Software Development Industry In East Africa: Knowledge Management Perspective And Value Proposition

TL;DR

This paper explores how knowledge management practices in East Africa's software industry foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth through virtual communities, expert localization, and collaborative development.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid framework for knowledge management tailored to East Africa's software development sector, emphasizing community-based initiatives and knowledge sharing.

Findings

Existence of formal KM initiatives in East African software industry

Role of virtual communities in knowledge transfer and entrepreneurship

Proposed hybrid KM framework for the region

Abstract

Increased usage of the internet has contributed immensely to the growth of software development practice in East Africa. This paper investigates the existence of formal KM (Knowledge Management) initiatives in the Software industry such as creation of virtual communities (Communities of practice and communities of interest); expert localization and establishment of knowledge taxonomies in these communities; the knowledge transfer and sharing processes; incubation and Mentorship; collaborative software development and their role in creating entrepreneurship initiatives and providing a building block towards the knowledge economies. We propose a hybrid framework for use in KM initiative focusing on Software Development in East Africa.