A team from Oracle Corporation earlier on Monday paid a courtesy call on the Cabinet Secretary for Information, Eliud Owalo at the Ministry’s Headquarters in Nairobi.

Speaking on behalf of the team, Senior Vice-President, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Product and Industries, Mr. Scott Twaddle said that Oracle Corporation is planning to establish a Data Center in Kenya, which will be the first within the East African region.

“We are making this investment which is quite substantial. The future is very bright here, we want to help you achieve your objectives. This is going to be the first data center in the broader region and we are very committed to ensure that we meet the data protection requirements,” stated Mr. Twaddle.

Oracle Corporation is the only cloud provider to have a European Union Sovereign Cloud. The corporation works closely with policy makers.

CS Owalo informed the Oracle team that the Government is rolling out a major digitalization program and is targeting to install 100,000KMs of Fiber cable, set up 1,450 digital hubs countrywide, connect 25,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots, and digitalize government services noting that currently, within the first year, 12, 641 services have been on boarded on the digital platform.

The CS further remarked that the government has also embarked on digital entrepreneurship by assembling affordable smartphones for Kenyans to facilitate virtual consumption of Government services.

The government is looking at the operational environment to review laws, policies and regulations, in line with emerging trends and technologies like AI, IoT and determining how to respond to cyber insecurity.

“All these interventions, will require partnerships with the private sector. Our primary Mandate should be to put in place an enabling policy, legal and regulatory framework to enable the private sector to thrive and also partner with government in the roll out of digital initiatives. We welcome partnership with the private sector,” said the CS.

The Principal Secretary, State Department for ICT and the Digital Economy, Eng. John Tanui acknowledged that investments from Oracle Corporation will empower the government, private sector and multinationals in data hosting.

The PS underscored the need to utilize the available sustainable power in the country such as hydro, solar and geothermal for running data centers, “we see geothermal as the future of empowering data centers.”