President Ruto outlines how this year's Jamhuri Day celebrations will be different

President William Ruto has now revealed that this year's Jamhuri Day celebrations slated for December 12, 2022 will be different from those held in past years.

Speaking on Tuesday during the launch of the Virtual Desktop Programme at Kabete Technical Institute, the President said that, unlike past celebrations where guests and Kenyans would converge for political speeches and parades in-between entertainment, his first Jamhuri Day will be marked with a special focus on technology and innovation.

He said that the guests gracing the event would be mainly from the technological fields such as global giants Facebook and Google as well as other international companies to help shed light on ICT advancement in the country.

"I deliberately decided that this year’s Jamhuri Day is going to be profiled properly and themed as the innovation Jamhuri Day," President Ruto said.

"Instead of inviting the usual people who we invite, I have decided to invite our technology leaders worldwide from Facebook and Google, so that we can share with them the opportunities that exist in a world that is increasingly becoming digital."

The Head of State explained that the move stems from the country's need to boost its efforts in embracing technology and creating opportunities for its place in the digital space.

He said that as part of efforts to fulfilling the campaign promises of a digital superhighway, his administration has already launched the ‘innovation week’ ahead of Jamhuri Day which is to be marked on Monday next week.

"We are going to roll out the digital superhighway to make sure that young people in every part of Kenya have access to the internet and they have internet-ready devices that can assist them to connect to the job market," he stated.

President Ruto was speaking hours after he presided over the opening of the Kenya Innovation Week at the Sarit Expo Centre in Nairobi.

The Commander-in-Chief consequently laid emphasis on his administration's commitment to digitise the country by ensuring all schools, shopping centres and all homes connected to electricity have access to the internet.

"The government is going to roll out 100,000 km of fibre optic to make sure all 29,000 shopping centres countrywide, all our 27,000 schools will be on the internet," he said.

"We also want to lay our fibre network on the Kenya Power transmission lines so that 8.5 million homes that are connected to electricity are equally connected to the internet."