Digital skills are a prerequisite for reskilling the youthful workforce to benefit from any technology across all sector of the economy, as well as at the digital skills spectrum (basic, intermediate and advanced) as outlined by the “Kenya’s Digital Economy Blueprint 2019”.
The blueprint underpins that digital skills are not only an enabler for citizens to access digital technologies, facilitate individual competencies and mastery to use this technology to participate in, create, exhibit, distribute and market with various technological applications.
It underpins that they are key to spur digital entrepreneurship in sectors that include and not limited to housing (smart cities), universal health coverage and food security.
Computing technologies can be used to reframe profiling of housing by modelling cities, and urban spaces using computer graphics, computer vision (procedural modelling), visualisation and behavioural modelling.
With prowess and comprehension of 3D cinematography, youth can model the geometry of the housing landscapes in the 47 counties by generating digital content for populating urban areas through video games and films.
Through partnerships from Government Agencies such as the Kenya Film Classification Board’s (KFCB) Sinema Mashinani initiative which seeks to promote local film production at grassroots levels. By establishing film academies, KFCB and the Kenya Film School, a training institution.
The film academies can be centres of learning for youthful filmmakers, beneficiaries of Ajira Digital Programme and innovation digital hubs.
In the health sector, the interconnectedness of digital technologies provide youth with an enabling platform for collection, management and evaluation of health data.
The data can be used to build county-specific health data banks that inform the national health data bank on prevalence of county specific diseases.
The data banks can be structured to provide both preventive and curative procedural measures that inform policy.
Consequently, the youth harness digital proficiencies and create a niche by collaborating with hospitals that provide childcare services to create child friendly diagnostic applications.
With the lucrative agricultural sector, agri-prenuership marketplace is an untapped sector that can enhance food security while providing sustainable means of livelihood through digital applications.
The platforms can simultaneously provide instantaneous market information for all farmers and consumers within a county and progressively be replicated in other counties.
This would go along well in spurring the realisation of Kenya’s development blueprint, Kenya Vision 2030.
Nancy Marangu, communications specialist, Nairobi
