Bitange Ndemo’s career spans academia, government service, advisory roles, and entrepreneurship. He is Kenya’s Ambassador to Belgium and is also responsible for representing the country’s interests at the Mission to the European Union. Before assuming his current diplomatic assignment, Ndemo served as a distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences at the University of Nairobi. During this tenure, his research focused on exploring the critical connection between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the growth of small and medium enterprises. His work highlighted the significant role of ICTs in influencing economic development in Africa. Additionally, he served as the Chairman of the Kenya Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence Taskforce. This taskforce played a vital role in developing a comprehensive digital transformation roadmap, charting the course for Kenya’s technological advancement. Throughout his career, Ndemo has been actively involved as an advisor and board member for various organizations. Notably, he is a panel member of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Policy Forum (MIT AIPF) and an expert panel member for the OECD on Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. Prior to his academic role, Ndemo held the esteemed position of Permanent Secretary at Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication. In this capacity, he facilitated several groundbreaking ICT projects that have had a transformative impact on Kenya’s technological landscape. Some of these projects include the establishment of undersea cables, open data initiatives, and the development of Silicon Savannah, a technology city aimed at fostering innovation and technological advancement within the country. Ndemo’s influence extends globally as he has served as a Senior Advisor to the UN’s Global Pulse, focusing on Big Data initiatives. He has also contributed his expertise to the UNCDF’s Better than Cash Alliance and UNESCO’s Innovation Council. An ardent advocate of Open Data and Big Data, Ndemo is dedicated to making complex data accessible and understandable to ordinary citizens through data visualization. He actively shares his insights and expertise through two weekly columns in Business Daily and Nation online.
