Bitange Ndemo on digital villages

someone sought to know more about dital villages. I thought this was a nice answer from Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo. Please read and know that you can also walk to his office.......


The digital village is the vehicle to not only take technology to rural Kenya but to create employment to our rural folks through a bouque of services. It is also a conduit for trickling down the wealth from urban to rural areas. I know you may be wondering how this can happen.

Take for example the Ministry of Planning that spends in the upwards of Ksh. 600 million to collect household data through cross sectional surveys. You will need one half of these resource to pay youth in all constituencies collecting actual data over a period (longitudinal survey).

When the data is collected throughout the country, it makes it much easier to plan. Te data is updated continuously and there you create employment to the data gatherers. At the same time these village centers can be used as points of sale (in which case you minimize the impact of
scratch cards on the environment at the same time cut cost). Or simply wananchi streaming rural videos and creating a rural IPTV.

Just imagine availing the computer and the connectivity to 35 million Kenyans. The chances of innovation shall be highly enhanced at the same time you open the whole world to these people. A few learned ones would offer swahili lessons to foreigners wanting to visit Kenya (at a cost of
course). Na hii ni maendeleo. 60% of the GDP is resident in Nairobi. It is very noble to spread this through to Kaspul Kabondo, to Chepalungu, to Imenti South, to to Sirisia, to Kitutu na kadhalika. This will be the best way of devolving from the center and in five years nobody will be complaing.

If you this concept is not clear yet, please see me on the 10th Floor of Teleposta Towers any time after the 26th of November.

Regards

Bitange Ndemo.