Truth be told, many government agencies or public institutions are(were) monuments of bureaucracies and manual ways of conducting business. However, today that narrative is changing. In fact some of the government agencies and public institutions are leading their counterparts in the private sector. In this piece, I want to celebrate two government institutions that epitomize the real digital government as we have been told by the current regime.

Kenya Immigration Department(KID) has been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the not so distant past but today, KID is one of the most reformed and digitized government departments. Listen, from the comfort of your home, you can now access all the services offered at Kenya Immigration….passport application, Visa application, Permits, passes, residence, citizenship to name just but a few of the services that  can be applied for online. Yes, there is the bit on having to go to Nyayo house in person to submit and do some follow-up but soon that too will reduce as the systems are fully operational. To be very frank that is  a phenomenal step by this government Department that I was privileged to work for from 2005 to 2014. I celebrate all the folks at Kenya Immigration for a job well done.

The second Institution I would like to celebrate is the University of Nairobi. I have been wondering how comes that UON has been ranked as the best University in Kenya and the region by several agencies in the recent past until this week when I sought to apply for a Bachelors of Law Degree. It really came to me as a shocker that all I needed to do was sit in front of my screen and create a profile from their online portal and voila I am good to apply for whatever course I need to. In fact I made the application from the comfort of my house over the weekend and even paid the application fee using my visa card… you can pay using Mpesa as well. Compare this with a near torturous process I have to go through at my current Institution that is indeed  a private institution that prides itself as the vanguard in communication studies. Anyway, long story short, I found these two institutions very forward thinking and thus wish to celebrate them here publicly for all and sundry to see.

Well done KID and UON.