The Arava International Centre for Agricultural Training (AICAT) Open Day was held from 27th Jan 2019 to 1st Feb 2019 in Israel. The Dean Agriculture, Prof. George Chemining’wa and Ms. Ann Nkoidila from the Advancement Office attended the open day.

The purpose of the Open Day is to tour the different farm sites where students are attached to and get a feel of the kind of hands-on agricultural farming experience they are receiving. UoN sent 15 students to Israel for the 2^nd cohort in June 2018 and they are bound to return home after their 11 months training in July 2019.

• AICAT Cohort III applications

Based on the five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Government of Kenya and the State of Israel, UoN is expected to send two more cohorts of students to Israel (2019/2020).  The 2019 selection will be the third cohort of students to be sent to Israel in July 2019.

“University of Nairobi can provide leadership in Universal Health Coverage. The University is a nice place to help the President accomplish these programs as they are involved in agriculture, engineering and training of health professionals” speaking during the launch of the Nairobi Innovation Week 2019, Prof Magoha challenged Universities to publish more, conduct more research and come up with innovations that will be key in helping the President achieve his flagship agenda of affordable housing, manufacturing, universal healthcare and food security. He challenged professors in various fields related to the big four agenda to work closely with students to help them innovate.

A briefing session was held at the College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences (CAVs) on January 16 Over 70 students attended the briefing session. The purpose of this session was to inform Agricultural students in CAVs about the opportunity and to clarify the eligibility criteria. After the briefing session on the AICAT program, eligible students were given registration forms.

Over 100 applications were received by the Dean, Agriculture who gave his recommendation and submitted to the Office of Career Services for further review. 30 students were shortlisted based on the merit criteria and  interviewed by the AICAT Officials on April 1, 2019

The successful candidates will be taken through an orientation process and go through a medical exam before they can be finally cleared to travel to Israel for the 11 months ‘Learning by Doing’ program sometime in June 2019.

The University of Nairobi ICT department in collaboration with the Advancement Office and Huawei offered the  Huawei Certified Network Associate (HCNA) certification training to 25 UoN students and staff from 5^th – 30^th November 2018. This is just the beginning of a series of training that will seek to validate the skills and knowledge networking professionals require for basic maintenance and configuration of small to medium-sized networks.

The training covered Ethernet technologies such as Link Aggregations, VLAN, RSTP and STP and their implementation on Huawei switches, TCP/IP technologies, and basic IP network connectivity. With the HCNA certification, trainees are expected to demonstrate, design and implement a basic understanding of small and medium-sized networks and this includes general network technologies.

Engineers who have HCNA certification are expected to develop simple networks then integrate storage, security, cloud, voice and wireless technologies into these networks so that they can support a wide range of applications.

Huawei launched the HCNA Training and Certification based on its many years of experience in developing great insight into ICT industry developments and ICT talents. The University of Nairobi is proud to partner with Huawei in building the ICT Skills of staff and students and looks forward to a fruitful collaboration with Huawei.

Huawei also sponsored the “Huawei ICT Competition Southern Africa 2018-2019” on November 21 in which UoN students participated. The second runners up, Wanjohi Gachoki came from UoN outdoing over 4,000 participants from over 40 Universities in Kenya. The competition focused on computer telecommunications and networking and was tailored to create a platform for ICT students to grasp practical and technical skills and learn on top range ICT career certifications globally for them to align their careers and tap into opportunities in leading ICT companies.

During the Huawei ICT competition awards ceremony held on November 26, 2018, UoN was awarded the ‘Best ICT Academy in the Huawei ICT Competition’ award and George Ndegwa from the UoN ICT Department won the ‘Best Lecturer in the Huawei ICT Competition’ award.

“With the launch of the handbook on the establishment of the Offices of Career Services all universities and tertiary institutions must set up the office which should be up and running by the end of the year,” announced Cabinet Secretary for Education, Amb. Amina Mohamed.

The Office of Career Services participated in a Career Day Programme at Lenana School on Saturday, May 18, 2019. The theme of the event was “Exposing learners to future career opportunities”. The Director, Career Services attended the event and gave a talk to the students on career pathways and skills for the 21^st century that employers are now looking out for in potential employees.

There were career talks given by other professionals in different career fields such as Architecture, Engineering, Medicine, Law, Entrepreneurship & Commerce, Journalism & Media, Arts, Sports & Talents, Technology, ICT, Artificial Intelligence & Robotics and Aviation & Airspace Technology.

High School Career Mentoring and Recruitment is one of the core mandates of the Office of Career Services and UoN is keen on mentoring high school students for them to make their career goals before transitioning to University/College.

The University of Nairobi had the privilege of hosting the 2nd Youth Leadership Transformation Summit on the 25th and 26th of April, 2019 at the UoN Auditorium, 6th floor, UoN Towers. The event was organized by the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) and is an initiative of the former president of the United States of America, Barack Obama back in 2010 in an effort to invest in the next generation of African leaders. The theme for the event was #Leading4impact which was chosen to encourage young leaders to speak in collaboration to create impact. In attendance were the newly elected UNSA student leaders and professional body student leaders from UoN.

Their event incorporated a panel session to discuss tackling the challenge of youth participation in law/policy making and the governance process. The panel consisted of the Nominated MP of Parliament representing Youth, Hon. Gideon Keter, CEO National Youth Council, Roy Sasaka, YALI Alumni, Caroline Chege, Head of Secretariat UNSA, Advisor on Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs, Ms. Lydia Mathia and CEO of the Kenya Young Parliamentarians Association (KYPA) Antony Buluma. Some of the takeaway points from the panel session were that the youth need to be intelligent and take initiative in their quest to fight for their space, the youth need to impact change as a unit and to form a united front. The youth were also encouraged to get involved in public participation.

Johnson Ireri Kinyua was appointed as the Director, Office of Career Services from January 14, 2019, to oversee the operationalization of the University of Nairobi Office of Career Services (UoNOCS) and ensure targets outlined in the OCS Handbook are achieved. The Director of Career Services will work with existing establishments such as Students Affairs, Special Students and work on a strategy on how to decentralize UNOCS to campuses and colleges through the support of Assistant Dean of Students based in colleges and campuses.

The Director’s first assignment in the office is to automate the students’ career services through user-friendly and customized Career Information Management System (CIMS) and Students Career Passport. This will enable students to register online, upload their CVs and access job opportunities where employers will upload online job opportunities. By use of Artificial Intelligence, the system will be able to match students’ skills and available opportunities and send alerts to either students or employers after matchmaking.