To the u. S. Chamber of commerce here in washington, d. C. Vice president Kamala Harris and kenyan president william ruto are expected to participate in a forum there on u. S. Kenyon business partnerships. Live coverage begins now here on cspan. Pleased to lead us in a conversation in a topic thats been at the forefront of conversations this week as we hit we celebrate the historic state visit of the kenyan president of the United States. My name is kendra, im pleased to serve as president of the Agribusiness Center and i couldnt be more honored than to be joined by this august group of panelists here today as we start this conversation. In the interest of time, im going to let you know that the bios for our esteemed leaders are available on qr codes available in the room. We are going to have a chance to, as they say, allow those who need no introduction to present themselves to all of you. Im beginning to my right, again with a person who needs no introduction, the vice chair and president of niekro soft, mr. Brad smith. Welcome. Brad thank you. Kendra talk to us briefly about the connection that microsoft has to kenya. Brad weve been there for a long time and over the last five years it has been a huge source of development for us. We have employees, Software Developers working in the Software Development center in nairobi. I think that you have captured it well, it has been an extraordinary week and its fitting that today is the capstone for it. It is all about, i think, investment being driven not just by the potential of the future, but the reality of the present. For us at microsoft, that is all about partnering with others. Our most important partner for investing in kenya, its a billiondollar commitment to build a data center run entirely on green geothermal energy. I know that kendra will get more into it, but its about connectivity, skills, security, putting ai to work not only in english but in swahili, with a swahili english large language model. Its about making kenya the trusted hub for all of east africa with a trusted data zone being put together she with put together with the leadership of the kenyan government and the support of the u. S. And uae governments as well. V. P. Harris thats a tremendous kendra thats tremendous. Thats quite a connection, indeed. We are going to be joined by our esteemed panelists in a moment. Let me turn to dr. James, an imminent person with no introduction needed, but would you tell us about the work that Equity Group Holdings is leading, not just in kenya . Thank you so much. Equity group works out of Eastern Central africa. The forecast is at the bottom of the pyramid, one of the most financial inclusive groups. From refugees with small and Medium Enterprises and high range individuals. Broadly, we are big beneficiaries of the applications that Microsoft Offers in the region. Kendra thank you. Im pleased that we are joined by michael at mastercard. Quick introductions of the connection of your country to kenya. Thank you very much. Apologies for being late. Our connection to africa goes back about 15 years. Mastercard tried to unlock the entrepreneurial power of africa by providing Financial Inclusion opportunities and giving them the opportunity to be a part of the Digital Economy. What does it mean . It means making it possible to make and receive payments in an easy and secure pat fashion. That is what we do at mastercard. We felt that with one point 4 billion people, we have to make it available to everybody. For us that his longterm Market Building and commercial sustainability for each and every country. A big unlock to really deliver on the promise of the Digital Economy. Kenya is the host of our global Financial Inclusion lab where we took the solutions we had from around the world and today we are invested across 45 countries in africa, empowering the Digital Economy there. The thing is, though, the Digital Economy is not just about payment. Its about a broader set of digital payments. I listened to you, brad, from behind the stage. Heres the big unlock. The future connection to kenya should be around coordinating the efforts of the private sector and putting the might and the reach of the private sector to work in a coordinated fashion. Not all of us doing coordinated things. Im excited to announce a new initiative cochaired by the African Development bank at mastercard called the Maid Alliance made alliance africa. The effort is to deliver on the goals of pulling 100 Million People in businesses into Digital Services over the next 10 years. Our partners are here on stage, microsoft and equity bank. The whole idea was as follows imagine a farmer in kenya. The farmer needs 100 to buy seeds. Imagine the transaction is digitized in a way that works offline and online. Both were in kenya. Equity bank can give different working Capital Access to the farmer because there is a data track record for that. The same solution allows the farmer to be connected to global fair market trading prices. The virtual circle begins. That is exactly what the alliance is trying to do. One Company Provides connectivity. The other provides digitization and Capital Access. There is a set of foundation for scaling with other educational aspects in declared communities. There is an ecosystem change instead of everyone doing their own thing. 