With the first time use of biometric voter registration kits, technology is certainly shaping up to be an important element in Kenya’s forthcoming elections. In this light Google has launched the “Kenya Elections Hub, to facilitate increased access to information leading up to and during the March 3rd voting exercise. “The requirement and need for information is more important now than ever before.

There are 29 million mobile phone subscribers and 14 million Internet users…Technology will be at the core of the activities around the election,” reiterates Joe Mucheru, SSA Ambassador and Google’s Country Manager, Kenya. As demonstrated by Ory Okolloh, Google's Policy Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, the site aggregates content—both articles and videos—from local and international news outlets, blogs and Twitter hashtags into one portal for ease of use by interested parties.

Similar platforms have been used in Brazil, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Mexico, Netherlands, USA and more recently in Senegal and Ghana. Accessible in both English and Kiswahili, through the “trends” tab, users can find out how a candidate fairs (by day, week and month) based on mentions across Google’s various platforms. The “toolkit” gives customized responses based on the user’s needs. For example, the best tool for a journalist would be the trends page while Google ads would be best suited for a media consultant.

Acknowledging that “this will be one of the most watched elections in the world”, Ory stated that the site will focus a lot on local content. She says, “It is important that we tell our story during this election.”In a press statement, the Google team shared that they’d trained local journalists, civil society and political parties on digital tools for elections, and partnered with local media organizations to support the use of Google+ Hangouts for interviews with candidates. Additionally, Google has provided the IEBC with open source technology that is powering their online voter tools, including registration confirmation online and via SMS, mapping the polling stations, and a developer API.