INTERVIEW NEWS
Interviewing The Engineers in Private Sector: Kenya Engineer Team had One on One Interview with The CEO of Soliton Telmec. Q: In brief who is Abdirahman Omar Sheikh? A: An Engineer with diverse business i nt e r e s ts in Te le communi cat i ons, Construction, Insurance and Healthcare. Founder and the Chief Executive of Soliton Telmec Limited. Q: In term of training, did you pursue your education locally or abroad? A: I went through Alliance high school before proceeding to Turkey for my undergraduate Q: Why Turkey and how different was it from the local University? A: I was admitted at the University of Nairobi before proceeding to Turkey as a beneficiary of a scholarship program. There’s not much difference other than the environment. The academic programs are the same. Q: Are you a member of any professional body? A: Yes I’m a registered Engineer with the Engineers Registration Board of Kenya and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Q: A brief of your company background and what you deal with. A: Soliton Telmec is a locally incorporated and 100 % Kenyan owned company. It is now in its seventh year of successful operations in Kenya. By far, the largest operations and workforce is based in Kenya but the company has interests in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. Soliton Telmec plans, designs, builds and supports telecommunications infrastructure and networks. We develop the main backbone networks for service providers both for inter-city connections and intra-city connectivity. We also provide access networks solutions for carriers, service providers, real estate industry as well as corporate and individual customers.
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Q: What are some of the Challenges you face as a networking company in the country A: We deal with large infrastructure projects and we are a local Kenyan company. This in itself is a problem. This space is usually reserved for European and nowadays Chinese multinationals. It is therefore nearly impossible for local companies to find and maintain their footing in this area. As you know Kenya is a free market economy – I mean totally free market and, way ahead in this open market policy, of North American, European and Chinese markets. Consequently unfettered flow of technology, labour and capital is allowed and even encouraged. One of the effects of this in our industry is that well-established international companies are free to compete with newly created local companies. Middle aged Engineers and Technicians from Europe and China jostle for customer attention with 20 – 25 year old Kenyan youth. Kenya is also a poor country. This means that at least in the public sector, there is no money to fund ICT infrastructure projects. Traditionally, funding used to come largely from Europe and consequently, European companies implemented projects here. In this scenario local companies used to get the crumbs working as subcontractors for European multinationals. Lately, as you may know, Chinese companies have all but obliterated most of their European counterparts. Chinese companies are therefore at hand with state backing, money and technology not only for public sector projects, which they dominate, but even for the private sector projects. They are a bank, contractor and more rolled into one and with their take-noprisoner attitude they generally leave nothing on the table.
KENYA ENGINEER - SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2012
Eng. Abdirahman Omar Sheikh CEO Soliton Telmac
This leaves local ICT infrastructure companies to do small low-tech jobs and denies them much needed capital to acquire plant, equipment and training facilities – creating the proverbial “vicious circle”. Q: What is your take on the ICT sector in the country as compared to other countries where you are also based? A: We have a dynamic industry and very hard working people in this sector. Kenya’s ICT sector is way ahead of the other countries we work in. The major factor is the highly educated and extremely confident young Kenyans we have. Individually, you will find Kenyans working for the larger multinationals even in neighboring countries. The market we operate in is unique in that it is highly regulated market. In terms of regulation, we have enabling environment that is better - as compared to some countries in the region. I think this has made this sector a highly competitive one and created greater