Huawei engages in research and development to stimulate innovation among the youth in Kenya. The company also believes in bridging the digital divide gap among disadvantaged groups in the society.

John Tanui, Deputy CEO, Huawei Technologies says, this is enough reason why Huawei got engaged with the Slumcode Group. The company has key resource personnel that are interested in participating in community events.

"Our main focus is to share the existing technology experience within the company to disadvantaged groups in society", says Tanui. Huawei has had similar engagements before mainly with the academia for example in universities like Strathmore where they have encouraged the adoption of ICTs to drive business acumen.

Fourteen young people who heard a dream to change their community by providing access to information and digital literacy founded the Slumcode Group in 2006. The Slumcode Centre is based in Huruma, Mathare Constituency.

Since ICT is a key area that drives innovation in Kenya, Huawei wants to keep abreast with new technologies that will bring value to people in Kenyan societies.

In the same way, the company wants to cultivate a technology entrepreneurial mindset among the youth who are developing their careers through outreach programmes like the Slum Fest events organized by the Slum Group and many other partners.

Albert Nashon, the founder Slumcode Group, says Slum Fest is an annual event where the youth gathered to share ideas, skills and connect with industry players in different fields.

"These slum festivals bring empowers markets, creates linkages and capacity development among the youth by placing them on the same platform with the CxOs in the industries", says Nashon. "It is all about bring resources to the grass-roots".

Slum Group has a mandate to empower young people at the grass root by bringing resources and making access to it easy, the group has an objective to set up an ICT Hub within the next 3 years.

The Group has previously worked with numerous partners including Nokia E.A, Google Kenya, National Bank, Hope World Wide Kenya, Kenya ICT Board and Youth Enterprise Development Fund.

Peter generates technical content for CIO East Africa and the International Data Group News Service, he also contributes to PC World and Computer World.

Peter is classically trained in computing and information management, and he is currently pursing an MBA program in Management Information Systems at the University of Nairobi, @peternalika