Over 250 stakeholders from various backgrounds, comparable to authorities, civil society, donors, teachers, college students, and personal trade consultants convened for the DataFest Africa 2024 convention, organised by the Aga Khan College (AKU) and Pollicy.
The convention, themed Alternatives for all: Harnessing Knowledge & Know-how for Africa’s Transformation celebrates the utilization of knowledge in East Africa and gives a platform for addressing and overcoming challenges that impede the event of Africa’s knowledge ecosystem.
Talking on the opening ceremony and on behalf of Kenya’s Workplace of the Knowledge Commissioner, the Deputy Knowledge Commissioner Oscar Otieno recommended AKU and Pollicy for making a platform that addresses knowledge use.
“Knowledge performs an important function in accelerating the ICT ecosystem. Enacting laws is only one step. The following step is guaranteeing efficient implementation and enforcement that are essential in guaranteeing the success of knowledge safety efforts,” he mentioned.
“Essential stakeholders in such boards should work collectively to boost consciousness, present steering and implement compliance of knowledge legal guidelines. This contains investing in capability constructing, coaching and know-how to assist knowledge safety initiative.”
The World Well being Organisation estimates that by 2030, knowledge pushed healthcare interventions may save as much as a million lives yearly.
“Aga Khan College is dedicated to proactive preventative healthcare by utilization of knowledge pushed strategies that sort out inhabitants well being points,” mentioned Farhana Alarakhiya, AKU Chief Knowledge Innovation Officer. “By the built-in digital well being report system, we’re utilizing knowledge to innovate from our cultural context to allow higher outcomes.”
For the reason that inception of DataFest Africa in 2019, the convention has celebrated knowledge science and its ever-evolving affect on the African continent.
“Regardless of important advances in use of knowledge globally, many international locations throughout Africa nonetheless lag behind in harnessing knowledge for social good. We due to this fact endeavour to make use of knowledge to assist engineer social change and this fifth version of the DataFest is a type of instrumental methods,” mentioned Phillip Ayazika, Pollicy Director of Applications.
