Presidential Digital Talent Program set to be launched on February 3

This comes after the government through the Ministry of ICT requested all qualified students to apply for the programme since December 12, 2014 to January 9, 2015.

The PDTP is a programme that was initiated in the year 2014 by the Ministry of ICT and is being implemented by ICT Authority through a private and public partnership arrangement. The program is one of the key initiatives and project spelt out in the ICT Master plan and a key deliverable for the Jubilee government and the Vision 2030 Social and Economic strategic pillars.

This Public Private Partnership Programme includes local companies, multinational and public sector players. The Internship programme targets qualified ICT graduates. The Interns in government will serve on a variety of roles.

The programme also aims to provide a training ground to fresh university graduates in readying them to be the industry leaders and experts in the future.

With a mission to build the next generation of globally competitive ICT, leadership and technology talent that will transform Kenya through world-class service delivery to the citizens, the programme also looks at engaging citizenry through innovative and sustainable ICT skill development.

The programme also has a focus on ensuring that the Government has ICT competencies with requisite competencies to design, procure, implement and manage a sound ICT structure for effective service delivery. It will also ensure that the government has ICT culture transformation that treats ICT as a business in support of government service delivery objective and still provide a training ground for ICT professionals in the future and offer an affordable labour pool of freshly qualified individuals.

The programme is set to take a span of five years, which will be reviewed after 3 years. The initial pilot targets 200 interns for a period of 12 months. It is expected that the numbers will scale up as the initiative progresses in successive years to cater for County Governments.

Once implemented the programme will transform not only how ICT is managed in the government but also have a full impact in the entire economy in the long term, improve service delivery through effective use of ICT in government, create a pipeline of youths with desirable value and core competencies that will facilitate rapid economic and social change, increase youth employment and increase the GDP and have economic impact.