Disability is not Inability

:: The ICT Expo held at the KICC from 7th to 10th February 2007 was a great eye opener for the people with disabilities and their organisations..

Information communication technology has great potential in creating the so called universal access. Various traditional services are built within structures and environments that are not accessible to persons with various disabilities.

ICT as the world has realised has powerful tools that ensure services and information is adopted to enable PWDs to acccess and productively use. The ICT Expo in february brought together a forum to take stock of what we have and where we are going as a country. Various opportunities came up for persons and organisation for PWDs.

Various traditional services are built within structures and environments that are not accessible to persons with various disabilities. These include education, legal services, accessible communication services like emails and short text messaging....

The following is a brief executive summary of the National ICT MasterPlan. as defined by the Ministry of Information & CommunicatiuonTechnologies in Kenya.

Executive Summary

Although the Government of Kenya has for quite some time now placed a high premium on the eficacy of ICT as a development tool, it has not yet fully expolited the potentials of the sector, in part because of the current inadequacy of ICT infrastructure.

The government is therefore, currently implementing various policy initiatives and programmes to facilitate the development of the ICT infrastructure in particular and the overall sector.

The government is also actively restructuring the sector to provide an enabling environment for privatre sector participation in the rapid development and deployment of ICTs in the countery.

A summary of the National ICT Master plan currently under development which outlines the roadmap and implementation strategy by the government to make ICT a cross-cutting socio-economic enabler that is more accessible and affordable to the wider population including persons with disabilities.

Objectives of the National ICT MasterPlan are:

- Enhance Kenya's economic competitiveness through utilisation of its abundant human resources in business process outsourceing (BPO);

- Develop a knowledge-based society and thereby enhance the quality of life for wananchi (citizens).

- Ensure Universal access to ICT for sustainable development through Digital villages throughout the country; and

- Strenthen Kenya's learning opportunites and capacity to meet future technological challenges.

In Order to achieve the above objectives the government will implement the following strategies:

1. Expand infrastructure with the aim of making Kenya the ICT hub of Africa.

2. Develop Rural ICT centres to ensure awareness and applications of technology through out the country;

3. Aggressively reform and enhance ICT research and development in all institutions of higher learning through the setting up of industrial incubation centres to ensure linkages between industry and academia in the fields of both hardware, software development and value Added services (VAS).

4. Revamp and extend e-government through the country to ensure exemplary service delivery to citizens;

5. Encourage ICT entrepreneurship while discouraging the culture of dependency and unsustainable projects; and

6. Allocate sufficient resources for human capital development and training for the industry (with the emphasis on BPOs and VAS).

The Plan lists what the government considers the main pillars of an information based society. These include hardware and software development, connectivity, content and business outsourcing.

The programme also identifies a programme based intervention strategy to achieve the government's universal access objectives and make ICT services affordable to both consumers and business.


2. Overview of Sector Policy and the Regulatory & Institutional Framework.

3. Our Major Pillars to a Knowledge Society

4. Content.

5. Outsourcing

6. The Role of Government

7. Proposed/Ongoing Programmes by the Ministry.

8. The Way Forward.

Source the Ministry of Information and Communication

Teleposta Towers;

Tel: 254 20 250475 * 251152
Fax: 254 20 315147
Email: ict@information.go.ke
Website: www.information.go.ke

Category: Inclusion, education

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