Tech Expo Kicks Off
The 2011 JKUAT Tech Expo, an annual exhibition, staged by students to showcase inventions they have developed during their course of study at the University opened at JKUAT, Thursday October 13, 2011 with over 66 exhibits designed mainly to promote the ICT, engineering and agricultural sectors. Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Secretary for Information and Communication, praised JKUAT for instilling a culture of research in its curriculum that he said was well reflected in the way students were able to come up with useful inventions that could advance Kenya’s industrialization agenda. The Permanent Secretary told universities it was their duty to provide solutions to the problems facing Kenyans and noted that it was easier for researchers in developing countries like Kenya to invent since such countries were afflicted by numerous social and economic problems, a fact he said that could make research easy to tackle. More…
2011 Freshmen in Campus
Hundreds of new students have today Wednesday April 27, 2011 started reporting for their first year university education at JKUAT. The over 4,000 students, some accompanied by their parents/guardians, went through the simplified registration process assisted by University staff.
The students, both admitted through the Joint Admission Board and self sponsored programmes, add to the growing number of students currently pursuing various degrees at the University. As a public university, JKUAT was allocated about 1,200 JAB students from the 24,221 students who will join the institutions this year under regular programmes. The registration process continues throughout the week alongside orientation to be capped next week by one-on one interaction with the Vice Chancelor, Prof Mabel Imbuga.
This year’s candidates are drawn from those that sat the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 2009. The cut-off point for male students is a B of 63 points while that of girls is two points lower (62). A total 81,048 candidates scored C+ in 2009, the minimum entry qualification. A total 20,073 students who sat the examinations in 2008 joined the universities at various dates last year. They had scored mean grades of B plain of 65 points and above.
With the demand for higher education ever rising in the country, students who are excluded by this JAB cut-off but meet the minimum admissions criteria are given an opportunity through the self sponsored programmes. However, recent debate has emerged as to whether the programme should be scrapped and all qualifying students admitted under one regime.
To address challenges of inadequate facilities in public universities, the government has been exploring the possibility of private universities absorbing students under its sponsorship. Currently, the seven public universities and 13 constituent colleges have proved inadequate to absorb all those qualifying for higher education.
Regional Renewable Energy Course for Civil Engineers
The rush by the country’s energy experts to explore new areas of energy sources to mitigate against the high cost and unreliable conventional energy sources is receiving momentum. At least Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology has already embarked on two separate and promising research and training initiatives to tap into the country’s abundant but unexploited renewable energy with the potential to supply cheap and reliable energy particularly to Kenya’s 90 percent of the rural populations who live in darkness with no access to modern energy.
Hon M. Lang'at, Asst Minister for Energy (centre) at the University Biogas plant. With him from right, VC, Prof. Mabel Imbuga, MD, EATTA, Mr. Rimbere, and Director GTIEA, Mr. Khasiani
In the first project which is planned to commence sometime this month and run for four years, JKUAT has teamed up with two international organizations – Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to scale up rural electrification through the exploitation of a number of renewable energy sources including wind, solar, biomass, mini waterfalls that will provide energy to majority rural people, and thus drive them to productive economic activities with the potential to narrow down poverty levels. JICA will provide funding for the project that will be used to acquire modern equipment for the program’s research while JKUAT will be tasked to undertake research as well as train appropriate personnel to service the renewable energy industry. Read more…
Universities Advised to Retain their Best Students
Prof. Abdulrazak gestures during a presentation
Kenyan universities have been urged to come up with schemes of retaining their best graduating students to boost the country’s pool of highly skilled human resources.
The Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST), Prof. Shaukat A. Abdulrazak, regretted that graduating students with higher potential were easily getting poached by foreign universities, thereby ending up working in those countries.
He said for the country to realize its Vision 2030 economic blueprint, high caliber personnel are required. He challenged professors to put in place mentorship programmes to prepare graduates to take up roles in pushing national agenda.
Prof Abdulrazak was speaking Tuesday March 8, 2011 at JKUAT during the oral presentations of shortlisted proposals for the 3rd Call for Science, Technology and Innovation (ST&I) grants. The NCST was established in 1977 and is mandated to advise the Government on all aspects of ST&I and it administers the Grant.
The Grant support research and innovations in priority areas in relation to Vision 2030, Medium term plan and Sector plans. At total of 36 public and private institutions are funded.
The thematic area for the 3rd Call (2010/11) is “Food Security and Climate Change” with a total of 28 proposals set to receive support. One such is “Collection and Molecular Characterization of Wild Edible Mushrooms in Kenya” by Dr.Justus M. Onguso (JKUAT), Dr.Lexa G. Matasyo (Egerton), Dr. J. Mutisya (KARI) and DR. Wanjiru Wahihenya (JKUAT). More…
JKUAT Selected to host Pan African University’s Science and Technology Theme
The Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology has won the right to host the East and Central Africa regional institute of the Pan African University (PAU).
The Institute on Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation will be hosted at the Main Campus in Juja and the first batch of postgraduate students will be reporting later in September. Making the announcement at the 43rd Senate meeting held Tuesday February 22, 2011, an elated Vice Chancellor, Prof Mabel Imbuga, thanked the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology for having confidence in the University.
The privilege to host the institute was bestowed on JKUAT after it emerged the best suited for the program among Kenyan institutions offering postgraduate education and research. The Institute will focus mainly on the three thematic areas, namely; Basic Sciences (Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, Physics and Biology), Technology (Civil, Electrical, Electronic, Mechanical, Computer Engineering, Chemical and Industrial Engineering), and Innovation—generating technology and knowledge products and developing them for the marketplace.
