2. Can Technology drive Development?
Open Data in Development: Kenyan Case

3.  Introduction
 Status of Open Data in Kenya
 Open Data and Development
 Way forward
 Conclusion

4.  Kenya Open Data Initiative, was
launched on July 8, 2011 by President
Mwai Kibaki.
 This has made key government data
freely available to the public through a
single online portal. Some of the first
datasets to be released include;
› The 2009 census,
› national and regional expenditure,
› key public services

5.  The website allows for visualizations and
downloads of the data and easy access
for software developers.
 Tools and applications have already
been built to take this data and make it
more useful than it originally was.

6.  KODI is made to improve governance and implement the
new Constitution’s provisions on access to information. As
of November 2011, there are close to 390 datasets that
have been uploaded to the site, with a plan currently in
place to upload more data over the next year. There
have been over 17,000 page views and over 2,500
dataset downloaded and embedded to various websites
and portals. There are now over a hundred requests from
the public for new datasets, and there is a clear demand
for more data to be made available.
 The goal of opendata.go.ke is to make core government
development, demographic, statistical and expenditure
data available in a useful digital format for researchers,
policymakers, ICT developers and the general public.

7.  It's a platform for innovation, that will generate
economic and social value: from savings and
efficiencies within government, service delivery
improvements and citizen feedback systems to
new wealth and jobs generated in the private
sector.
 It enables data-driven decision making:
parliamentarians, policy makers, civil society
organizations and individuals can see progress
and make accurate, informed decisions on
issues that affect people's lives.
 It's the foundation for improving transparency
and accountability.

8.  Raise awareness to the general public to
raise effective demand for Open Data
 Institutionalize Open Data- Policy, laws,
academia
 Infrastructural and capacity
 Promote Public-Private Partnership on
Open Data

9.  Open Data provides a platform to make
the government citizen centered, more
transparent and accountable.
 For a country where this is at a nascent
stage the general public needs to be
vigilant to sustain this initiative beyond
the current regime.

10. John Ndung’u Gitahi
Executive Assitant
@iLabAfrica-Strathmore University
www.ilabafrica.ac.ke
www.strathmore.edu
jndungu@strathmore.edu