Denis Gikunda is the senior program manager for African localization for the internet search giant Google. Localization lies on the critical path for Google’s strategy for Africa: getting more users online by creating a vibrant internet ecosystem that is relevant, useful and, most of all, accessible to Africans. Gikunda manages the African languages program from Google’s offices in a high-rise in Nairobi, Kenya.

Thicke: Can you tell us what brought you to Google Africa?

Gikunda: After spending nearly eight years in Canada, studying at McGill University and working for Electronic Arts, I chose to move back to my home country, Kenya, to take up a localization role at Google. As a software engineering and entrepreneurship major in the new millennium period, I had a natural inclination ...