HP Launches new training centre in Kenya

By James Ratemo

Global Integrated Solutions Provider, Hewlett Packard (HP) has opened a Training Centre aimed at enhancing knowledge on its products and services.

The centre according to Higher Education permanent secretary Prof. Chrispus Kiamba who presided over the launch is a major step in actualizing the national Vision 2030 ICT development platform.

It aims to provide information and technology capabilities that will enable HP customers and partners to maximize the full potential of the company’s investments in technology.

Kiamba said the ministry was out to improve quality assurance programs for all universities and was looking forward to partner with HP on the development of ICT skills in Higher Education.

HP’s strategic partnership with another ICT firm Quintica is set to create a key resource centre for strengthening capacity of current and future customers as well as business partners by developing and providing new training programs and solutions in East Africa.

The program is also ideal for organizations as employees will improve their service quality, gain global recognition, and attain technical credibility amongst other advantages.

According to Franz Munnich, Technology Services Manager HP Southern and Eastern Africa, most customers and local experts who have†invested in HP products and services have felt the need to up skills of their IT staff to effectively manage their new technologies within their respective IT environments.

He said there is need for an easily accessible training centre that has†, embraced Global training standards with highly qualified trainers and adheres to a Global curriculum.

"In our effort to skill our customers with the knowledge on our HP products and services, we realized that we need to bring a HP run training center to Kenya to make training more accessible to our customers and partners where they can gain the necessary skills and training needed in their daily operations in IT. 80% of downtimes is due to people and processes and we at HP want to address this by engaging in proactive training of IT resources."

He also added that with limited budgets for new technology, the state of the art facility will be ideal in terms of productivity increase through better skills attained and while also minimizing n business risk with a team that is able to deliver results more cost effectively. He further noted that, the training will assist customers in their journey to becoming adaptive enterprises.

The training center will be beneficial for IT specialists and a first in the industry as HP will be able to offer virtual classrooms in addition to the traditional learning methodologies.

Trainings are also tailored to address specific customer requirements and IT environments where simulations trainings are held.

The customers will also be able to get HP certification after training which was recently rebranded HP ExpertONE. The certificate provides IT Professionals with an opportunity to acquire and measure skill and knowledge against a recognized IT Industry benchmark. They will also be able to attain expertise on IT Service Management and End User Technical Training amongst other courses.