President Kenyatta wins prestigious ICT award

The International Telecommunications Union has given President Uhuru Kenyatta an award for promoting the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for development.

The ICT in Sustainable Development Award honours the contributions made by leaders, on behalf of their country, towards harnessing the potential of ICTs for sustainable development.

President Kenyatta was given the award for the apparent progress Kenya has made in ICT development and the important role technology is playing in achieving development and service delivery goals.

The award is also meant to encourage nations to seek technological solutions to meet national and global aspirations for a sustainable and inclusive future.

Speaking at the event held at the UN Headquarters on Saturday night, President Kenyatta said the government remains committed to mainstreaming innovations and ICT to enable growth and development of the country and the whole region.

“Our National ICT Master Plan and National Broadband Strategy outline our desired path to a knowledge-based economy where ICTs underpin service delivery, and provide the bedrock of our activities in critical sectors of the economy, especially agriculture, education and health,” said the president.

He further stated that policies enacted by the government would consistently focus on innovation as an essential step to enhancing growth of the ICT sector, saying plans are underway to launch Enterprise Kenya, a fund to encourage and support innovation in the country.

“This fund will be used to aid budding Kenyan innovators and start-ups to enable them get the necessary financial support to move from idea to start-up and from start-up possibly to market in good time,” said the president.

He said the fund would be reinforced by a “strengthened intellectual legislative regime, intense capacity building and mainstreaming of ICTs in the government’s service provision to enhance ICT growth in Kenya.”

President Kenyatta thanked the International Telecommunications Union Secretary General, Mr Houlin Zhao, for nominating ICT Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi to the Broadband Commission.

“I am certain that our country will bring, through him, additional energy and creativity to enhance the very necessary expansion of the broadband footprint across the developing world, especially as we move forward to secure sustainability for the developments we have so far achieved,” said the president.

The award comes months after Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru received an award for innovations in ICT and the use of ICT in improving service delivery through Huduma Centres.

Taken from Citizen Digital