East Africa is steadily shifting from adapting imported systems to building technology shaped by local realities. Organisations across the region are backing solutions designed closer to home. CITO Magazine reached out to tech executives who are pumping out local solutions, to ask them about strategy, capacity, market realities and the ecosystem that underpins their shift to homegrown technologies.
IT leaders Evans Ngala of Express Shipping & Logistics East Africa, Paul Mandele of Smart Foundry, Russell Akuom of Nation Media Group and Tadeo Kyeyune of Tugende explain why homegrown innovation has become a strategic choice, driven by context, cost and long-term competitiveness.
East Africa is evolving from tech consumer to tech creator. Across the region, local innovators are rolling out smart, affordable solutions that are transforming everything from healthcare to shipping to finance.
Tired of imported systems that miss the mark, executives are backing homegrown technologies tailored to local realities. East Africa is betting on its own tech, and it’s paying off. Local innovators are rolling out smart, affordable tools that are transforming everything from healthcare to money transfers.
Technology executives say the pivot towards homegrown solutions, whether locally led, locally adapted, or locally built, has gained momentum, driven by lower cost, contextual fit, and digital sovereignty.
“I am a big fan of homegrown solutions,” Russell Akuom, CTO at the Nation Media Group, says. “The issue of technology in the market is that most of it is developed outside Africa, but we want what can solve the local problems. If we can develop our own, that’s fine; if we have to tailor the foreign technologies to work for us, I’m OK with that too.”
“The West is solving frontier problems, like fitting an invisible microchip onto a glass plate. Our challenges are far more foundational: internet penetration, device affordability, and financial inclusion,” says Tadeo Kyeyune, chief technology officer at Tugende, a Uganda-based social enterprise. “So I put customisation above cost consideration. An affordable solution that does not fit workflows will end up costing more in inefficiencies and lost opportunities.”
Together with his team at Tugende, Tadeo mostly builds solutions internally but occasionally imports Western solutions for specialised areas such as finance, cybersecurity, and data hosting, which he notes are not up to standard locally.
“The guiding principle is simple: if the solution defines our competitive edge, we build it; otherwise, we buy it,” he says. “But, a workable homegrown solution should combine both the local and external inputs. The local component ensures that context is not lost, while the external input ensures the bar, in terms of standards and discipline, remains high.”
Local innovation is possible
These sentiments are prevalent across the IT landscape of the region, and managers like Paul Mandele can attest to them. Paul is the IT head at the Tanzania-based Smart Foundry, an entity that shepherds new ideas into solutions.
“You do not always need expensive imports to solve local problems. Innovations can happen here with what we have,” he says.
His views are echoed by James Shoetan, CTO at Equator Energy, which specialises in commercial and industrial solar supply.
“I do believe in the ingenuity of East Africa to continue creating homegrown digital technology such as banking and payments solutions, which would make money flows within countries or between countries with linked systems cheaper than other markets. This would crowd out multinationals who provide the same services or force them to acquire the local players who commercialise such inventions,” he says.
He adds: “I'm not sure if it makes commercial sense for physical, especially complex, technology to shift to East Africa in the near term, given the significant amount of infrastructure and investment required to compete on the global market.”
A strategic choice
At Express Shipping & Logistics East Africa, the push for local solutions feels like a personal manifesto of the group’s ICT manager Evans Ngala. He contends that most of the solutions in the market are not developed for the region’s shipping industry.
He has worked in the industry for the past ten years, leading the ESL through achievements such as migrating from on-prem. He argues that refocusing attention on internally developed technology should be viewed as a strategic choice.
“All the locally developed solutions give the local feel and address specific automation needs that are unique to the organisation, rather than the off-the-shelf products that address ‘mass’ automation needs but still require complex customisation to match the internal needs,” he notes.
He also urges caution in buying hardware, saying executives should first conduct market research and develop a robust disposal policy before commencing procurement.
“Nowadays, I recommend the use of cloud-based solutions from known vendors with extensive failover and business continuity mechanisms,” he says.
He says his vision at the shipping firm is to develop products that are not only adaptable but are also able to grow with the organisation, explaining that this is how to build efficiency while addressing the specific needs of the customer.
