Nairobi, 15th March, 2024
Nairobi County, Digital Economy and Startups sub sector in partnership with IBM Skills Build has completed the training of its first cohort of 1,000 youth on Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Data Science among other skills in a three-day technical webinar program.
” It has been a successful webinar and making significant progress towards our goal of empowering 10,000 youth. Technology is the way we are heading as a world. We trust that the skills you have learnt will enable you to upskill your digital technology and open opportunities for you to become digital entrepreneurs. This is one of the initiatives that H.E the Governor stands by and is underpinned on his vision of creating economic opportunities for the youth and Digital Economy and Startups sub sector’s long term goal anchored in County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2023-2027 of building tech talent that will support increased number of startups as well as talent for the ecosystem” said County Director, Digital Economy and Startups, Elizabeth Ndung’u.
The County Director went on to mention that digital training program empowers the youth to become catalysts for change, innovators who can leverage technology to tackle pressing global issues and ignite new ventures for startups and entrepreneurship
IBM and the African Advanced Level Telecommunications Institute (AFRALTI) launched the SkillsBuild for Students for Africa program which will help empower Kenyan youth to bridge the digital literacy gap, form a new talent pool created for 21st century jobs, enable them to plan professional careers and find jobs or even create their own start-ups.
IBM Skills Build led by Corporate Social Responsibility leader for Middle East and Africa, John Matogo shared that it is not often that one gets a chance to have such focused, facilitated learning and hoped that the youth participating had upskilled on their personal growth as well as tech skills.
IBM local training partner, (AFRALTI) led by Information Security and Data Networks Expert, Stephen Gachogu said ” This is the best time to have had this rich training program as you are all aware that the Government is undertaking digitization of all government services. This program is key for your own personal development or just to even fit in this Digital Economy”.
The participants took part in an online test that would award them a digital certificate upon attaining 80% pass mark. The tech training program had youth between the ages of 14 to 25 years participating from Nairobi, Mombasa, Eldoret, Nakuru, Thika among other counties and were also joined online by IBM trainers from South Africa and Egypt and Innovation and Digital Economy staff.
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