Microsoft presides over graduation of Kenyan women trainees
13 June 2008

The African Centre for Women, Information and Communications Technology (ACWICT) today hosted a graduation ceremony for 1,093 young women following successful completion of their training in ICT, Entrepreneurship and Life Skills.

The training conducted in partnership with Microsoft East and Southern Africa under ACWICT’s flagship program ‘Reaching the Un-reached’, enhances usage of technologies by women in the information age.

“The ‘Reaching the Un-reached’ program is designed to enable young women in the country to apply ICT-enabled entrepreneurship skills and training to generate employment and community development opportunities,” said Ms Constantine Obuya, ACWICT executive director. She said the community-based capacity-building initiative conducted with support of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential grant, trains women to work in their communities, thus contributing to improved social and economic livelihoods for their families.

With Unlimited Potential, Microsoft is committed to helping all people to benefit from information and communications technology that is accessible, affordable, and relevant to their needs said Louis Otieno, Microsoft East and Southern Africa, General Manager.  

Mr. Will Poole, Microsoft Corporate Vice President says the Unlimited Potential program aims to reach the next 1 billion people globally by 2015 by exploring solutions in areas that are crucial to developing sustained economic opportunity.

“By partnering with ACWICT to train the young women, Microsoft is focusing its efforts on transforming education, fostering local innovation, and enabling jobs and opportunities,” said Poole. He noted that by transforming education many challenges that range from lack of providing high-quality education, to shortage of trained qualified teachers; and lack of universal access to learning resources, would be addressed through transformed education.

He reiterated that a combination of quality content, partnerships, training, and broad access that is complemented with usage of appropriate technologies can transform education.

The ACWICT training targeting women aged 18-35 in the informal settlements and other rural areas in the country; was conducted in five Community Technology Learning Centres in Nairobi, Busia, Kisumu, Suba and Koibatek Districts.

ICT training was delivered using the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Curriculum while the component of Life Skills training was derived from the International Youth Foundation Curriculum. Business Management experts at ACWICT developed a curriculum that was used to train Entrepreneurship Skills.

Microsoft recognizes that it should through partnerships continue to make substantial contribution, towards enhancing capacity for development, so that Kenya can exploit its potential said Poole. “Our over-arching goal, together with our partners, is to make sure that technology supports and accelerates progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development in Africa,” he said.

Ms Obuya attributed ACWICT’s partnership with Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), Cisco, and Ministry of State for Youth Affairs (MOYA), Digital Solidarity Fund, and Technoserve as one that was facilitated by Microsoft following the company’s successful deployment of Unlimited Potential programme in Kenya.