ODesk and Samasource reach out to Kenyan techies

ODesk.com, an online marketplace for freelance IT talent, has partnered with Samasource in a project aimed at increasing the number of African service providers.

The project is looking for all types of programming talent, particularly those with experience in Ruby on Rails, Cocoa, Facebook and OpenSocial platforms, said Leila Chirayath, founder and CEO of Samasource.

In an invitation to techies, Chirayath expressed oDesk's excitement regarding the project and noted that oDesk management has agreed to share as much data as possible to raise awareness about the Kenyan tech community.

"To make the process easier, Samasource and oDesk are going to add a layer of client development, marketing and project management between the techie and the customer," she said.

Wilfred Mworia, winner of the inaugural Facebook developers garage competition, called the project a great opportunity, noting that it will save Kenyan providers from the hassle of getting clients on oDesk.

"However, I think for the true value of this project to be successful, there may be a need to provide either free or highly subsidized Internet access for people who want to follow up such an opportunity," he said. "I tried oDesk some time back, but one of my challenges was having dedicated Internet because oDesk needs you to be on Internet a lot."

Mworia invited the Kenya ICT board to seize the opportunity to provide subsidized bandwidth to developers willing to take up such international assignments.

"The project had foreseen the bandwidth challenge and [is] working out a system that is less bandwidth-consuming," said Chirayath. "In the interim, the project will purchase wireless cards for developers and push this cost back to the client."