Kenya to host ministerial conference on innovation
As interest in integrating ICT in education grows, Kenya is set to play host to a ministerial conference that will discuss innovation.
The event, Innovation Africa Summit, is organized by AfricanBrains, a division of the international Brains Network Group who are dedicated to attracting investment into education and technology in Africa through building public-private partnerships.
The summit will be under the patronage of the Ministry if Education, Science and Technology.
AfricanBrains Managing Director John Glassey said in an interview that the summit is expected to bring together Education and ICT sectors government officials from more than 40 countries on the continent.
“During last year’s summit in Kampala, Uganda, more than 220 government officials were in attendance. Nairobi’s conference is hence expected to bring in more people,” he said.
The conference is being supported by companies such as Microsoft – who are the main event partners – Samsung, Lenovo, Huawei, and Canon among others.
The summit will be riding on the successes of previous summits that have been hosted in Nairobi during the last 12 months.
Such include the just concluded UNCTAD 14 Ministerial Conference and the World Trade Organization ministerial conference in December last year among others. It also comes at a time when Kenya is preparing to host the 6th Tokyo International Conference of Africa’s Development (TICAD VI).
“We are encouraged to be working with African Brains who have established this powerful meetings-based format whereby such engagement produces genuine output and purpose,” Matiang’i said in the statement.
The summit’s aim is, among others, meant to promote greater investment into education in Africa and stimulate key sectors for information, communications, technology, innovation, scientific research and e-business.
“This means that we shall be focusing on ICT for education, e-skills, developing the knowledge economy and African digital content among others.”
The summit comes at a time when public primary schools in the country have started receiving laptops as part of the Government’s 2013 Manifesto.
www.africanbrains.net
