Nairobi ,Kenya 3rd -4th December, 2018: GESCI, in partnership with The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) and the Teachers Service Commission, met with the heads of 80 secondary schools implementing the African Digital Schools Initiative (ADSI) in Kenya.  Main activities of  the 2 day event included taking stock of progress made on transforming the 80 schools to become Digital Schools of Distinction (DSD). The heads mastered a new digital school self-evaluation tool which allows them to track their schools’ progress towards digital school status. The principals explored strategies to ensure effective school implementation of the next phase of ADSI (2019-2020) and discussed some of the key drivers of the programme such as (a) teacher professional development and design and development of open educational resources  (OERs) (b) ICT integration in STEM subjects and across the curriculum (c) ICT planning and equipment resourcing.  In addition, there will be a renewed focus by teachers on incorporating both project-based learning and the acquisition of 21^st century skills with their lesson plans.  During this month the 800 participating teachers from the 80 schools reached another milestone in their ICT-based professional development when they will be awarded a certificate for successfully achieving the “knowledge Deepening “ level of their ICT-based training. It should be noted that, as an ADSI teacher,  Maxwell Kayesi, holder of the ICT teacher of the year award (ITOYA) 2018 attended the event. The workshop provided an opportunity for students drawn from the four counties of  Nyamira,Kiambu,Narok and Taita Taveta  to present some excellent collaborative projects developed during the Project Based Learning sessions. The best schools were awarded Desktop Computers, Flash Drives and Power Banks. Marking the importance of this 2-day leadership training event, the CEO of GESCI, Jerome Morrissey, reaffirmed that the school principals were the backbone and chief instigators and supporters of ICT-led innovation in schools and that ADSI depended on their continuing support and active involvement.   There are four stages towards achieving Digital schools of Distinction status  - initial, enabled, confident and mature. Following the self evaluation and validation process, it was well noted a reason for celebration that 78 of the 80 eighty schools had fully completed e-Enabled status.      This professional training event is an essential feature of a wider implementation and institutionalisation of the ADSI programme in Kenya. The African Digital Schools Initiative (ADSI) is funded by Mastercard Foundation across three countries in Africa – Kenya, Tanzania and Côte d’Ivoire. ADSI is supported  by the Ministries of Education, Science and Technology of all three countries