内容来源：分享美国 地址链接： http://go.usa.gov/37vHB

你一定听说过加利福尼亚州的高科技中心硅谷（Silicon Valley），但是你是否听说过“硅萨凡纳”(Silicon Savannah)？这是许多人为肯尼亚（Kenya）起的别称。2015年肯尼亚经济将增长6.5％，在很大程度上归功于肯尼亚的信息、通信和技术产业（ICT）。

“硅萨瓦纳”的技术繁荣在两个方面特别突出。首先，肯尼亚人擅长通过技术手段解决本地实际问题。“M-农场”(M-Farm)是一个很好的例子。这是一个为肯尼亚农民提供最新市场信息的应用程序，使他们的农产品能够获得最好的价格。其次，肯尼亚人首先为移动设备设计产品，因为在肯尼亚大约1,600万因特网用户中，有99％的人使用的移动设备上网。与许多美国人不同，肯尼亚人开始使用因特网的时候并非通过个人电脑上网。

是什么力量在推动着信息通信技术初创公司在肯尼亚的快速增长？是创新的空间。

培养创意的空间

人们可能认为“创新空间”这个词已经司空见惯，谈不上什么新颖之处。然而，即使企业的繁荣离不开数字时代的种种技术手段，物理空间仍然至关重要。在肯尼亚，创新发生在创新的空间，无论是共用办公室，企业催化器或孵化器。

共用空间，如 “内罗毕车库”(Nairobi Garage) ，为初创公司提供灵活的办公空间，可容纳多个公司。共享环境往往会撮合出人意料的合作。

另一方面，肯尼亚的企业催化器提供限定时间的项目：在一段时间内，一名创业者与导师一起扩大初创公司规模，促进其业务的稳健增长。比如，Nailab就是一个向创业者提供三到六个月帮助的企业催化器。

顾名思义，肯尼亚的商业孵化器重点关注开发新的创意。他们提供建议、指导和办公空间，以换取在所建立的公司中的股份。IHub是肯尼亚最知名的商业孵化器， 2014年被《快速公司》(Fast Company) 杂志评为非洲最具创新性的公司 。

肯尼亚的创新空间广受好评。瑞典 “UBI全球”(UBI Global) 组织从事对世界各地商业孵化器的研究。在该组织发布的非洲最有前途的大学企业孵化器排名中，肯尼亚三个商业孵化器被列入前五名。另外两个分别在埃及和摩洛哥。

跨国公司也注意到了这些创新空间的成功。两家科技巨头在肯尼亚建立了创新实验室：the 诺基亚研究中心(Nokia Research Center) 和IBM非洲研究实验室(IBM Research-Africa) 。

投资创新

有几个因素促成了肯尼亚高科技的快速发展。 2007年，一家肯尼亚电话公司推出了一个名为M-Pesa的平台，使人们能够使用移动设备为产品和服务付费。在一个很少有人持信用卡或能够获得银行服务的国家，M-Pesa促成了前所未有的金融变革。如今，74%的肯尼亚成年人使用手机货币，使信息通信技术初创公司能够容易地接受消费者的付款。

第二个促进因素出现在2009年，那一年肯尼亚政府帮助引进了光纤因特网，使肯尼亚能够跳过现有的卫星技术，为人们提供廉价的因特网服务，无论是用电脑还是手机上网。此外，在技术蓬勃发展的同时，肯尼亚政府仍继续升级其现有的传统基础设施。

“硅萨凡纳”吸引着国际风险投资者、非营利组织和外国援助机构。第6届年度全球创业峰会（Global Entrepreneurship Summit）预定 7月25日至26日在肯尼亚召开。这将是该峰会第一次在非洲撒哈拉以南(sub-Saharan Africa)地区召开，再次表明了肯尼亚强劲的经济。有关本届峰会的详情见 2015年峰会网站。ShareAmerica也集中刊登了有关的报道。

Kenya: Africa’s innovation hub
 

You’ve heard of Silicon Valley, the high-tech hub in California, but what about Silicon Savannah? It’s the nickname many use for Kenya, whose economy will grow 6.5 percent in 2015, thanks largely to its information, communications and technology sector (ICT).

Two things set Silicon Savannah’s tech boom apart from such hubs elsewhere in the world. First, Kenyans are using technology to solve local problems. M-Farm is a good example. It’s an app that gives Kenyan farmers current market information so they can get the best prices for their produce. Second, Kenyans are designing products for mobile first. That’s because 99 percent of Kenya’s Internet subscribers, about 16 million people, access the Internet through their mobile devices. Kenyans didn’t begin to use the Internet on personal computers the way many Americans did.

What’s driving the fast growth of ICT startups in Kenya? Innovative spaces.

A place for nurturing ideas

Before you shrug off “innovative space” as jargon, read on. Even as companies thrive in this digital age, physical space matters. In Kenya, innovation happens in innovative spaces, whether co-working offices, accelerators or incubators.

Co-working spaces, such as Nairobi Garage, provide startups with office space that is flexible and hosts more than one company. The shared environment often leads to serendipitous collaborations.

Kenya’s accelerators, on the other hand, offer time-defined programs during which an entrepreneur works with mentors to build out a startup as it becomes a more robust business. Nailab, for example, is an accelerator that works with entrepreneurs for a three- to six-month period.

As the name suggests, Kenya’s incubators focus on developing new ideas. They provide advice, mentoring and office space in return for a stake in the resulting company. IHub is Kenya’s best-known incubator and was named the most innovative company in Africa in 2014 by Fast Company magazine.

Kenya’s innovative spaces are acclaimed. UBI Global, a Swedish organization that analyzes incubators around the world, put three in Kenya among its top-five ranking for most promising university business incubators in Africa. (The other two are in Egypt and Morocco.)

The success of these innovative spaces is not lost on multinational companies. Two tech giants have established innovation labs in Kenya: the Nokia Research Center and IBM Research–Africa.

Investing in innovation

Several factors contribute to Kenya’s tech surge. In 2007, a Kenyan phone company launched a platform called M-Pesa, allowing people to pay for goods and services using their mobile devices. In a country where few citizens had credit cards or access to banks, M-Pesa revolutionized finance. Today, among Kenyan adults, 74 percent use mobile money, which makes it easy for ICT startups to accept consumer payments.

A second contributing factor came in 2009 when the Kenyan government helped bring in fiber-optic Internet. The cables allowed the country to leapfrog existing satellite technology and gave citizens inexpensive access to the Internet, whether on computers or mobile phones. (Also, even while technology flourishes, the Kenyan government continues to upgrade its existing traditional infrastructure.)

The Silicon Savannah attracts international venture capitalists, nonprofit organizations and foreign aid agencies. From July 25 to 26, they will be there for the sixth annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit. It’s the first time the summit will be held in sub-Saharan Africa, one more sign of Kenya’s strong economy. To learn more about the summit, visit the 2015 website.  For additional information and resources for aspiring entrepreneurs, visit the ShareAmerica collection.