Al Kags

The project to launch digital villages across the Kenya has kicked of with the Kenya ICT Board calling for applications for entrepreneurs who would like to run digital villages to apply for the training support, which is phase 1 of the Digital Villages project.

Essentially, a digital village is a cyber cafe in the rural areas that offers services to people there such as access to government services (e-government) and other business services. With digital villages, there will be no reason for a battered person to go and get frustrated by the police or be forced to bribe for services. There would be no reason why people would come to Nairobi from Nyamira District for example to get their NSSF dues or do a business search or such. They will be able to transact such business from wherever they are.

The digital villages project being run by the board, was conceived by the government – specifically under the leadership of the former Minister for Information and Communications, Mutahi Kagwe and his PS, Dr. Bitange Ndemo (who is very passionate about this project). The current minister, Samuel Poghisio has supported the project strongly since he came on board this year.

The project is being rolled out in three parts. The first part is the training, where 1500 entrepreneurs from every district in the country will be trained on how to run a digital village, business processes, the internet, what it takes etc.

There will be a  Revolving Fund that will facilitate the  starting of the businesses  by the entrepreneurs using a small financial facility.

While the entrepreneurs are runing the businesses, the Board will provide both IT Support (where the entrepreneur is assisted to maintain the computers in his centre and such skills are transfered to him) and business support (where the entrepreneur will be given capacity to manage his books and such).

This project is particularly useful to the creation of wealth and employment, especially because of the fact that it gives the local people an opportunity to get into such areas as outsourcing (PS Ndemo has been on record saying that Kenya’s next census will be made easier by digital villages).

Also, the ability of Kenyans to create content online that is particularly relevant to them and then to the rest of the world is strengthened immeasurably.

Watch out world: in a few short years young people in kanyariri, bungoma, Malindi and many other places will be building highly relevant applications online. Indeed, in not to long, Dr. Ndemo’s dream of seeing someone recording local dances and putting them online under some fancy banner for sale  – “Kenyan fertility dance” would come true.

To apply as an entrepreneur, one needs to fill this form, Call for Applications ICT Board and send it to the Kenya ICT Board. This is the notice that was placed in the newspapers.