The government has partnered with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and timbuktoo Africa Innovation Foundation to offer digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and entrepreneurship skilling across the African public sector and entrepreneurs.
The partners, whose projects initiative is to advance Africa’s inclusive digital and green transformation are set to launch the Africa Centre of competence for Digital and Artificial Intelligence Skilling (a regional centre) at Kenya School of Government and the timbuktoo GreenTech Hub at Konza Technopolis on Friday December 6th this year.
The skilling will be undertaken by the government through the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, UNDP and timbuktoo Africa Innovation Foundation.
Ms. Anna Nylander from the Centre of Competence at UNDP said the Africa Centre which intends to equip at least 100,000 public servants with essential digital and AI skills over three years will use a cohort-based curriculum to provide tailored training and mentorship to participants.
The training will start with representatives from Kenya, Uganda, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Tanzania and Nigeria with plans to include other African nation the upcoming year.
She said the Centre’s vision is to accelerate inclusive digital transformation and revolutionize public service delivery across Africa by enhancing the digital competence among the staff to address inconsistencies and inefficiency in service delivery.
Nylander who was speaking during an Engagement meeting with officers from the Directorate of Information and Broadcasting and Directorate of Public Communication at a Nairobi hotel said they will train public servants on digital skills and AI upskilling.
She said the programme will foster innovation and entrepreneurship, increase digital transformation projects and establish regional collaboration network on public sector digital skilling among others.
“The trainings will help to increase efficiency and productivity in government, increase sustainable regional collaboration technologies and access to technologies in the continent,” said Nylander.
While expressing confidence that the skilling will also increase citizen engagement and satisfaction with public service delivery, the Digital Transformation Analyst further noted that the centre will improve governance, boost Africa’s global competitiveness.
In her address, Mercy Kimalat, UNDP Consultant and Chief Executive Officer Association of Start-ups and SME Enablers of Kenya (ASSEK) said timbuktoo GreenTech Hub targets to mobilize and invest USD1 billion to support 10,000 startups and scale 1000 of the startups over 10 years with the aim of impacting over 100 million livelihoods and to create USD10 billion value on the African continent.
Kimalat said the timbuktoo hub will focus on startups, creating job employment for youths while involving people with disabilities and the marginalized.
“The hub will connect with universities where ideas are being backed up to innovation ecosystem so that we can achieve one common objective instead of having fragmented ecosystems,” she stated.
She disclosed that timbuktoo GreenTech Hub has 10 hubs in various countries which deal with Health Tech (Kigali), Agritech (Accra), CreativeTech (Cape Town), MineTech (Lusaka), GreenTech (Nairobi), FinTech (Lagos), Manufacturing Tech (Addis Ababa), TradeTech (Cairo), EdTech (Dakar) and SmartTech (Casablanca).
Ms. Kimalat said the timbuktoo Green Hub in Kenya is dedicated to driving green industrialization through innovation in renewable energy, green and climate technologies and urged people who want to apply for the programme to visit https://www.undp.org/kenya/timbuktoo-greentech-hub-accelerator-programme
The CEO said Kenya was selected to host the timbuktoo green hub due to its commitment to enhance renewable energy and strong focus on sustainable development, having strong innovation and ecosystem and a robust ICT infrastructure.
The Africa Centre for Competence is a collaborative initiative between UNDP, the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, the Kenya School of Government, Microsoft and Google.
While the timbuktoo GreenTech Hub is part of the timbuktoo initiative, the continent-wide effort is meant to support African startups through sector-specific hubs across Africa guided by Sustainable Development Goals and powered by UNDP to leverage Africa’s youth to lead the fourth industrial revolution.
By Bernadette Khaduli