Gladys Wanga hosts 48-hour hackathon ahead of devolution conference
By Mabonga Makhanu, August 10, 2025On Sunday, August 10, 2025, Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga presided over a pre-devolution conference, the main highlight being a hackathon.
With two days remaining before the main devolution conference at Tom Mboya University, which will host devolution leaders for a three-day event, Wanga led the precursor event, whose main feature was a 48-hour hackathon aimed at building real tech solutions. Alongside the hackathon, the event also featured skating activities.
The event brought together various stakeholders from the tech industry. Among them was Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti, who shared that in 1992, she had done her thesis on artificial intelligence.
She also noted that Machakos County hosts the Konza Technopolis. Other stakeholders and sponsors of the hackathon included Microsoft and the Ministry of ICT, which was represented by its principal secretary.
Wanga praised the initiative, noting that similar activities should be part of future devolution conferences to ensure young people are actively engaged.
“I want, when we go in the next devolution conference, for such events to become a part of our conferences going forward so that we don’t say we are evolving young people,” Wanga stated.
Rewards to Hackathon winners
She further stated that winners of the hackathon would be granted free accreditation to attend the main conference, where they would also be given space at the county booth to showcase their innovations to participants, including the president.
“The winners will be accredited free of charge to access the conference, and we will even give you a small space in our booth to display to people what you are doing,” she said.
“We want the young people who will be winning this will also have an opportunity to be at the conference so that they can be seen and identified by President Ruto,” she added.
Wanga also noted that Microsoft had earlier announced that the winning teams would be invited to their innovation garage to gain more exposure and learn from industry experts, highlighting that there is much in store for them and that the future is promising.
“Microsoft also said they are going to take you to their garage so that you can also learn from them. There is a lot in store, and the future is very luminous,” she added.
Devolution conference
The 2025 Devolution Conference is scheduled to take place in Homa Bay County from August 12 to 15, 2025. This will be a significant event, marking the first time Homa Bay will host the biannual summit, which is Kenya’s premier forum for discussing devolution.
The conference will be held at Tom Mboya University and will be organised by the Council of Governors (CoG) in collaboration with various state and non-state actors.
The theme will be “For the People, For Prosperity: Devolution as a Catalyst for Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice” with the sub-theme “Re-engineering County Governments to Accelerate Development and Close the Socio-Economic Divide”.