UoN Office of Career Services (OCS)

Arava International Center for Agriculture Training (AICAT) Open Day

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 2nd 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.

CS Magoha Challenges Universities to Actively Support Agenda 4

“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.

Students Briefing Session on AICAT program

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.

HUAWEI OFFERS HCNA CERFITICATION TO STUDENTS AND STAFF

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 5th – 30th 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.

Nairobi Innovation Week 2019 Cheque Presentation

“This year’s Nairobi Innovation Week has received a lot of sponsorship in kind and monetary to a total of up to Kshs. 11M. This is the core of the University; we will be hosting 26 major events across the city.” revealed  Prof. Madara Ogot, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Production, and Extension,  who was representing the Vice-Chancellor, prof. Peter Mbithi during the cheque presentation ceremony by the sponsors of the NIW 2019 on Friday, June 7, 2019.

Cheques received were from Barclays which sponsored Kshs. 2M, KENIC – Kshs 1M and University of Nairobi Alumni Association (UONAA), Kshs. 500,000

Barclays, as part of the ABSA group, have been partners of the NIW since the first year. Filbert July, from Barclays, said, “We have been sponsors of the NIW because we believe that when we grow our youth, we partner with our economy.

On his part, University of Nairobi Alumni Association (UONAA), Director, Mr. Ken Sawe noted that the Association recognizes the importance of innovation and businesses in the nation’s development

The Nairobi Innovation Challenge has been running for 4 months; 6 start-ups were unveiled from the 30 that participated in the competition. From the 6 start-ups a winner will be chosen and awarded using what most sponsors have given; some monetary and others incubation, domain name, and domain hosting, gift hampers just to mention but a few.

61 start-ups and 26 enablers from the Ministry of Trade will be exhibiting in this year’s Innovation week and the youth from all counties will be trained through the Ideation to commercialization seminar.

Industrial Site Visit To Huawei

To match the rest of the world in the advancement of technology and the job market, the University of Nairobi through the Office of Career Services (OCS) is building sustainable partnerships with industry partners in a bid to produce high quality, industry-oriented students. Through its apprenticeship program, the OCS Office enables potential employers to identify prospective employees from the University. The process also enables the University to understand the employers’ future workforce needs, identify skills gap and offer training programs through apprenticeships.

Students drawn from the School of Engineering and School of Computing and Informatics visited the Huawei Kenya Head Office in Lavington on Tuesday, June 4, 2019, for an Industrial site visit aimed at getting the first-hand experience on how a networking and telecommunication industry works.

Huawei has been partnering with UoN through its ICT Academy program in offering training to students and staff for the HCIA Routing and Switching Training Certification which validates the knowledge and skills required for basic configuration and maintenance of small to medium-sized networks. UoN has also partnered with Huawei in its Graduate Trainee Program since 2017, Huawei Campus Ambassador program with two students being selected to be Huawei Ambassadors, Huawei Job Fair, and Seeds for the Future program.

UoN students also participated in the 2018-2019 Huawei ICT Competition and one of the top three students in the global final from Kenya Mwai Moses is an Alumnus of UoN and now a Huawei Engineer.

In support of the ICT Academy partnership with UoN, Huawei donated equipment worth KES 5,000,000 for the training center at UoN in 2019. The OCS office is glad to partner with Huawei in skilling students for the ICT job market.

Industrial Site Visit To Huawei

Lenana School Career Day

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 21st 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.

 

Mentorship to UoN Student Leaders by the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI)

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.

Chancellors Career Fair 2018

Career Fair 2018

The Chancellor and the entire University of Nairobi fraternity is seeking to forge strong symbiotic collaborations with Government and Industry that will in the future guide and nurture students and graduates towards a better and more fulfilling future thus positively impacting the socio-economic growth of our country. Areas of potential collaborations include: Industrial research, Commercialization of Intellectual Property, Infrastructural Development and Human Resource Training and Transfer (retooling industry employees, adjunct lecturers and students/ alumni recruitment).

To realize this vision, a biannual Chancellor’s Career Fair has been established.

Other recent related events that the University has had are:

  1. The Industry, Academia partnership to promote ethical and legal business practices
  2. The launching of Ajira Digital Program

THE EVENT

The Chancellor’s Career Fair is scheduled for 13th-14th August at the University of Nairobi Main Campus.  It has been structured to include:- Recruitment Drive, Industry Showcase (Exhibitions throughout the day)

Morning sessions:- Panel Discussions, Roundtable Discussions, Keynote Presentations

Afternoon sessions:-Breakaway Sessions

For more information, please Click to find  CONCEPT NOTE and EVENT PROGRAM

 ACTIVITY

On 13th and 14th we shall have Panel discussions in the auditorium from 10.30 am to 12.30pm and 9.00 am to 1.00 pm respectively and we need students to fill up the auditorium hence the need for raising awareness and mobilization.

The Theme for 13th August (Day 1) is Academia-Industry Partnership for the future

The theme for 14th August (Day 2) is Entrepreneurship

The expected Guest for the auditorium panel session for Day 1 (13th August) is CS Education, Amb. (Dr.) Amina Mohammed and for Day 2(14th August) is CS PS, Youth and Gender Affairs Prof. Margaret Kobia

The  Training sessions for the two days include:

13th August 

  1. Branding for Employment – 00 -3.00pm- Seminar Room 401
  2. Cyber Security – 00 -3.00pm- Seminar Room 402
  3. Talent and Image Management – 00 -3.00pm- Seminar Room 403
  4. Technology Trends – 00 – 4.00pm- Seminar Room 404
  5. Skills for tomorrow-  00 – 4.00pm – Seminar Room 401
  6. CV writing and interview etiquette –  00 – 4.00pm- Seminar Room 405
  7. Award of outstanding student innovations – 00 – 4.30 pm- Great Court

14th August

  1. Startups management – 00 -3.00pm- Seminar Room 401
  2. Negotiations –  00 -3.00pm- Seminar Room 402
  3. Creativity and innovation – 00 – 4.00pm  – Seminar Room 403
  4. Business Models –  00 – 4.00pm – Seminar Room 404
  5. Award of outstanding student innovations – 00 – 4.30 pm-  Great Court

HASHTAG TO USE:  #UoNCareerfair

 

“Attendance is free of charge.”