CS ICT Presides over Pre-deployment Briefing of 400 Digitalent’s Cohort VI Interns

The Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of ICT, Innovation & Youth Affairs, Hon Joe Mucheru has today presided over the pre-deployment briefing exercise of 400 Presidential Digital Talent Programme (PDTP)Cohort VI for the Financial Year 2021-2022.

DigiTalent, the brand name of the Presidential Digital Talent Programme (PDTP), an internship programme that develops the ICT talent pool in Kenya through a collaboration between the public and private sectors is to be implemented by the Ministry of Information Communications and Technology (MoICT) through the ICT Authority (ICTA).

The pre-deployment exercise at The University of Nairobi was a culmination of their induction which started on the 8th of November 2021. The 400 Interns were recruited from all 47 counties, 32% of them being women.

The interns are set to receive a monthly stipend of KES. 25,000.

CS Mucheru urged the cohorts to be “the army that should be telling Kenyans about all the planes that have landed safely – telling good stories on all the government projects happening across Kenya”.

“There is too much silence yet so much good that is happening around. Be custodians of the truth, respect your seniors and take advantage of the opportunity offered to you through this programme to increase your chances of succeeding tomorrow”, said the CS.

The CS also said that the country is changing for the better and that digital skills are needed to enable effective roll out of the overall government of Kenya agenda and inspire economic growth. He added that the government of Kenya is committed to foster a globally competitive and adaptive ICT workforce through national Programmes such as Ajira, Digital Literacy Programme and PDTP to respond to the future skills demand.

The Acting ICT Authority CEO Dr. Ronoh Kipronoh said that the Authority is implementing strategic national ICT programmes and projects such as the Digital Literacy Programme (DLP) across 24,000 public primary schools, provision of internet and devices, digitization of five (5) Billion government records, automating government services, digital literacy capacity building for 20 million citizens and broadband connectivity to rural areas.

Dr. Ronoh urged the Youth to fully participate in government agenda for a better country and future.
The National Youth Chairperson Deborah Bubi asked the Digitalent interns to champion the implementation of government programmes and develop a positive mindset as they serve the country.

In addition The National Youth Council, Roy Sasaka asked the youth participate in the elections of the National Youth Council which will be conducted digitally in due course.