Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja, on Tuesday, May 2, inked several deals, including a Ksh40 million funding from Mozilla, a non-profit behind the Firefox browser.
In a statement, Sakaja noted that the funds would aid his administration in adopting a digital economy and support different startups.
Separately, the Governor also signed a deal with Moringa School to retrain Nairobi County employees on basic computing and software engineering.
The training, he added, would extend to over 5,000 youth across the city.
According to Sakaja, his administration also entered into a working memorandum with the Adanians Lab to establish an Artificial Intelligence (AI) centre of excellence and train youth on AI and blockchain.
The first-time governor also indicated that Baraza lab had agreed to work with his administration to establish a creative and media centre, supporting storytelling for county programs as well as startups and establishing Innovate Nairobi Web.
"All partners will support in curation and execution of Innovate Nairobi Tech Week taking place from August 9 to August 12, 2023.
"We are committed to working closely with the innovation ecosystem stakeholders to establish Nairobi as Africa’s innovation hub and a leading producer of technology," he explained.
The new deals are expected to spur development in the city and fulfill his campaign pledge of creating job opportunities for the youth in Nairobi County.
Besides creating job opportunities, the deals are expected to equip Nairobi residents with job-related skills in information and technology and align with President William Ruto's goal of creating a digital economy.
To fast-track the introduction of the digital economy, Ruto, through the Ministry of ICT, started rolling out free internet in various parts of the city including in Muthurwa Market.
