The ICT Authority Ag. CEO Dr. Kipronoh Ronoh has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Netsheria International Director Njomo Kamau which will see Netsheria provide business advisory ad legal support services for start up companies that the ICT Authority is supporting under the Whitebox Initiative.

The ICT Authority is mandated to promote ICT Innovation and enterprise through the Directorate of Innovation & ICT Capacity which is implementing the WhiteBox initiative of the Government of Kenya that is geared towards catalyzing the successful growth of local ventures to the international market. The main objective of this initiative is to create a one-stop-shop for anyone who wants to present, share or sell an idea, innovation, invention or solution to the government.

The Huduma Whitebox programme aims to assist Kenyan innovators by providing technical support, advisory services, access to market, networking opportunities, and access to incubation and accelerator facilities. This is all aimed at assisting innovators as they develop their innovations and launch them in the market. The program has a training component that provided instructive training to innovators on topical issues that affect the innovator. Currently training is provided on intellectual property, business modeling, go-to market product strategies, sourcing for funding and various technologies that innovators can use to accelerate deployment of their innovations.

Huduma Whitebox processes have a systematic approach for receiving, prioritizing, evaluating and validating new ideas, to support them to grow and scale. As such, they have been extensively researched and validated thereby incorporating industry best practices of innovation management.
The program is in line with ICT Authority’s mandate to promote ICT innovations and enterprise. In this MOU, the ICT Authority (ICTA) will promote ICT innovation and enterprise by giving innovators a platform where they can pitch their ideas directly to the government and get technical assistance in the development of their ICT innovations. The innovators are also provided with training on entrepreneurship to help them build their startups to successful businesses. This is done in partnership with accelerator programs and other institutions such as Netsheria.

Netsheria International LLP is a technology-driven corporate online legal platform that serves the unique legal needs and other requirements for startups, techpreneurs and companies. It provides specialist and quality online legal services to start-ups, scale-ups and entrepreneurs in the creative industry, innovators, ICT and technology companies, life sciences, and players in the media, entertainment and sports sectors in a fast, cost-effective, and timely manner. Netsheria offers the legal services through an online portal embedded on their website netsheria.com. It also offers a variety of training services on various legal issues related to start-ups, techpreneurs and innovators.

Netsheria is partnering with ICT Authority in the following areas:
1. Capacity building for innovators
2. Business advisory services for startup companies
3. Legal support services for innovators

The objectives of the partnership include;
1. To assist ICT Authority to build legal capacity for Whitebox innovators on various business and technology-oriented issues affecting their business.
2. To assist ICT Authority in providing legal support services for white box innovators through training and webinars.

The role of Netsheria in the partnership is to:
1. Offer trainings on legal support services to innovators on various business and technology-oriented topics including:
• Business registration,
• Startup funding options such as crowdfunding,
• Intellectual property registration and protection; and
• Corporate structure advisory.
2. Provide innovators with access to various legal document templates through its online legal portal at a fee payable by the innovators to Netsheria;
3. Provide innovators with the opportunity to have online or telephone consultations with lawyers and legal experts on various business-related legal matters at a fee payable by the innovators to Netsheria.
4. Provide innovators with the opportunity to access a variety of legal services through its membership club including business registration, structuring and compliance, intellectual property protection, debt collection and general legal advisory opinions as required for his/her business needs on a retainer model at affordable fees payable by the innovators to Netsheria either monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually.

On its part the ICT Authority will:
1. Organize webinars/ training sessions on as part of Whitebox calendar of events
2. Invite innovators to the capacity building sessions
3. Invite guest speakers on the subject
4. Promote the capacity building sessions to get the right audience with Netsheria and other agencies and stakeholders on business registration, structuring and compliance, intellectual property protection, debt collection and general legal advisory opinions

Visit https://whitebox.go.ke/ learn more about the Huduma Whitebox program