The Connected Kenya Summit is a an ICT thought leadership gathering that brings together over 1,000 regional and global ICT industry thought leaders, key policy makers, high profile Industry champions and executives, financiers and ICT innovators, for a series of high-level discussions geared towards nurturing innovative ideas, investments and partnerships that spur the realization of Kenya’s development agenda leveraging on technology.

Initiated in 2009, the summit is jointly organized by the Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs, ICT Authority, in collaboration with the Private sector and other stakeholders. It’s the brainchild of the ICT Authority in collaboration with ICT industry players and key government decision makers. Its aim is to establish a platform for collaboration, capacity building and knowledge sharing between government and the ICT sector with a view of linking and hastening implementation of government IT projects to world-class standards.
Since its inception, the summit has established itself as a leading forum for bringing together industry, government, academia and other ICT ecosystem players to discuss, deliberate, demonstrate and display the latest in the world of ICT and Innovation. Not only is connected the biggest networking event in the region, it is also the biggest networking event in Kenya in the technology space.

The Summit includes Kenya’s biggest technology exhibition and is a bedrock of technology demos with thought leadership participation from across the globe, and grows from strength to strength every year. It continues to bring together a remarkable mix of high profile speakers consisting of decision makers and speakers from the government, policy makers and leading ICT industry players to share experiences, develop insights and design & showcase unique solutions that have successfully responded to the country's most pressing challenges and spur Kenya’s digital aspirations.

The summit has continued to foster and build critical relationships between the Private and Public Sector and many of the ground breaking ICT enabled services in Kenya have been discussed at this forum. The topical issues have shaped the ICT inclusivity and accelerate Economic development of the country as well as the region.

The inaugural theme in 2009, for example, was “Great minds come together”; in 2016 the theme was “Bridging the service gap” 2017 was “Shaping the future; while in 2018 the theme was “Preserving Culture. Pioneering Technology”.Over the years, we have witnessed the summit driving the development of the ICT ecosystem in Kenya, spur ICT investments and increase partnership between government and private sector.

Some of today’s leading government projects that have links with Connected Kenya include. The Kenya Open Data Initiative, Huduma Centers have transformed public service delivery across Kenya, E-Citizen portal, The Digital Literacy Program , National Fibre Optic Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) has laid a total of 6,000kms of fibre optic that has opened up Kenya. Clearly, this inclusive formula has yielded outstanding results! Ajira digital and Presidential digital talent program are among the programmes that are driving digitals skills and employment solutions for the youth, were informed or refined from discussions and panels held at Connected Kenya.