Safaricom head of innovation resigns

Kamal Bhattacharya, the head of Safaricom’s innovation lab, has left Kenya’s biggest telecoms company less than a year and a half after he joined.

The former long-serving IBM executive left last month after leading Safaricom’s Alpha innovation unit since April last year.

Mr Bhattacharya told Reuters he had left to focus on a technology start-up involving the education sector.

“(Bhattacharya) elected to leave the company to pursue other interests effective September 7,” said an e-mail sent to Safaricom staff and seen by Reuters on Wednesday. The message did not give any details about plans for the innovation lab.

Bhattacharya presided over the piloting of a social messaging app that will link to its widely used mobile money platform M-Pesa in an attempt to move the company into the application business.

Linda Orlando (from left) welcome Viveka and Kamal Bhattacharya during the Safaricom's Twaweza Relaunch at Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Administrator

A top data scientist, he was one of the founding administrators at the IBM Research Lab. He has served as a senior lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a commissioner with the Oxford-based technology think tank, Pathways for Prosperity Commission.

His exit marks a significant talent loss for Safaricom coming when the firm is in the process of exploring new business models for the massive data sets the leading telecommunications service provider has accumulated over the years.

Alpha, which was set up last year, has not announced any other pilot products apart from the app, which is called Bonga (Kiswahili for chat).

Reuters with additional reporting by Frankline Sunday