TechCamp kicks off in Nairobi

The camp, organised by the US State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy, is hosting participants from several countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.

It is the first time a TechCamp has revolved around health, and also the first such event held in East Africa.

During the camp civil society will work with local and international journalists to discuss challenges, with the experts educating them over low cost, easy to implement technology solutions.

Speaking during the launch ICT principal secretary Joseph Tiampati on behalf of the cabinet secretary Fred Matiangi said enabling civil society to use technological solutions would enable it to better communicate with government.

He noted that governments were witnessing intense political pressure in regard to many challenges that are global in nature, including climate change, food security, healthcare and scarcity of fresh drinking water.

“In my view, initiatives like TechCamp facilitate the articulation of some of these challenges and forging with the most viable strategies to address the same,” he said.

Tiampati added that the country and the region continue to face various health challenges, especially in delivering affordable and effective healthcare, hence the need for such camps.

He told participants the government was involved in a series of programmes targeting various agencies and private sector players to participate in the e-health strategy, including working with Kenyatta National Hospital on a comprehensive ICT implementation roadmap.

The two-day camp will also discuss other topics, including open data and visualisation, voice-enabled platforms for communities for to express themselves, open MRS, medical records tools, mobile data collection, mapping and spatial data.

Also attending is US ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec.