ShareBy Ghadeer Ghloum
KUWAIT: Under the patronage of Minister of Communications Fahad Al-Shula and Director General of the Central Agency for Information Technology Dr Ammar Al-Hussaini, CAIT launched the “Sahel Lab” initiative on Tuesday. Hussaini said the Sahel app is one of the most important projects in Kuwait’s digital transformation journey. The idea of this app is to include all government services in one place and facilitate citizens’ interaction with the government without the need for an agent.
Hussaini said the goal of the government’s digital transformation is to provide a unique service to citizens in Kuwait. “The new concept today is ‘Sahel Lab’, which means to listen to what the people have to say about the Sahel app and involve them in the app’s development process, because the goal of the app is to serve citizens. The idea of ‘Sahel Lab’ is that it is a framework under which creative ideas from Sahel app users are brought together, through which the most creative ideas are identified to develop the app,” he said.
“Today, the focus is on ideas from the youth, followed by ideas from distinguished app users, developers and last but not least, government officials who interact with the public to understand their interests. The decisions made in this committee will be implemented, so we hope that through the ideas presented today, Sahel app will reach new heights,” Hussaini highlighted, delivering best regards on behalf of Shula.
Abdulkarim Ali Al-Fawzan, Head of the Digital Services Planning and Development Department at CAIT, explained to Kuwait Times that Sahel Lab collects citizens’ ideas because Sahel app is citizen-centric and is going to be developed from their perspective. He further elaborated that communication with people is essential, and one of its important aspects is raising Kuwait’s ranking in UN indicators. According to him, Sahel app aspires towards becoming a comprehensive electronic government application where users deal with the entire government not just specific entities.
Jassem Al-Mutawa’a, entrepreneur for technological solutions such as the Sahel application, told Kuwait Times this program was designed by citizens for citizens. “Sahel was developed by Kuwaiti youth working within the government, which demonstrated their capabilities. Today, we are opening the opportunity not only for the government but also for collaborations from outside the government, like the banking and oil sectors,” he said. Mutawa’a also explained that the reason for naming the workshop “Sahel Lab” is because it includes conducting experiments for the Sahel app.
