AO: The excerpt from the article below highlights Bitange's announcement about the Kenya Open Data initiative at Pivot 25 which took place in 2011. The article quotes him as saying: "All the data you want, you'll find it there." Fast-forward almost 10 years ahead, we know that while the Kenya Open Data Portal was indeed launched in 2011, data on the platform was inadequate and quickly stagnated. Today, the Kenya Ministry of ICT is looking to review and revise its Open Data policy.
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"In the first week of July, Kenya's government will become the first in Africa — and one of the first in the world — to be completely data open. It will release online millions of pages of previously internal, often secret government documents. "All the data you want, you'll find it there," said Ndemo. He described the initiative in terms of allowing a government that faces a general election next year to demonstrate service delivery as well as to have a legacy project for President Mwai Kibaki, who is not expected to seek re-election. But the implications of such radical transparency for a government frequently ranked among the most corrupt in the world are immense. In an interview, Ndemo agreed that open government will "completely change the way the government deals with the public and will strike a huge blow against corruption. There has been some resistance — the Planning Ministry refused for a whole year to give us their data — but we have convinced them.'"
