Youths challenged to use technology for their growth

Machakos Deputy Governor Francis Mwangangi during the forum. [Victor Nzuma, Standard]

 Kenyan youths have been challenged to take advantage of technology to advance their skills so as to catch up with the rest of the world.

This was discussed during a workshop dubbed 'Advancing Democratic Governance Through Technology ' held in Nairobi.

The workshop was attended by participants from ten African countries under the sponsorship of 'International Republican lnstitute' (lRI).

The organisation's program manager in Technology and Democracy, Amanda Zink, urged the youth to use technology not majorly for entertainment but bring more sanity in the society globally.

"Technology is today being used to change governance for greater heights globally and is high misuse of it stopped" she stated.

Among the participants was Machakos Deputy Governor Francis Mwangangi, who said technology was the key pillar in the modern world that many countries could not do without it.

He equally echoed Zink message that the youth more utilized technology positively for a better achievement other than just light matters.

Mwangangi gave an example of Machakos County Government which he said had been positively transformed by modern technology through various avenues like that of revenue collection.

Mwangangi however, regretted that in some countries where democracy was yet to thrive technology was dwindling due to interference by powers be.

"Such countries should rise up to the occasion and give freedom to technology users to further their data knowledge in the right way and stop suppressing them" he added.

Timothy Were, a digital expert from the State department of information, said many countries currently depended on the digital economy despite misuse of the technology by a few elements.

The participants were drawn from Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Togo, Rwanda, Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire.