The department of ICT & E-Government in Kenya’s Uasin Gishu County has unveiled various ICT foundational structures to help the county in optimizing operations for growth and development in the region.
Surpassing other Counties in ICT implementation, the County has established a first of its kind Data Centre that will offer opportunities for shared infrastructure and hosting of applications on a shared costs model with neighbouring countries.
The Data Centre is aimed at eliminating vendor challenges that arise when handling government information as it will allow the county to host any applications, including the Revenue Collection System.
In partnering SIT technologies, the county has plans underway to establish a Data Recovery Site and will continued to train ICT staff on how to use the Data Centre effectively to grow the region.
A Local Area Network (LAN) and IP Telephony Infrastructure has been availed in the centre to help ease communication and will allow for multi-call configuration, to be used for conference calls at the offices with plans to extend infrastructure to other areas.
Also set up is an IP Camera Surveillance system at the Headquarters to help in enhancing security, with plans to cover the entire town with CCTV cameras by partnering the private sector on a revenue sharing framework.
With the health sector being a key focus for the County and the country as a whole to reduce unnecessary deaths, a Health Management Information System has also been established to track commodities and funds in health centres.
As Kenyans continue to look to county governments to help them grow their businesses, Uasin Gishu County has established a Geographic Information System (GIS) to help capture administrative boundaries and data, development of roads, agriculture land use and produce maps for the public.
The Rift Valley County has implemented the projects as part of their 2013-2014 ICT Strategy, with the Data Centre creating new standards for other counties in the country who are still behind in the use of ICT for development.
