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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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 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

1. Register to the competition
2. Define your idea for a widget. What is a widget?
3. Develop the widget. Read Opera Mobile Widgets development process on how to get started.
4. Test your Widget on Opera Widgets Mobile Emulator.
5. Submit your widget here

The advantages to the developers/companies other than the prize money will include:

1. Visibility and promotion
2. Possibility to distribute apps in selected markets  on commercial basis – e.g. revenue share
3. 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 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.

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.

The 15 student exhibitors were given a chance to present their projects to a panel of judges. In the end, Mr. Eric Omwandho Opiyo emerged the best with his Online and SMS Fuel Prices Monitoring System- a community web GIS application.

Prof. Imbuga challenged the students to come out and share their creative ideas so as to move to the next level. She said the University has an IP policy which outlines how the benefits of a commercialised innovation, hence the students should have no fears of losing their inventions.

The Endeavour graduates dominated the exhibitions. JKUAT Endeavour is an initiative formed to act as a platform for sharing knowledge, experiences and skills in Kenyan universities and colleges. Through industry partnerships, the initiative offers training courses on Information and Communication Technologies with emphasis on independent research, problem solving, and entrepreneurship.

Other projects presented during the expo included:
M-Stock: This is a stock exchange monitoring system. It is mobile application. The project was presented by Benjamin Ngugi

G-Finder: a hostel finder web application meant for university students.

Best Deals: this is a web application for comparing product prices by prospective buyers.

BizLock Kenya: a business locator web application with map support capability. G-Finder, Best Deals Kenya and BizLock were presented by Simon Kiarie-who had both attended the maiden Endeavour programme.

College Feed: This is a social media mobile-web application. The application was presented by Kenneth and Ricky. Both are graduates of the June 2010 Endeavour training.

M-Share: is a mobile-web application for posting and sharing ideas. The project was presented by John Emase and Samuel Wahome

M-Track: is a mobile application for transferring funds between banking service providers. The project was presented by Abel Masai.

MMWorld: This is a mobile application for searching of movies, music and games from suppliers. The project was presented by Maurice Kibuchi, Josphat Njui and Lazaro Ong’ele.

Stock control: This project was presented by Kiptoo Kirui. It is a mobile application used to monitor and control stock.

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.

1st Prize: College Feed
Social web site where people can create groups and register to existing groups to receive updates of events posted by the group administrator. It is targeted to university and college students. The application uses Google maps to show locations and venues of events.

College Feed Group Members

• Muthika Faith Mutave
• Mwangi Kenneth Kimani
• Mwasigwa Kevin Ricky
• Jepchumba Celestine
• Nzaro Esther Kabibi
• Manyala Asige Garland

College Feed group members receive their 250 GB External Hard Disks from Mark Mwongela

2nd Prize: Jazika
A portal for posting second hand products for sale. People can search for products. If the desired products are not available, they will be notified once the products are posted on the site.

Jazika Group Members

• Rose Itindi
• Ngatia B. Kinyua
• Odero Paul Ojwang
• Odhiambo Teddy Brian
• Okoth Mike Aono
• Evans Odhiambo Ogola

Jazika group members receive their internet modems and airtime from Samuel Kamochu

3rd Prize: Online Academy
Examination revisions website targeted to students. Students can take timed tests and their results are shown once they finish the tests.

Online Academy Group Members

• Muriithi M. Peter
• Grace Nduhiu
• Gitonga C. Njogu
• Ogero Reuben
• Viona Wadegu
• Mugendi M. Munene

Online Academy group members receive their flash disks and wireless mouse from Alex Muriu

The head research, consultancy and training (ICT Directorate), Mr. Boniface M. Kiula gave the final remarks thanking everyone for making the day a success. Students were encouraged to grab opportunities as they come and be creative in providing solutions to the current world problems.

Thanks to all the guests who made time to come give talks to the students and judge the projects. We would like in a special way to thank Google’s Code.Africa Program for their support in making the day a success.