Currently in it’s tenth year, the Connected Kenya annual summit won’t be held in Diani, Kwale as has always been the case. The ICT event held annually by the Kenya ICT Authority moves back to town, and will be held at the cultural hotbed that is Bomas of Kenya on 22nd October 2018. The theme of the summit being Building for Prosperity.
The ICT cabinet secretary Joe Mucheru emphasized on the need for private sector in Kenya to align with the Kenya Big Four development agenda by providing solutions to the country’s challenges. He called on private sector to assist in driving the conversation that will in turn be pivotal in transforming the country.
Previous Connected Kenya events resulted in the introduction of projects like Huduma Centres, E-Citizen Portal, Digital Literacy Program and the National ICT Master plan.
Kenya’s Big Four Agenda includes manufacturing, universal healthcare, affordable housing and food security and it will be interesting to see the kind of solutions that will be driven by the private sector in line with the government’s vision.
“The Kenya government has a mandate to create an efficient government by providing the right tools to give citizens services at the right time, quality, openness and fairness and at the heard of it is technology which will be used to harmonize service delivery,” said Mucheru.
Connected Kenya aims to involve both the public and private sectors in formulating solutions that will see the country design the next wave of tools and services to better serve Kenyans while at the same time being regionally competitive.
Innovation sits at the center of the big four agenda, and the government is communicating all the activities that it will be doing so that the private sector can be connected with the government to transform the country. At the heart of it is the ability to fast track things, such that what is expected to be achieved in 5 years can even be achieved in 3 years.