Industry, donors and government are coalescing around data-driven, multi-stakeholder partnerships — combining network mapping, affordable devices, teacher training and blended finance — as the practical way to scale school connectivity and turn access into accredited skills and jobs.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” In an opinion piece for TechTrends, Neeraj Pradhan, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Liquid Kenya, invoked that African proverb to argue that Kenya’s digital transformation will depend less on single actors than on sustained, well‑designed partnerships. Pradhan’s central point — “no single organisation can achieve meaningful and sustainable digital transformation alone” — captures a growing consensus among development agencies, donors and private firms working across the country.
Partnerships that combine networks, devices and skills are increasingly being held up as the practical route to connect schools, equip classrooms and translate connectivity into jobs. According to UNICEF, Liquid Intelligent Technologies joined its Giga initiative in December 2021 to help map schools and share anonymised location and connectivity data so investments can be targeted more effectively. The collaboration was designed to leverage Liquid’s network expertise alongside Giga’s mapping and procurement tools to scale school connectivity and to monitor progress over time. Giga itself aims to connect every school to the internet by 2030 and uses satellite imagery, AI and live monitoring to identify where shared infrastructure can deliver the most cost‑effective results.
Those data‑driven approaches are already being paired with classroom technology and device programmes. Liquid says its reseller partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation, established in late 2022, has aimed to place affordable computing kits into schools preloaded with educational software and teacher training materials to strengthen practical STEM skills. More recently, Liquid and Epson announced a corporate social investment programme in February 2025 that supplied 100 printers, 20 visualisers and 20 projectors to 65 schools, which Liquid says reached more than 30,000 students. Epson framed the devices as energy‑efficient and lower‑running‑cost tools intended to complement connectivity by improving access to printed and projected learning materials.
The push to join infrastructure with learning and employability is also reflected in national and multilateral financing. The World Bank approved US$390 million in April 2023 for the first phase (2023–2028) of the Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project, a programme that explicitly seeks to extend fibre backbone and last‑mile connectivity, improve digital education and selected government services, and mobilise private capital. The World Bank expected the initiative to crowd‑in an estimated US$100 million in private broadband investment, underscoring that sustainable scale generally requires blending public funds, donor support and commercial finance.
Skills and certification are a critical piece of the puzzle that partnerships are trying to solve. The International Labour Organization has described projects in Kenya that align training with industry‑recognised certification through Recognition of Prior Learning, working with local providers and regulators to produce accredited digital courses and link graduates to employers. Programmes like these aim to address the familiar mismatch between classroom qualifications and the competencies demanded by the labour market — a gap Pradhan and others argue prevents digital access from translating automatically into livelihoods.
What successful collaborations have in common is the emphasis on measurable outputs, longevity and sustainability. As Pradhan warned, pilot projects that begin with publicity often fizzle when initial funding ends. Development partners and private companies alike stress the need to integrate projects into national systems or create revenue streams — whether through shared infrastructure, schools’ contributions, or commercial services that subsidise social uses — so benefits persist after launch. Giga’s mapping work, for example, is explicitly designed to identify where existing national fibre and mobile networks can be leveraged to reduce the per‑school cost of connection; advocates say that kind of optimisation makes projects more commercially viable and increases social reach.
The practicalities of implementation also demonstrate why partnerships must be broader than technology vendors and ministries. Deploying fibre involves civil works and local construction skills that create employment; donor and NGO partners can help cover affordability gaps while telecoms build last‑mile links; device manufacturers supply energy‑efficient hardware that reduces ongoing costs for cash‑strapped schools. Each partner contributes something different — finance, technical know‑how, procurement platforms, training capacity — and brings its reputation and incentives to the table, which makes due diligence and clear governance essential.
Challenges remain. Sustainability depends on predictable funding streams, credible procurement and regulation, and incentives that align private returns with social goals. Technical solutions must be matched with teacher training, curricular integration and pathways into certified skills that employers recognise. And while mapping and data make targeting easier, implementation in remote, low‑density areas continues to be expensive and operationally complex.
Yet the combination of targeted donor finance, national programmes and private sector engagement offers a clearer route out of those trade‑offs. The Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project’s multiyear financing, Giga’s school mapping and Liquid’s device and classroom investments illustrate a model in which public investment, philanthropic support and commercial activity are pooled and sequenced to deliver impact that lasts.
Pradhan’s prescription is pragmatic: choose partners for capacity and alignment, design projects that produce measurable outputs, and build for longevity and financial sustainability. If Kenya’s experience is any guide, the countries that “go far” will be those that treat digital transformation not as a one‑off build, but as a prolonged, cross‑sector endeavour in which networks, devices, teachers and employers all play their part.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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