By Our Reporter
Kenya Literature Bureau (KLB) have partnered with Estonian digital firm StarCloud LLC to digitize books and make them available to learners in school in the recent partnership deal between Kenya and Estonia in transforming education digitally in the country.
Speaking during then event on September 10, 2021 in Nairobi, the visiting Estonian President to Kenya Kersti Kaljulaid affirmed her commitment to support Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education in the country to enable access to Learning and Teaching Materials (LTMs) for all learners.
“Estonia is a relatively young nation, but we have focused on building a country where each generation should grow digitally,” noted President Kaljulaid.
She added that in achieving this objective, high literacy rate will be required hence need to build a highly skilled national teaching workforce and creating a learning environment that supports achieving quality learning outcomes for all children.
“With the launch of the Opic platform, a technology developed by an Estonian ICT start-up – Star Cloud, Kenya is now working towards digitizing the school curriculum. This will allow both teachers and students access to online education, providing the opportunity to create an egalitarian school system,” she added.
On his part, KLB Managing Director, Victor Lomaria, expressed his appreciation of the engagement, singling out the quality output and speed of conversion of books into ePub3, HLML5 and interactive digital content formats.
“The support KLB received from the consortium of StarCloud LLC Estonia and Risk Africa Innovatis Limited when developing interactive digital content for Class Seven (7) and Grade 5 Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) Learning and Teaching Materials (LTMs) demonstrates the technical expertise and commitment they have towards ensuring learners access quality online materials for academic excellence. It also adds value to Kenya’s Digital Literacy Projects,” he said.
Under the alliance, Liquid will work towards mapping schools across the continent, enhancing the collected data to include the availability of broadband connectivity. In keeping with the worldwide initiative of Project Giga, Liquid has successfully connected 4000 schools to the internet across Africa.
The company aspires to continue empowering schools with digital technology and has further mapped 150,000 schools through the continent.
In Kenya, Liquid has connected eight schools to internet via six VSAT connections, one Fibre connection and one Wireless (P2P) in partnership with UNICEF.
It is now working on the next phase of the Giga initiative called ‘Accelerate’. The aim is to connect more schools to explore diverse technologies, business models, and regulatory arrangements, and also to provide broadband connectivity and unlimited internet to schools and communities.
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