Kenya is set to launch Africa's first data portal, President Mwai Kibaki announced on Wednesday at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi. It comes as the government continues to push on with its information technology and telecom industries, which are leading Africa in new technology. The new portal, the first of its kind on the continent, will enable Kenya to release data for research purposes, which the government hopes will empower the information economy. “The data in digitized electronic format will be available via a web port opendata.go.ke. This portal becomes the largest governmental data portal in sub-Saharan Africa,” a statement from the ministry of communications said. Kibaki said in his speech that “this portal contains data in a flexible and user friendly format that will allow users to view and compare information at national, province and county levels.” Open data portal provides information on six main categories: education, energy, health, population, poverty as well as water and sanitation. “I call upon Kenyans to make use of this Government Data Portal to enhance accountability and improve governance in our country,” added the president. This becomes another huge milestone for Kenya, especially after having a technology muscle in mobile money transfer applications, among other numerous innovations. With the availability of data, developers will be able to mash it up and come up with innovative applications that will boost the country's economy. BM
