Parents in Kenya no longer have to carry paper forms between hospitals and registration offices to register a birth, according to e-Estonia. At participating hospitals, the birth is notified electronically and the child receives a lifelong identifier. More than 270,000 newborns were recorded this way over two months.
The service was developed by Kenya's Civil Registration Services together with Estonian companies and the Estonian Centre for International Development (ESTDEV). Service-design firm Trinidad Wiseman interviewed hospital staff and other users before designing it and also wrote a handbook Kenyan agencies can use for other public services. ADM Interactive then built the service with the Kenyan registrar, working with the systems Kenya already had rather than replacing them.
A father at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet County told Citizen TV, "I filled the form within some 5 minutes,"
and said he could continue to the birth certificate the same day. Before, paper copies travelled to registration offices, and lost forms or typing errors could mean extra trips for parents.
Source: e-Estonia, . The text above is our own summary; the words in quotation marks are the source's.
What this means for an Estonian entrepreneur
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