The Ministry of Information, Communications, and The Digital Economy has commenced the establishment of laboratories to scale up digital literacy.
Information, Communications, and The Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary (CS) Eliud Owalo while speaking during the launch of a digital laboratory at Maseno School in Kisumu County noted the initiative will boost digital literacy and skills amongst youth and members of the public.
According to Owalo, a total of 23, 000 devices are set to be installed in Schools, Universities, Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) institutions, Vocational Training Centers (VTCs), and village ICT hubs to facilitate the training as the government moves to ensure access to the internet through the digital superhighway project.
“We want our youth and the public at large to uptake digital skills so that they are relevant in the current operating environment,” he said.
The project now runs concurrently with the government’s agenda to digitize services after more than 6, 000 services were digitized under the E-Citizen platform.
“As we do this, we must correspondingly facilitate digital literacy amongst our youth and the Kenyan public and public sector officials to facilitate optimal uptake of the digital infrastructure we are putting in place,” he said.
The Ministry is also setting up a total of 25, 000 free public Wi-Fi hotspots spread equally across the country as the government prepares to launch affordable, locally assembled smart phones in August to ensure that as many Kenyans as possible make use of the digital infrastructure installed by the government.
