in Nairobi – or London or Birmingham or Paris or similar – but the challenges are very similar .
“ If I ’ ve got a friend running a data centre in Brussels , there ’ s no competition between me and him or him here with my Nairobi business . We can share information , we can share ideas . There ’ s a lot of sharing of ideas and information . “
The importance of a skilled , local workforce is something Willner firmly believes in , but appreciates is a pool that needs nurturing to shape the industry of tomorrow . For this reason , Willner and his team are working to establish and operate a data centre academy in Nairobi , working with Moringa School .
“ I ’ ve always wanted to establish a school and Kenya ’ s a good place to do that because it has a very highly educated population ,” Willner reveals . “ It will benefit us , it ’ ll benefit our competitors , but most importantly it ’ ll benefit the country and the industry . If Kenya is going to be a massive regional hub for compute , then it ’ s good that we get more and more people who are trained up to understand what a data centre is .”
Putting Nairobi on the map as a thriving data centre location Willner envisions IXAfrica further establishing itself as a key player in the Kenyan data centre market . Although in its infancy as
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