Kenya celebrated its 59th Jamhuri Day celebrations which was themed around Technology and Innovation, a futuristic theme in line with the country’s aspirations. The event was graced with note able key leaders from the tech community. Some of these leaders are Alex Okosi from Google and Youtube, Kojo Bwake from Meta and Phyliss Migwi from Microsoft.
Over time, Kenya has proved to be leading many other African countries in the tech space with friendly policies to both its locals and multinationals. This has been evident with Google and Microsoft opening up both offices and hubs in the country creating numerous job opportunities for the citizens. President Ruto highlighted this citing Kenya as a hub for opportunity in the tech space.
He reiterated the construction of the digital superhighway which will be 100000km long. This is a National fiber optic network that is aimed at providing internet access to thousands of homes in the country. The digital super highway is also a main component in the Kenya Kwanza manifesto and would be an interesting development to see going forward.
The president also emphasized on the digitization of Government services that is to happen in the next 6 months. This is to enable Kenyans access Government services without having to queue or leave their houses. One notable service mentioned was the providing of the subsidized fertilizer through an e-voucher to eliminate brokers and cartels.
One exciting promise made was the envisioning of 1million jobs in the technology and digital space going into the future with spaces like the e-health being mentioned. Content creators were particularly excited with the president mentioning the talks he has had with Meta to see the monetization of their content.
“We are exploring ways of making the benefits of monetization of online activity available to Kenyan content creators for our digital entrepreneurs.” -President William Ruto.
The celebrations ignited hope among the young people and the tech community at large and it will be exciting to see the implementation of these plans including those outline in the manifesto and the 10year ICT Grand plan that was unveiled by former ICT CS Joe Mucheru.
