July 12th 2019

By Cheruiyot Korir

The Government has adopted over thirty innovations made by interns attached to Ministries, Departments, and Agencies under the Presidential Talent Program (PDTP) to improve public service delivery.

The Principal Secretary for ICT, Mr Jerome Ochien’g said, the program that started in 2015, saw the government incubate three winning innovations from the second cohort of interns which are; Damu Sasa, Workers on Tap and Digitalent Management Portal to provide efficiency in delivery of services to citizens.

Mr Ochieng who spoke at the Kenya School of Government today when he presided over the launch of the fourth Cohort of 400 interns said the Government has launched the White box project, a hub to support innovators who seek government help to actualize their ideas.

The Principal Secretary said the government is determined to support PDTP program to design, build, and entrench ICT capacity in the public sector to ensure ICT effectiveness and efficiency in service delivery. He said, 900 interns who have graduated since the program started are currently implementing their skills and experience in different sectors of the economy.
He said, unlike the first three cohorts who were recruited from the field ICT, the fourth cohort of interns has a composition of graduates who have been trained in various fields such ICT, Communication, Law, Medicine, Built Environment, Agriculture and Education but have a great passion in the use of ICT.

He added that, the interns to be placed in the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, are expected to play a critical role in the digitization of government processes such as the revamping of eCitizen portal, Huduma Centre, NTSA, eHealth, Education, land registry, roll out of Digital Literacy Programme (DLP), and revamping of most of the Ministries websites.