From left. AIESEC Strathmore President Lucy Kawira, AIESEC Kenya President Phil Oduor, and Dr Bitange Ndemo

ICT can help devolve government services and facilitate economic activities, says Dr Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication. The PS was speaking at Strathmore University on Friday, 16th November 2007 at the opening ceremony of AIESEC Kenya's 8-week long project on Education & ICT dubbed 'Destination MDGs'.

‘Destination MDGs' project aims to positively impact the youth by offering them a platform of self-discovery and learning ICT. In attendance were members of AIESEC Strathmore, AIESEC Daystar and AIESEC Catholic University.
 
"60% of Kenya's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is in Nairobi. ICT can be used to dissipate economic activity. For example, wananchi can use digital villages to trade shares at the stock exchange through the Nairobi Stock Exchange Wide Area Network," Dr Ndemo said.

"ICT can be used to capture live data at the village level and aggregate it nationally. At the moment, the government uses estimated data. Availability of up-to-date data will enhance national planning and better decision making," the PS said.

Dr Ndemo challenged the students to think innovation. "Government is facilitating development of infrastructure. But government does not innovate, "he said.

"ICT is opening many opportunities for enterprising minds. We are putting infrastructure in place. The next thing is content. We are very little local content. And this is where you come in as young entrepreneurs – to develop content," he said.

The PS said that Kenyans are innovative but they lack confidence and thus don't take their innovations to the market. "Although we should learn from others, we are also innovative. Kenyans have come up with ‘mpesa' – a service used to send money using mobile telephony - for example. And now, European mobile telephony companies are coming to study how local companies have implemented cross-border mobile telephony because it has not be done elsewhere," Dr Ndemo said.

The PS told the students that if they wanted to be successful, they have to challenge the status quo which means embracing change. He observed that the youth are at an advantage when it came to embracing change and thinking innovation because they have few inhibitions.

Dr Ndemo emphasized the need to intensify research especially on how to deal with the youth so as to harness their potential. Others who spoke at the event included Dr Kate Gateo, patron AIESEC Kenya and Director of University of Nairobi's School of Computing & Informatics; Dr Kevit Desai, Governor of Kenya Private Sector Association (KEPSA) and a board member of AIESEC Kenya; and the Managing Director of Multiple Choices, Mr Al Kags.

Dr Getao's presentation was on globalization. She defined globalization as a global pool of talent accessing a global pool of resources. She added that education has to go beyond teaching of skills in order for people to reap fits full benefits.

Mr Desai said making ICT affordable was still a challenge. But he noted he was happy to see more women in ICT. Al Kags said Africans and Kenyans in particular should see challenges as opportunities. He said that in order to be a leader in innovation one needs to, be a critical thinker. "Have strength of mind, have a vision and be able to question the status quo," Al Kags said.