Digital economy blueprint

1.4 OPPORTUNITIES TO LEAPFROG

A digital economy offers Kenya a leapfrogging op-

portunity on economic development. Exploitation of 

opportunities that are inherent in disruptive technolo-

gies can see Kenya emerge from a low middle-income 

economy to an emerging markets/advanced economy. 

Disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence 

(AI), robotics, Block Chain, drones, internet of things, 

big data, and software-enabled industrial platforms 

have great potential for impact on economic develop-

ment. Kenya’s M-Pesa disrupted the financial sector 

and significantly increased financial inclusion as well 

as opening up the possibilities of new business mod-

els and opportunities like PayGo, digital credit, and 

(for better or worse) mobile betting. The graphic in 

Figure 1 below shows that mobile banking has con-

tinued to grow substantially to reach the unbanked.It 

is evident from the financial sector that Kenya needs 

to seek out appropriate innovations that will help dis-

rupt entire industries, increase economic growth and 

reduce poverty.

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1.0 INTRODUCTION