iVoting - Democracy at Your Finger Tips
Built In Kenya speaks to iVoting Founder Kelvin Roman
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the first edition of Built In Kenya, a newsletter that profiles Kenyan tech founders, highlighting their startup journey, products/services, and helping them reach a wider audience.
In today’s edition, I speak with iVoting founder Kelvin Roman and discuss his vision for creating tech-enabled free, fair, and accessible elections.
Coming from a recent electioneering period, this conversation felt contextual, as we soul search as a nation on the way forward to ensure and guarantee peaceful and credible elections in future elections.
I was especially thrilled to speak with Kelvin about his choice and determination to take on what most feel is a hot potato sector.
What is his motivation? Why is he so convinced he has the answer to Kenya’s technological voting needs?
Let’s find out below.
Regards,
Founder, Built In Kenya
About iVoting
iVoting is a universal voting platform designed to be a lasting global solution to all voting modes - including surveys and opinion polls, to achieve free, fair, credible, convenient & secure voting. This coupled with its ease of use brings convenience to the voter to their doorstep. The system is designed for everyone regardless of location, race, class, and network coverage.
Built by: Kelvin Roman
Year founded: 2018
Website: ivoting.co.ke
Funding: Self
Founders/Employees: 1
Interview with Kelvin Roman, iVoting Founder
Built In Kenya: Thanks for speaking to Built In Kenya. Let's start by discussing your professional background and why you became a startup founder.
Kelvin Roman: I have a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. The reason I decided to become a startup founder is that there are a lot of problems in this world that need to be solved. And the employment market is shrinking day by day because there's a lot of saturation. Everybody these days is doing either I.T. or computer science, but the problems remain. So, I decided to be a startup founder to solve these problems because we are the architects of our problems and also the architects of our solutions.
Built In Kenya: Did you have this urge to solve problems from a long time back, or is it after you got into the tech market that you started seeing ways of solving problems?
Kelvin Roman: It was immediately after I joined campus in 2014 that I decided to become a startup founder. I always took a bit from Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. They are still my role models up to this day because they are the pioneers of our industry. I also wanted to drop out of school, but my mother had other intentions for me, and she ensured I finished school. So being a startup founder has been in me since day one on campus.
Built In Kenya: Let's talk briefly about what you're building. Could you provide a brief overview of iVoting?
Kelvin Roman: iVoting is the first commercial product I have built. It is a universal voting solution designed as a global answer to all the ills faced by manual voting. My vision is to conduct Kenya's elections using iVoting and usher in a new age of electronic voting because the technology is already there, it is mature enough, and we can do it.
Built In Kenya: What makes iVoting different from existing solutions?
Kelvin Roman: If you take a look at the electronic voting system of the United States of America, it is static, only constrained to that voting environment. iVoting does not need to be customized. It can take any form of voting or method in any country. That broad use case design gives us a competitive edge over other voting platforms and is why I am very keen on the term "universal voting platform."
Built In Kenya: Let's get into some details. How does iVoting work? What is the voting process?
Kelvin Roman: iVoting is modular. First, it has different accounts for different users who have different permissions. The two main accounts are the admin account and the voting account.
An admin account will login and create a poll, add the aspirants, add the voters, or invite the voters to initiate the voting process.
As a voter who has been added to the poll, you will receive a link via SMS to set up your voting account. The setup process takes around ten seconds. After setting up your account, you can proceed to vote.
You will see all your polls on your dashboard in your logged-in account. Select which poll you want to vote in and click on vote. The results are instantaneous, reflecting in real-time on all other sections of iVoting, including the statistics section, the observer section, and the admin section.
Based on our pilot projects, the voting process takes someone new to the system just 30 seconds to sign up and vote.
Built In Kenya: We all know that voting is a bit of a tough nut to crack, especially national voting. Why did you choose to solve this specific challenge?
Kelvin Roman: In the university I was in, there were always issues with voting. Usually, it took around three days to vote, including counting, which was a very tedious and expensive process. When you consider all the universities that do the same, it's a huge problem.
Then there is the Kenya general election. Last year you witnessed that it took several days from the time of voting to the day we received the results and the president-elect was declared.
Those are the issues that motivated me to tackle the challenge of voting. I decided to start by targeting universities because, in Kenya, you have to take things slow, unlike the European or American markets, where you can launch and gain global adoption.
In Kenya, you must build and gain trust at a grassroots level before seeking a national platform, so I decided to start at the university level.
In 2020, when COVID hit, I started approaching other institutions like KMPDU and LSK to see how iVoting could streamline their voting exercises.
It is a long road to gain trust, but I am determined to get to a place where the Kenyan government can use the iVoting platform to conduct elections in Kenya.
Built In Kenya: Where do you see iVoting in the next 3 to 5 years?
Kelvin Roman: In the next three years, I am preparing the platform to possibly conduct the 2027 election. The platform already has a voting mode for the 2027 Kenyan general election, a simulation of the voting done in Kenya. I hope to demonstrate to the government how iVoting works, showcase its benefits, and hopefully get a chance to play a role in the upcoming election, whether to conduct the diaspora elections or a by-election.
