In Kenya, citizens are being encouraged to engage digital platforms to report issues to relevant authorities - particularly when it comes to maintenance of infrastructure.

For example, #WhatIsARoad is a digital project started in June this year that asks road users to take a picture via their smartphones with their geo-locations on and tweet using the hashtag #WhatIsARoad. The data is aggregated using the crowdsourcing tool Ushahidi.

The project was initiated independently by individuals working in various tech companies and to date has seen over 500 Kenyans document the bad state of roads in the city and has achieved 22 million impressions on Twitter.

It has required no funding because of the application of free tools such as Twitter, Google Docs and Ushahidi.

The results have been positive so far, says Muthuri Kinyamu, a volunteer on the project who spoke to ITWeb Africa. "We have established which institutions are responsible for the roads with potholes and are engaging the relevant authorities. Its government so we have to deal with usual bureaucracy, but we're seeing quicker turnaround times in fixing potholes reported (2-3 days)."

Nanjira Sambuli, a Researcher and Consultant, who is also part of the project, added, "We need to be more demanding and do follow-ups in engaging with policy makers to influence policy. Let's engage with government... stop being afraid of taking the bold step to engage them and explain what we want to them."

Developing data analysts

Data analysis efforts can be championed by various bodies since Kenya passed the Access to Information Bill 2015. The president recently assented to the bill that will see citizens having access to information held by public and private institutions.

Although regulations have not been determined, it is a step towards opening up data within the government, which is the biggest data generator.

Since everything is being digitised, data can be easily analysed as opposed to dealing with manual evaluation. But this needs competence and experts in the field are concerned that there are not enough specialist skills being developed.

Data scientist Chris Orwa added "We don't [have enough data scientists], because it requires an intersection of skills that include mathematics, statistics, computer science, DevOps which are not offered as a combination in universities and colleges."