Information, Communication and the Digital Economy Cabinet Secretary Eliud Owalo has said that 1,450 digital Libraries being set up will spur digital job opportunities across the country.
According to the CS each ward in the country will get one digital laboratory as part of the Government’s plan to put up a digital superhighway in conjunction with Technical, Industrial, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Centres (TIVETs) or even at the village level.
“The purpose of this is to ensure that each youth gets adequate digital skills and secure digital jobs sourced by the government from global technological companies since there are no longer white-collar jobs,” said the CS.
Mr Owalo said there are a lot of opportunities in the digital space and that a lot of money can be made from the jobs and even business opportunities.
In addition to the Digital hubs, the CS said the government is establishing 25,000 free public wi-fi spots in its plan to ensure there is an affordable or free internet across the country.
“The Wi fi hot spots will start in the markets where our mothers and sisters are domiciled by way of itinerary trade, we want to move away from traditional way of doing business by harnessing technology,” added the CS.
The CS said that the government is also digitizing its services and has so far digitized 4200 service from 350 services accessed online three months ago even as it moves to replace the physical national identity cards with an electronic identification system.
“We are also going to unveil cheap smart enabled phone in the next two months which will retail at 40 dollars, this will be a game changer in this country as we are enhancing connectivity, access and leveraging on technology to increase number of people earning a gainful income,” elaborated the CS.
Awed by a young man who made a fortune from online platform after undergoing online jobs training, the CS encouraged youths to embrace the program so as to earn a living and support their parents.
“The online jobs will propel one from a learner to an instant earner able to gain huge income from online job platform,” CS encouraged the youths.
The CS made the remarks at the Eldama Ravine Technical and Vocational College during the launch of the Jitegemee digital library at the institution.
The ICT Principal Secretary Engineer John Tanui said there are many opportunities in different economic sectors that can be harnessed through the digital space.
He said the country has a huge population of the youth that is well trained and vibrant that the world is desiring to get their services through labour exchange.
“There are plenty of opportunities across world with talent gaps, we have the talent and you have seen in the recent past the number of presidents that are visiting our country, one of the key discussions they have is labour exchange, how to access our young people to be able to work for those nations from home,” divulged the PS.
He said digital connectivity will allow people to work remotely and that there are a lot of jobs that are now accepting people to work remotely.
Tanui added that Business Outsourcing is also a key sector where our youths can work from home and support top tier one companies in the world, earning a gainful income.
He said the government is targeting 94 TIVET centres where each can train 300 youths on online jobs and that this will create a potential income Sh1.6 billion annually to the economy.
The PS said they have companies that have a lot of jobs currently and are being linked with the 94 TIVETS.
“If we fully utilise up to a million young people on online jobs the income they will get will surpass the diaspora remittance we get annually,” said the PS.
On his part Baringo Governor Benjamin Cheboi thanked the president for the effort they are doing to put the youths to employment saying they will greatly reduce the pressure on the grass roots from youths demanding jobs from their offices.
He called on the CS to connect the public health facilities with internet so as to make the health services efficient.
Eldama Ravine Member of Parliament Musa Sirma called on the Ministry of Information to connect police stations with the internet saying they were still being run in an analogue manner.
He said his Constituency Development Fund committee will ensure they amend the CDF act so as to allocate money to the digital hubs so as to assure its sustainability going forward.
He pledged to supplement the Ministry’s efforts by putting up 11 more digital hubs across Eldama Ravine Constituency.
The launch was also attended by Trans Nzoia senator and chair of Senate ICT committee, Allan Chesang who encouraged the youths saying he made money through digital marketing.
Also present was Baringo County Member of Parliament Florence Jematia, ICT authority CEO Stanley Kamanguya and his KONZA Technpolis Counterpart John Paul Okwiri.
The digital hub which is domiciled at the college received 100 computers last December and has so far trained 80 youths who are benefitting by earning income from online platform.
The College Principal Eric Tanui called for improvement of internet stability and more online work platforms to engage the youths on training.
By Christopher Kiprop
