Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre Links Ministries’
Although the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre is the progeny of a collaboration between the Ministry of Communications (MOC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), it recently found its sphere of influence greatly expanded when it played host to the Community Information Centre (CIC) project.
The CIC project, an ICT4D initiative of the Government of Ghana, was begun in order to bridge the ICT divide between the rural and developed areas of Ghana by equipping the rural areas with ICT infrastructure, training and access to information.
Its implementation took the form of construction of the physical centres by the Ministry of Local Government, provision of ICT equipment by the Ministry of Communications and information and content development and management by the Ministry of Information and National Orientation.
This type of inter-ministerial group effort is perhaps the first of kind, and the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre was pleased to be a part of this ground-breaking partnership by hosting the two Capacity-Building Programmes for Information Officers for the CICs.
The training programmes were held using the GMIC’s state-of-the-art ICT Labs and lasted for two weeks each in their entirety. During the course of the programmes, a total of 60 District Information Officers were equipped with skills in ICT usage, multimedia packaging and e-journalism. The aim of the programme was to enable the officers to partner with the CICs in the districts to develop information in a digital format and disseminate it to the citizens in the district.
At the conclusion of the training programme, a closing ceremony was organised during which the director of GMIC, Mr. Solomon Asante-Dartey, urged the participants to employ their newly-gained knowledge in educating the districts and encouraging ICT innovation in Ghana from the grassroots level.