IT specialist with no hands types fast, thanks to Microsoft

Godfrey Ipalei, an ICT administrator and trainer at the Kenya Wildlife Service, can type up to 50 words a minute, create a spreadsheet, copy and paste data and do different tricks on his computer.

That, to some may not mean much, however, the unique fact about him is that he has no hands. He is also a Microsoft Office specialist champion and has overcome his disability to be able to work on a computer with ease.

Mr Ipalei is part of Microsoft and Certiport’s new campaign dubbed InspiredMe which is set to benefit more than a million Kenyans. They will receive IT training and certification by Certiport.

Microsoft has partnered with the Kenya National Library Service, Certiport, Gems Cambridge School and the ICT ministry to certify the million students in the next five years.

“This can help address the goal of ensuring that students are career-ready by providing 21st century technology training and certification,” said Warren La Fleur, Microsoft head of education business of the sub-Saharan region.

InspiredMe will be a private-public partnership aimed at growing the IT skills penetration in the country.

The ICT secretary Fred Matiang’i said the nature of acquiring knowledge is changing and in this digital age the definition of basic literacy urgently needs expanding.

‘‘Kenyan learning institutions have a responsibility to develop students into individuals who can thrive in an era of digital information and communication,” he said.

The training will be done in the Microsoft IT academies available in 27 library centres countrywide. Last year, the national library and Microsoft turned 60 library centres into technology academies. The programme is targeting the over 150,000 users of libraries across the country.

As part of the training, Certiport and Microsoft through Tabarin, have launched the Microsoft Office Specialist competition in Kenya.

The top four performers will represent Kenya for the first time at the worldwide championships in Texas in August. The competition will be held at the end of May, where the top Kenyan performers will battle it out with candidates from over 130 countries at the Texas finals.

The students will be part of the technology camps that will be held at Gems Cambridge School in Nairobi. The top performers in the competition from disadvantaged backgrounds will receive scholarships from Gems.

The launch of InspiredMe comes barely a week after the Presidential Digital Talent Programme, set to train and mentor graduates to tailor them for the IT sector.

The programme will see students get offers for internships and mentorship by international as well as local technology companies.

The first phase of the digitalent programme was financed by the private sector. The ICT authority is working in partnership with tech firms including Cisco, Microsoft, CIO East Africa, Bamba Group, Google, Huawei, Safaricom and the University of Nairobi among others to push towards an e-government that delivers public services online.

According to ICT Authority chief executive Victor Kyalo, building the capacity of Kenyan ICT companies hinges on the government’s ability to not only put the right policies and strategies in place, but in forming partnerships.

As part of growing the technology sector, the ICT Authority early this month signed a three-year funding project extended by the Government of Netherlands.

The funding worth Sh110.4 million ($1.2 million) is aimed at enhancing the export competitiveness of Kenyan IT companies and also towards the implementation of the ICT masterplan 2017. In January, the authority partnered with Oracle Technology Systems Kenya to raise the level of technical understanding and IT skills required for the deployment of e-government services.

IT company Cisco last year said Africa will generate $500 billion in revenue in 2020 if it adopts Internet connectivity for utility and service infrastructure in cities.

Dr Matiang’i said in a recent interview that Kenya plans to lay an additional 1,600 kilometres of fibre optic cable and once the digital migration is completed in June, it will start on building the LTE (4G) network infrastructure.

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