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{
"id": 1475548,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1475548/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Dagoretti South, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. John Kiarie",
"speaker": null,
"content": "the Chief Executive Officer and the Board of Directors. It also ensures that the members of staff and the Board of the former Authority that is in office continues to be members of staff and the board of the new authority. Clause 67 of the Bill revokes the State Corporation, which is the KOTDA Order of 2012. These clauses are important to give confidence and assurance not only to the public, but also to the people who are already serving under KOTDA. This will ensure they know that the establishment of the Technopolis Bill will not render them obsolete or jobless. However, more importantly, Konza's ongoing operations do not stall or cause transitional issues. In conclusion, I urge Hon. Members to support this Bill so that we can have a comprehensive legal framework for the establishment of a technopolis in Kenya. This will enable us to accelerate the knowledge economy and innovation, as well as advanced science, technology, and innovation through technological hubs, thus positioning Kenya as a global technological hub. This Bill also creates a technopolis development authority, which will be responsible for the development, governance, planning, management, improvement and maintenance of every technopolis that shall be established. For the benefit of Hon. Members like Hon. Raphael Wanjala, whom I know are very keen to know where the world is heading to, I will report to this House. As we speak, we are already in what is being referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). This means that three industrial revolutions came before it. But where was Africa when we were mechanising in the First Industrial Revolution? Where was Africa when electricity became a driver for the Second Industrial Revolution? Where was Africa when computers were taking over in the dot- com revolution that we call the Third Industrial Revolution? When we are coming into this 4th Industrial Revolution, Africa ought to take its rightful place. This Bill can midwife this country to a place where Kenya takes a pole position in this new race that shall be driven by data. As we speak today, data representation is a great concern. I can see people utilising artificial intelligence technology, like ChatGPT, in their hands. Which data is in those gadgets that we are using? It totally misrepresents Africa because we have not fed data into those language models and data sets that are driving the revolution. The Continent might find itself in a very dangerous place. Africa may be totally wiped out of the data representation race if we do not take steps like the one we are taking with the establishment of a technopolis. Most importantly, in a technopolis, we should give the opportunity to the people in this country, especially the young and innovative Kenyans, to be a part of developing, collecting, collating and organising data that will drive and fuel the 4IR. We will be giving opportunities to our young people. More importantly, we will be onboarding our data onto the world platforms in the formation of language models that will inform the 4IR. Hon. Temporary Speaker, we do not want a situation where our young people are condemned to what I call digital plantations. Africa suffered. Africans in the diaspora suffered when there was colonisation and the slave trade. Our people were condemned to cotton plantations. We were just discussing the Coffee Bill. When the white man came to Kenya, our people were condemned to coffee plantations. In this digital race, we ought to mitigate a situation where our people are just consumers of technology at the tail-end, but are not involved in its development. We do not want our young people to be left with just data entry and annotation jobs in the digital world. We want our young people to play a critical part in the development of the technologies that shall inform the future. They should be the ones who are creating the applications that will be used, even by this Parliament. Recently, we were discussing how this Parliament ought to onboard itself to new technologies to enable us to communicate better. However, we are all depending on technologies that are developed outside this country. However, we know our people are well placed, well informed and knowledgeable to be part of the development of not only the technology, but also driving the data, data sets, and language models that shall inform the 4IR. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}