10 years, thats one of the Biggest Companies in the continent and in the world are on it. Its exciting. Kendra that is exciting. What is it stand for . Michael mobilizing access to the Digital Economy in africa. Kendra there you have it. We have some collusion here, we should have mixed up the seating, but i think it is connected to the work that some of you are doing as a response to the call for action from the Vice President . Is that connected as well . Michael absolutely. In april, Vice President harris said we needed the private sector to step it up, a clear call to action, will here is the answer. Kendra wonderful. Thank you. Congratulations for all the work you are doing in that space. And tell us about the work you are doing in kenya . Thank you for hosting this panel. I am really excited to hear about all of the transformations that are happening here. Black iv is a company that i founded 10 years ago and have been operating in kenya and tanzania. We focus on life essentials. Food, housing, health care, logistics. We build those businesses from scratch to establish a foundation and we go about ensuring that they are creating value for the region and the people where we are operating. In kenya we have the pleasure of doing Food Production with our number one partner, farmers. Ways that you can make one value chain to ensure guaranteed uptake. We have the privilege of being a partner with kfc, they are extending that kind of transformation with guaranteed optics after they have access to finance and after they have the kind of Technical Support that they need, but also they need a market that will be consistent with the kind of pricing that allows them to reliably invest in seeds and the kinds of investments that are there. We are deeply excited we know that it the end not only does kfc use 15 containers on the water every month but it means 1. 7 metric tons of Carbon Emissions that wont happen because the potatoes will be grown in kenya, processed in kenya. We are very excited about everything that each of you all are doing and of being good partners. Kendra thank you for that. Building value chains is a great priority and it speaks to the work being done in the digital space, building those value chains. If i might add to that point a bit, increasing access to open interoperable internet for african communities across sectors, we just heard an example, its essential for expanding Economic Growth across the continent. I might put this all of you and i may start with you, dr. Mwangi, to help us kicking that off, but what are the greatest obstacles to achieving that in kenya and how is Equity Group Holdings working to be able to expand greater access to Economic Growth . Dr. Mwangi thank you very much. It is true of Digital Inclusion, its essential for access to economic opportunities, for greater inclusion. Whether or not it is financial, its an inclusion of archives with essential disease essential digitization. Its convenience. And then empowerment, you give them the power to process and transact for themselves, with everything that goes with that. Essentially, for us particularly in the financial system, digitization adds up to significantly reduced costs of financial services. Customers serves them serve themselves. It also allows us to scale quickly and rapidly, based on that. Broadly theres been a holdback of digitization in the african continent. Initially, it was infrastructure. The back own infrastructure was missing. But we are excited, particularly working with microsoft or mastercard there, they started putting in the Backbone Infrastructure together with the government. The policy framework came too late, people didnt adopt interoperability fast enough. Without interoperability systems, it was a hamper to connectedness. The biggest challenge is the capacity of the head users. When you talk about the particulars around low levels of education in the population in the rural areas, they not only lack connectedness but they need to be capacity aided with data training. When we talk in technology terms, the consumer is not as enlightened in what we think is simple, which is not. Broadly what we have tried to address with these issues is to seek partnership. That is why today we will be announcing major partnerships to provide us with the entire infrastructure. Its more than infrastructure, being able to connect with the rest of the world. Its no longer about legacy systems. We must move with the technology systems. We are lucky that over the course of those 200 million up to the year 2030 that will provide us processing and storage capability. Then we are exploring crowd capabilities. Its that basic infrastructure that allows you to do it. The second aspect is partnership with cooperations. As microsoft said, when it comes to the smallscale farmers, the best way of digitizing them is to use massive Global Infrastructure and you can then use that infrastructure and outsource things to companies. Thank you. Kendra thank you. I would note that you talked about key tenants in the Digital Transformation with africa initiative. You just mentioned them, brad, in the context of the announcement you made, infrastructure being the real backbone of the scaling opportunities, workforce opportunities and policy mix for the ecosystem. Could you talk a bit about the work that microsoft is doing not just in responding to the call to action, but broadly the doing and that Digital Transformation agenda . Brad i would highlight two aspects and put them in the context of the opportunities and challenges that we have to address. First, connectivity. 