The PAU is an initiative of the African Union aimed at spearheading the revitalization of higher education in the continent. It is composed of five regional institutes, one located in each of the five regions in Africa. In the region comprising 13 countries, Kenya’s nomination to host the region’s institute was endorsed by the Heads of State Summit held in July, 2010 in Kampala, Uganda. Read more…
27 University Radio Interns Commence Field Attachment Under the Farmer Voice Radio Project
A total of 27 university radio interns (URIs) commenced their internship under the Farmer Voice Radio (FVR) Project from 14th February 2011. These interns were deployed to 17 districts in Central, Western, Nyanza, Coast and Eastern provinces in Kenya. Others were deployed to various radio stations such as KBC, Pwani FM and the project country office in Nairobi. This followed a successful one week training and orientation programme held from Monday January 31, 2011 to Friday February 4, 2011 in JKUAT Audio Visual Room.
The students were drawn from the departments of horticulture, Biomechanical and Environmental Engineering Department, Food science and Technology and physics Departments respectively. The purpose was to familiarize the URIs with FVR and its operations enlighten them on what they are expected to do during their period of attachment, and motivate and mentor the URIs before been deployed to the various locations. Read more…
Ericsson Widget Awards 2011
Ericsson Widget Awards is a global competition to inspire both aspiring programmers and hardcore coders to come up with fun, useful and engaging widgets for mobile devices. Show off your creativity and compete for a total prize pool of 30,000 EURO and a trip to Sweden for the prize ceremony in April.
You only need basic skills in HTML, Java and CSS to let your creativity loose and make a fun, useful, useless or just nutty widget. If you manage to charm the jury, you just might be the one to win!
The total prize sum is 30,000 EURO! See the rules of the competition at www.ericsson.com/widgetawards. Please submit your contributions before the submission deadline March 1 2011. Start making your widget and register to the competition today
- Register to the competition
- Define your idea for a widget. What is a widget?
- Develop the widget. Read Opera Mobile Widgets development process on how to get started.
- Test your Widget on Opera Widgets Mobile Emulator.
- Submit your widget here
The advantages to the developers/companies other than the prize money will include:
- Visibility and promotion
- Possibility to distribute apps in selected markets on commercial basis – e.g. revenue share
- Insight into new technologies and trends
You can find sample code, libraries and full documentation on Opera Widgets from Opera Widgets SDK. For more information visit the competition’s website or find them on Facebook.
Students cast votes to elect new union officials
Students casting their votes
The two week intensive student campaigns came to an end with the students going to the polls on Thursday October 14, 2010 to elect their leaders. Just like the recent Parliamentary by-elections and the Constitution referendum, this year’s Jomo Kenyatta University Students Organization (JKUSO) elections adopted the IIEC approach of using technology to transmit election results. The ICT Department provided personnel to help transmit results electronically to ensure transparency with no possible incidences of fraud. The Assembly Hall was the central station where the tallying was conducted. The returning officers brought the election results from the various polling stations and were relayed electronically. The whole process of tallying of votes and declaring winners took a record time of 4 hours as opposed to 7 hours as witnessed in past elections. The peaceful elections that recorded no incidences saw Kasina Emmanuel emerge the winner for the position of Chairman in the student council. Other members of the council include: Sam Wanyoike as the Secretary General, Gitobu Dennis as the Finance secretary, Muchao Gideon – Academic Secretary, Macharia Muiruri –Catering and Accommodation Secretary, Entertainment Secretary – Aroko Dennis, Games & Sports Secretary – Timothy Muthuuri Kaimenyi.
Students stage a successful Tech Expo
Who’s Smarter Now?: Mr. Eric Omwando Opiyo receives an award from VC Prof. Imbuga after his Online and SMS Fuel Prices Monitoring System emerged tops during the maiden Tech Expo.
Students pursuing various degree programmes displayed an amazing wide range of innovations during the first Technology Expo to be held at the University, a pointer to the goldmine that is the creative talent among students.
The 2010 JKUAT Tech expo was held on October 13, 2010 at the JKUAT main campus. The event was graced by guests from the industry. Among the guests present was Kaburo Kobia from the Kenya ICT Board, Mr. Pius Busera from Safaricom Ltd. The University had in attendance, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mabel Imbuga, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. Esther Kahangi, the University-Industry Liaison Officer, Eng. Benson Kariuki and the University ICT Director, Dr. Joseph Wafula. Read more…
JKUAT Endeavour Open Day 18th September 2010
College Feed Group presenting their project
This year’s open day for JKUAT Endeavour was held on September 18, 2010 at JKUAT main campus. The day marked the end of the Web Application Development Course that was held in the month of June – July 2010. The event started with opening remarks from Dr. Waweru Mwangi, Director Institute of Computer Science and Information Technology – JKUAT. He thanked the organizers of the event, the students and the guest judges who spared their time to participate in the event. He put emphasis on the issue of support and continuity of projects after prototypes had been developed. He emphasized the importance of universities creating linkages with the industry. Participants were encouraged with the fact that most web inventions were initiated by students in class. The web is supposed to be interactive, a concept that has now taken root in the social web.
Guest lectures were delivered by:
1. Web 2.0 and social media – Alex Mwaura
2. Do it different – Samuel Kamochu
3. Freelancing and mobile application development – Solomon Kariri
4. Web applications – Mark Mwongela
5. Google maps – Jeremiah Kamau
Student groups presented their projects before a panel of judges composed of Mark Mwongela (Verviant), Samuel Kamochu (Safaricom), Alex Mwaura (Creative Edge) and Andrew Ketoyo (Creative Edge). Winners were announced at the end of the competition. The winning group was College Feed. The team presented a social media web application integrating Google maps to display event venues. The runners up were the Jazika group with a web application for sellers and buyers of second products. The second runners up were the Online Academy group with an application for helping students revise for examinations. Read more…
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