Oral East AfricaLakehub, wants Kisumu county to give them a long-term lease extension for the Zone01 project located at Lake Basin Mall along Kakamega road, as the programme graduated its first cohort of software developers.
Kenya’s first tech outside the capital city has provided Kisumu and the western region with two years of tuition-free tech education skills transfer, and links to new opportunities.
At the inaugural Build From Here Conference 2026, 96 apprentices who began training in April 2024 graduated with an impressive 73 percent job placement rate /graduates employed before programme completion.
Speaking during the graduation ceremony, Kisumu County Deputy Governor Mathew Owili said the county would support Lakehub in securing the lease, adding Kisumu will also donate 50 computers as part of its contribution in facilitating the private sector to scale.
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He said previously, Kisumu county supported Zone01 Kisumu by providing them with a fully kitted 200 capacity facility at the Rotary Vocational Training Centre within the city’s central business district.
Kisumu also availed high definition desktop computers, high speed internet, internet servers, CCTV cameras, desks, and seconded staff from the County to augment their operations.
“We started this journey in 2023 when the County Government of Kisumu led by the Governor His Excellency Prof. Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o together with LakeHub Foundation, 01 Talent and the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa teamed up to found Zone01 Kisumu. As the County Government, we firmly believed then and now that the fusion of technology and young people is a critical drive for economic empowerment, education and global connectivity,” he said.
LakeHub was set up to provide opportunities for the participants to expand the use of technology in rural Africa, and thus greatly aid efficiency in African economies at grassroots level.
Founded in 2023 in partnership between the County Government of Kisumu, LakeHub Foundation, 01 Talent, and the United Cities and Local Governments of Africa (UCLGA), Zone01 Kisumu was built on the conviction that technology and youth are the twin engines of economic transformation.
The graduates were trained in Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technologies, Robotics, Mobile & Web App Development, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, DevOps, and Data Engineering.
Apprentices exposed to international conferences and hackathons from Munich to Singapore, Cape Town to Kigali, Kampala to Addis Ababa.
“The Build From Here Conference celebrates our own talent born, bred and nurtured in Kisumu. Indeed, the conference builds on Kisumu’s emergence as a tech talent hotbed. It shows the remarkable impact this program has had over these young people, and we are sure that they will live to be the backbone of Kenya and the region’s IT sector,” Dorcas Owino, Co-Executive Director, LakeHub/Zone01 Kisumu.
In 2024, Kisumu City entered the Top 1,000 cities globally for startup ecosystems for the first time ranking second only to Nairobi in Kenya. In 2025, Kisumu dominated Kenya’s GitHub list of top contributors, driven by Zone01 Kisumu apprentices. The Build From Here Conference 2026 is itself a milestone. It is Kenya’s premier technology conference outside of Nairobi, held right here in Kisumu.
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