Built In Kenya: What does success look like for you and iVoting?
Kelvin Roman: Running the Kenyan general election would be a massive milestone for iVoting.
However, I also want it to have a global presence because many countries need a system like this.
In countries where other solutions fail, I see it as an opportunity to go and take the good news of iVoting.
Built In Kenya: Now that you mention the global elections market, what are some of the shortcomings you see in that industry, and how do you see technology, especially the kind of technology you're building, solving some of these challenges?
Kelvin Roman: The biggest challenge is political interference, not just in Kenya, but in other countries too. If we remove the aspect of politics and think about it logically, we will see that electronic voting offers more advantages than manual voting.
Political goodwill and interference is the biggest challenge iVoting will face because we must win the trust of politicians, including those who want a system where they have control over the outcome. This challenge isn't unique to Kenya but is prevalent across Africa and the world.
Built In Kenya: There's been much talk about using blockchain technologies for voting. Could you give us your opinion on that?
Kelvin Roman: iVoting utilizes a custom blockchain that guarantees the system's voting data security. I'm all for blockchain technology in voting because it is a tried and proven technology that continues to prove its usability and utility in various use cases, not just voting.
Built In Kenya: Let's discuss the Kenyan tech startup industry. One of the things I've noticed is that it's pretty fragmented, and everybody is doing their own thing with no common ground where founders can collaborate or network. What are other characteristics you've noticed about the Kenyan tech startup scene?
Kelvin Roman: Number one, it is very promising because the industry is coming up and coming up fast, despite current domination by the fintech subsector.
It is also true that the industry is fragmented. In contrast, the American and European startup scenes have a roadmap on how to do startups. They have investors lining up, know where to approach them, and how to negotiate terms.
In Kenya, the story is different on the ground. Before you get an investor, you must toil for years sometimes. Then there's the apathy Kenyans have for Kenyan products, with most preferring to use foreign-made tech products rather than locally-built ones.
Built In Kenya: Considering these challenges, what would you say could help improve the startup industry in Kenya and make it better for startup founders like yourself?
Kelvin Roman: The only startup product that achieved countrywide adoption is M-Pesa, but Safaricom backed it.
If the startup scene in Kenya is to grow, investors also need to look at independent founders trying to make a difference in local communities and the country at large.
We must also do more to standardize various startup processes like funding, networking, and mentorship.
Lastly, we need to create a cohesive environment, a sort of brotherhood between founders, where founders can link other founders to resources that help them grow and succeed.
Built In Kenya: I agree. There's a lot of potential in the startup community coming together. For example, in the U.S., many startups are funded by former startup founders who became successful.
Let's switch to what you have learned in your startup journey. What's one mistake you made as a founder that you want other people to know about and avoid?
Kelvin Roman: Normally, as a developer, you look at the product first, but I have learned a very painful lesson that marketing should be number one. If I were to do this again, I would start with marketing. Get iVoting into the hands of as many people as possible, then move from there.
Built In Kenya: That's a great lesson. Despite these challenges, what keeps you going? What gets you out of bed every morning to keep working on iVoting?
Kelvin Roman: As a startup founder, you must be crazy sometimes. My motivation is Elon Musk. When he started SpaceX, he had a specific amount of money, invested it all, and the tests kept on failing.
But when he was about to run out of cash, one of the tests succeeded. If he, the wealthiest person on earth, can make risky bets with all the money they have and keep going, I can also do that.
I know that, similarly, iVoting will catch a break, which will make this journey worth it. That belief and hope are why every day I wake up to code it, add new features, improve security, and market it to get it into the hands of more people.
Though it might not be now or in two years, the vision will come true one day.
Built In Kenya: Anything else you would like to add that we've not spoken about?
Kelvin Roman: Yes. iVoting is open for funding. I am seeking investors to partner with to take iVoting to the next level. My contact details are on the iVoting website and Twitter @_iVoting.
Built In Kenya: I end every interview with a 60-second elevator pitch opportunity to pitch your product or service to potential customers, users, and investors. Please take the next sixty seconds to highlight why iVoting matters and what it offers your target market. The clock starts now!
Kelvin Roman: Being a Kenyan citizen, I have witnessed the things that come with manual voting. I have seen the lines, the chaos - the good, the bad, and the ugly of the voting process.
iVoting takes the ugly out of the voting process and provides an elegant alternative.
You can vote from anywhere using any mode at any time, and it will be secure. You are guaranteed that whatever candidate you choose is the candidate that will be reflected in the system.
The system is fully auditable, ensuring that the election is truly free, fair, credible, and secure. These features are available in perpetuity - not just once, not twice, but for life so that our children will not have to experience the ugly consequences of disputed elections.
Built In Kenya: Thank you for speaking to Built In Kenya about iVoting and sharing your vision for better elections in Kenya and the rest of the world.
Written and edited by Dan Mbure
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