The Kenya Internet Governance Forum is set to take place on Thursday, 30th June 2022.
The event is an open and inclusive multistakeholder forum that annually brings together over 250 industry stakeholders representing government, the private sector, civil society, the technical and academic community, and the public to discuss Internet Governance and local ICT policy issues.
This year, the event will be graced by Christopher Kemei, Senior Director, representing the Director-General, Communications Authority who will give a keynote address on the event theme. This year’s global IGF theme is ‘Resilient Internet for a shared sustainable and common future’. KIGF theme is aligned to the global IGF theme and will respond to the local context including the upcoming 2022 general election. Sub themes included in the panel include internet access, data governance and privacy, cybersafety and emerging technologies.
The session on data governance and privacy will be led by John Walubengo, KICTANet trustee who was part of the data protection task force that steered the development of the Data Protection Act 2018. He will be joined by the Data Protection Commissioner, Immaculate Kassait, Executive Director at Amnesty International, Houghton Irungu, Head of customer policy at Safaricom, Sharon Holi, and the Chief Executive Director of KENIC, Joel Kabiriu.
The forum was preceded by several events during the Kenya IGF week. During the IGF week, KICTANet convened meetings on women data protection for civic participation, meta engagement on privacy, the Kenya youth IGF, and dissemination of CIPESA reports on disinformation and data governance.
Also preceding the KIGF was 7th edition of the Kenya School for Internet Governance (KESIG), a KICTANet capacity-building initiative together with its partners. KESIG aims to empower a critical mass of people to meaningfully engage, contribute and participate in ICT policy-making discourse in Kenya, regionally and globally. This year, KESIG had 118 participants reflecting gender and stakeholder diversity of the ICT policy landscape. The participants are expected to graduate during the KIGF.
“This year the KIGF will focus on discussion around the resilience of the Internet in the wake of the pandemic and emerging rise of cybersecurity incidents,” Grace Githaiga, KICTANet CEO and Convenor. “The need to raise awareness among citizens on cyber hygiene is now more critical than ever.”
The event has been sponsored by development organizations, international and local private companies. The title sponsors are the GIZ, Communications Authority, and Meta. Others include Safaricom, Afrinic, FCDO, Afrinic, CIPESA, Afrinic, Tespok, KENIC, CIPESA and Liquid Telecom.
KICTANet has convened the Kenya IGF every successive year since 2008 in partnership with industry stakeholders, and this year commemorates the 17th Edition. The outcomes of the Kenya IGF will feed into the African IGF and Global IGF later this year in Addis Ababa.
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