President Uhuru Kenyatta, on Tuesday launched the Balozi app during the 17th Biennial Ambassadors’ High Commissioners’ Conference at Ukunda in Kwale County.
The mobile application, a first of its kind, powered by Rapid Communications Limited, enable the envoy to have seamless interactionwith the Foreign Affairs Office and the Cabinet Secretary.
Amina Mohamed, Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs, said; “ The Balozi app is the first of it’s kind in the world, connecting all the ambassadors together.”
While demonstrating the app, Aninda Dutta, Business Development Director at Rapid Communications Limited reiterated; “The Balozi app was developed with the key purpose of ensuring seamless communication between the stakeholders to facilitate prompt decision making.”
The President noted that the Balozi app would create a more private, and conducive interactive channel with the envoys. Additionally, through the use of the app, the envoy would be adopting the use of digital technology in accordance with the Jubilee manifesto.
The key features of the Balozi app include:
- Personalized user profiles: user can edit their personal profile, update their contact details, add their social media handles and specify their designation.
- Create user groups: an administrator can create custom user groups e.g. Middle East Group containing envoys in the UAE, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
- Instantmessaging: Balozi allows real time text-based communication and will alert users when someone is online. When members are offline, messages to a user will be available as soon as he/she comes online.
- Document, video, image and pre-recorded message upload: This feature allows a user to share documents (up to 5MB in size) for instant viewing.
- Event calendar: users can add upcoming calendar events and share with other members
- Feeds: will enable user to search for Individuals or locations and chat, filter feeds by events, display messages, notifications, status, events photos and videos from other users and enable users to add status, photos, videos or event to the feeds.
- Security: this is closed-loop secure app.
The president called on the diplomats to highlight the government’s achievements to position the country as a destination of choice for manufacturing, innovation and trade as Kenya gears towards attaining vision 2030.