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There has been a tremendous growth in businesses in Kenya hence attracting investors due to the innovations that have hit the market in various market segments such as banking by Equity Bank and MPESA by Safaricom. Some of the innovations, such as Facebook, Yahoo and Google, started from laboratories and dormitories in the universities as students’ project. Inoorero University, in line with its philosophy of Enterprise University, has established The Research and Innovation Centre to invigorate the minds of students and staff to do research and create innovation to solve problems in society. The University will use these innovations and solutions to engage industry in creating enterprises that will stimulate economic activities in line with the Vision 2030.
The Research and Innovation Centre is intended to be a strategic business unit to encourage staff and students to engage in creative innovations and aggregate the innovations to stimulate business engagements with industry and thereby create a sustainable business engagement between the University and industry.
The Centre shall create collaboration with other organizations and engage in innovative and creative activities that will generate economic activity and add value to industry, entrepreneurs, students and the general public. Some of the activities include and not limited to conducting seminars and research, development of intellectual property services, engaging industry in innovative product development and development of content and education applications. In order to engage industry and government, the University will select the key partners in defined areas of engagement that the university will work with in order to protect the business interests.
Contact :
Ambrose Njeru - Coordinator, Research and Innovation Center.
Vision
The vision of the Research & Innovation Centre is to be a leader in cutting edge applied research and innovation in the African region.
Mission Statement
To undertake applied research and innovation that is customer centered and that offer solutions to societal problems in supporting the mission of Inoorero University.
The objectives of setting up the IU Innovation Centre are to:
- Stimulate the interests of staff and students to develop innovative ideas to solve business and social problems in the community.
- Promote innovation as an integral part of academic activity to generate jobs and enterprises.
- Develop the ideas and innovations into a framework to offer a product or service to the business community for solving community problems.
- Develop and package the innovations into intellectual products.
- Engage industry to market and develop the innovations into business solutions
- Coordinate IU innovations to work with the various agencies in the private and public sector and donor community.
- Develop research programs that solve problems.
- Provide a facility for short term training activities.
- Develop a hub and state of the art innovation centre for Kenya and the East African Region.
- Develop BPO human capacity in line with Vision 2030
- Work closely with IU‘s Regional Enterprise Centre.
- Develop mobile applications for commercialization.
- Generate income from the Innovation Centre for the School of ICT through workshops,seminars, guest speakers, and research dissemination.
- Champion ICT research in Kenya by surveying and publishing results on technology trends in Kenya.
Mobile Application
- Development of applications that will run on mobiles phones, smart phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and other small devices hence solve business problems
- Development of applications for learning and reading content(WAP).
- Development of applications for buying through MPESA services and E-Commerce services.
Games for learning and business.
- Schools: Primary schools, Secondary schools, College and University.
- Computer based learning and business applications.
- Mobile based learning applications.
- Business:
- Understanding Business concepts e.g. CASH 101-
Multimedia applications
- Animation and multimedia applications.
Software development
- Digitization and Document management.
- Software Development.
- Mobile applications development for education, health agriculture, environment,energy, business.
- Set up IU App Store.
Innovation Competitions
- Organize different types of innovation competitions by staff and students.
- Develop a website for innovation in Kenya for collaboration.
Training:
- Short Courses on Mobile application
- Running the boot camp
- Short courses on Mobile
- Running mobile applications competitions
- Diploma in Mobile applications
- Students projects
- Software development and testing of the latest technologies to share reports with the public
- Participate in different worldwide competitions
- Short BPO courses
Digital Content development
- E-Books
- Open education resources development and utilization
- Buying eBooks through MPESA--- Amazon.com
Research
- Source for research grants and also innovation grants.
- Take part in applied research with partners from industry.
- Support research projects from all the IU schools, institutes, and departments
- Provide training and support for faculty, staff, or students writing external research proposals and grants
Networking
- Coordinate IU innovations to work with the various agencies in the private and public sector and donor community.
- ICT Companies - Google, Nokia, LG, MS, Ericsson, Seven Seas, Virtual City , HP
- Donor community - World Bank, Danish Embassy, Rockefeller,
- Government agencies - Ministry of Information, KICT Board, E-government Secretariat , NCST, MOE
- Private Sector - KEPSA, Family Bank, Equity bank, IEEE, Safaricom, Airtel,YU, etc.
Business Process Outsourcing
- Develop BPO personnel capacity for the national government and for 47 counties.
- Develop capacity for the proposed Malili ICT city.