54 Million People live in kenya. We need to bring Broadband Speed internet to everyone and one of the things we have to remember for all of africa is it is a continent where 43 of the population still lacks access to electricity. In so many ways, while the backbone is indispensable, it is the last mile thats the most difficult, especially when people dont have access to electricity. But there is so much cause for optimism and its all about the power of partnerships, the point that you made. We have been working on this in kenya for 15 years. We have partnerships with the company that has the swahili name for cloud, with liquids, which strive, with c2, we will bring Internet Connectivity to 20 Million People in kenya by the end of next year. Not the end of the decade but the end of next year. They have pioneered a Business Model to help people with electricity and the internet at the same time. We have to ensure that this moves forward in a way that starts to close the gender gap. That has been a priority for Vice President harris. She made it a big theme last year when she reached out to people like michael and me and asked what we could do to help across africa. Meg whitman, you, three extraordinary women. What it has brought together this week. So as we focus on kenya focus on skilling as we are, as google is, as others are, we need to recognize that we in the tech center are an industry where women are underrepresented. You see this in the United States and in kenya. Early numbers for ai adoption, it is unfortunately continuing this divide. Yet this is the time to close it. I think that is also calling for new initiatives of the sort that are being launched here this week. It can bring us all together on a sustained basis. Kendra thats wonderful. As you note, if there is no access, there is no ability to scale and the gaps continue to widen, creating more inequality that sets us back. Thank you for that and for the opportunity to call on a fourth extraordinary will woman this morning, cheryl mills, on our panel. In this conversation im struck that we are talking about scaling and partnerships, but agriculture in this conversation, it speaks to the impact of the Digital Economy has, once you have the infrastructure and have created the connectivity. Its beyond the tech sector and it impacts everything. I might ask you, cheryl, given your background on the government side in the business side, seeing the aspects of partnership in your work, could you maybe share with us how stakeholders in government and in the United States and across the continent collaborate to facilitate better investment and trade partnerships in the Digital Economy and in calling on the diaspora to be a part of this effort . Cheryl thank you for that question. Thank you for being called extraordinary. My mother would love that. Heres the thing, i have had the pleasure in the privilege of working at the state department and at that time with president obama and secretary clinton looking at agriculture and how we could go about investing in what would be longterm impactful. Weve come full circle in terms of saying how do we think about the digitization and Digital Economy and make sure we are applying it in the places that are impactful when you look across africa. Agriculture is an and part of the narrative. I love hearing about the partnerships here. We when we were on the government side it was so hard to figure out the partnership, so it is inspiring to see the level already happening. But i do think that the most important thing is understanding what it means to be accountable. We think of partnership is the day that we are on the stage but its really the work being done behind the scenes and then being accountable when they show up. The accountability starts with the United States government as well. We are important partners who have to deliver on our promises and commitments in a timely way. Its on the leadership of the people in kenya to speak to their partnership and needs on what works and what matters for them. When the private sector can be a thoughtful deliberate partner on delivering what they thought of as accessible in a meaningful way, the transformation happens this is what transformation looks like. Kendra i want to stick with you to help us go through closing thoughts and working our way down to brad. We have been talking a lot about that, enabling access for Digital Technology platforms that are critical for Sailing Technology in the Innovation Ecosystem that these leaders are at the heart of. We talked about government involvement and business involvement, but we havent talked about retail institutions and stakeholders. Perhaps some closing thoughts for each of you to share . How can the u. S. Government and the private sector in collaboration with regional institutions along with stakeholders strengthen the capacity of authorities to drive innovation across the ecosystem in kenya and the continent . Cheryl thank you for that. From my observations regional institutions are close to the ground in a different way and we are able to lean into their expertise and leadership to be able to see the kind of transformation that we seek. I have the benefit of having the United States government invest in usaid with us. Weve got skilling and other things important for farmers but the truth of the matter is that we have been looking at the other banks who are there that are right on the ground and can make a difference. From my perspective the opportunity is in recognizing each individual role, each institutions role and how to be excellent. When we do that well, the partnership is like an orchestra , everyone is playing their p