the very last day! leading to a huge spike in submissions on last day

The full evaluation results can be viewed here>

Kenya ICT Board to offer grants for (local) digital content and software applications.

According to the news today, the Kenya ICT Board has issued a call for proposals from Kenyan firms and software application developers for grants to support local content and software applications. The grants are being coordinated via the Kenya ICT Board for the Transparency and Communications Project (TCIP) which is funded by the International Development Association to the Government of Kenya. The TCIP has a total of US$ 114.4 Million of which the Kenya ICT Board will apply for US$ 4 Million for the grants towards local digital content development and software applications.

The grants have been broken into two distinct opportunities. The first is for the Government Information Portal at www.information.go.ke as well as other web and mobile services that provide Government Agencies and the General Public better access to content and information. Therefore, these grants will be focussed on specific content and information, innovative new content and applications and finally urban and rural community based applications.

The second set of grants are focussed on private sector content and applications that include SMS, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and E-Services. More specifically, this set of grants will support both individuals and firms that develop innovative communications and information applications that harness mobile and web-based technologies. The grants will cover the expenses for service and content development, as well as awareness building.

The grant amounts for both sets of grants will be US$ 50,000.00 for firms and US$ 10,000.00 for individuals. Each grant one awarded will be valid for a period of one year and grant initiation will commence no later than 2 months from the date of award.

The Kenya ICT Board will be taking written questions on grants and their application procedure between the 3rd June 2010 and the 24th June 2010 for which answers will be posted online on the Kenya ICT Board within 7 days of receipt. ALL questions have to be submitted via email to grants@ict.go.ke
In addition to questions being submitted, the Kenya ICT Board will be holding four grant pre-application workshops as follows:

  • Mombasa Polytechnic: Mombasa, 18th June 2010
  • Maseno University: Kisumu, 22nd June 2010
  • Moi University: Eldoret, 25th June 2010
  • Kenyatta International Conference Center (KICC): Nairobi, 29th June 2010

The grant application procedure will all be done online and full details as well as instructions can be downloaded from the Kenya ICT Board web site at www.ict.go.ke. In addition, prospective grant applicants can visit the Kenya ICT Board offices if required.