Chris Mbithi, Fidelis Wambua, Irene Maani, Rebecca Mahinda and Susan Omache

A number of Strathmore University alumni joined PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2011. PwC is one of the leading professional accounting firms specializing in providing Audit & Assurance, Advisory and Tax services. Some of the alumni shared their thoughts on SU.

Alumnus Christopher Mbithi King’oo graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, Accounting major. He joined PwC as an Audit Associate.

“I owe a lot to SU. All that I have done and all I hope to do was nurtured at the university. Given a second chance, I would join SU to take advantage of the many opportunities available to grow,” Chris said.

Chris added: Most my colleagues at work are exceptionally talented professionals, but if they had an opportunity to be in Strathmore, I guess they would be a step ahead. VIVA STRATHMORE!

Irene Maani graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce, Finance Major. She joined PwC Advisory, Human Capital.  Irene said: Being in PwC has been life changing thus far and I cannot wait to learn to grow more with them.

“At SU, I was equipped with both technical and life skills that helped me stand out in the race for this job. Many thanks to my lecturers, mentors and the Placement Office for equipping us with great intellectual and interview skills,” she added.

Rebecca Mahinda is taking ACCA at the University. She is a graduate of the University of Nairobi, where she studied BSc. in Food Science and Technology. She is also an employee of PwC.

“Studying accounting at Strathmore gave me the confidence to believe in myself and launch a career in auditing and assurance. The abundance of resources on offer here continues to amaze me! Strathmore University is the place to begin your future in the corporate world,” she said.

“Getting the opportunity to work in PwC has been life changing and I am looking forward to learning and growing with them. I owe much to Strathmore University,” said alumna Susan Omache.

“Many thanks to my ACCA lecturers who put in so much effort to develop me to be the best I could get. With such dedication from the lecturers and staff at large, I am sure that Strathmore University will continue producing very good students who are well-rounded,” Susan added. ]]> http://strathmorefoundation.org/2012/01/10/su-alumni-who-joined-pwc-in-2011/feed/ http://strathmorefoundation.org/2011/12/14/laughter-is-the-best-medicine/ http://strathmorefoundation.org/2011/12/14/laughter-is-the-best-medicine/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:32:55 +0000 Strathmore University Foundation http://strathmorefoundation.org/?p=1330

Mother and child

Serena Williams is welcomed by students

@ilab Africa research institute’s project ‘Use of ICT in Enhancing Teaching and Curriculum Delivery in Marginalized Secondary Schools in Kenya‘ is the 2011 winner of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Outreach and Community Relations award!

The main aim of the project is to partner with secondary schools in marginal areas of Kenya in order to develop and support the delivery of Computer Studies offered as part of the Kenya Certificate of Secondary School Examination (KCSE) curriculum.

In May 2009, the project received a $100,000 from the HP Innovations in Education Grant, and an additional $15,000 from the Internet Society (www.isoc.org). In its second year, the project also received funding and support from Google ($20,000), and Safaricom Kenya ($4,000).

The project involves five schools located in marginal areas in or around Nairobi. The schools were Moi Girls Secondary School - Isinya, and Olkejuado High School in Kajiado County; Machakos Girls High School in Machakos County; and Gatanga High School, Kahuhia Girls High School in Muranga County.

High school students taking Computer Studies are expected to learn and develop practical ICT skills. In the final year of study, the students are expected to develop a complete software project using a recommended set of tools and programming languages.

However, schools in marginal areas have limited, outdated or non- existent ICT infrastructure; inadequate teaching capacity, and constrained financial resources. In addition, these schools are also located in areas of low economic activity with attendant socio-economic challenges including the discrimination of the girl-child.

The project team comprised of five lecturers and 20 IT undergraduate students from the Faculty of Information Technology. In February 2010, then world number one tennis player and HP Goodwill Ambassador Serena Williams visited the University to meet members of the project team. 

Undergraduate students have made more than 60 visits to the schools to mentor and support Computer Studies pupils. Among other activities, the students assist in programming project supervision and encourage the girls to take up computer studies as their future careers.

Lecturers visit to schools to give motivational talks to the high school students. Under the project, about 60 Computer Studies teachers and school administrators attended a National Computer Studies Teachers Conference at the University in November 2010.

The Rural Cafe project, an offline web access tool for use in schools without internet access was installed in the 5 participating schools with very impressive results. The project was a joint effort with Prof Jay Chen of New York University.

The tool has 300GB of Computer Science Education Resources crawled from the Internet. For more details, see: http://code.google.com/p/ruralcafe/wiki/Introduction.

In January 2010, over 200 high school students participated in an Open Day event at the university under the project. The aim of the event was to create interest in Computer Science among the students, especially girls.

The University entered the project in the ACU PR, Marketing and Communications Awards 2011 competition. The judges were pleased with the project’s overall strength and clear focus on student outreach.

They also said it had innovative and successful third party engagement and direct use of student volunteers. It also made use of supporting events and activities like open days, school visits, and use of HP equipment and ambassadors.

Congratulating the University on winning the award, Ms Dorothy Garland, ACU’s Director of Professional Networks said the University won in a particularly strong category of the competition.

Mr. Stanley Kamau the Alumni Relations Manager (left) and Mr. Oscar Kimani, the MC of the evening at the event.

Strathmore Alumni Entrepreneurs Network (SAEN) was launched on Friday, December 2^nd at the Sarova Panafric Hotel. Not even the impossible traffic on a raining Friday evening in Nairobi could stop the alumni who turned up in impressive numbers.

Alumnus Oscar Kimani who is known as the “Entrepreneurship evangelist”, and founder of UniqueAfrica was the MC of the evening. Others in attendance included young alumni who have just set up their new businesses such as Solana Creation, an initiative of Njeri Kanyara and Viona Wamuyu. Solana Creation is an events organizing company.

The guest speakers were Harry Karanja, founder of Genius Executives an enterprise set on making business simple; Benson Maina, the CEO of Rupu Kenya which is among the largest modern day advertising platforms in Kenya and Nick Munyao of Genius Executives.

It was very humbling and motivating to hear how they started their businesses. They expressed passion which was very inspiring considering the day-to-day challenges of running a business. The evening culminated with the cutting of a cake to mark the launch.

The launch of the network is in line with the University’s vision which is to become a leading out-come driven entrepreneurial research university translating its excellence into a major contribution to culture, economic well-being, and quality of life.

Kenneth Mbugua

Alumnus Kenneth Mbugua is pursuing a Masters degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. He is currently working with the Medical Research Council and UCT’s Medical Imaging Research Unit, on brain imaging and analysis studying the effects of HIV and Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatments (HAART) in children.

Ken received the Sir Robert Kotze scholarship from UCT to complete his Masters degree as a research scholar at The Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, a joint Center of the Harvard Medical School (HMS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences & Technology (MIT-HST) and the Massachusetts General Hospital Radiology Department (MGH) in USA.

Ken’s research entails using novel approaches in acquisition of magnetic resonance images and brain analysis in relation to HIV and HAART.  The research is part of an ongoing and productive collaboration between Cape Universities Brain Imaging Center at UCT and the MGH/MIT/HMS Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging research.

Ken joined Strathmore School in Standard 1 in 1990, and went up to Form 4 in 2002. He joined SU in 2003 where he pursued a Diploma, and Higher Diploma IT. The diplomas were examined and awarded by the UK-based Institute of Management of Information Systems (IMIS).

In late 2004, Ken joined UCT for a degree in Electro-Mechanical Engineering. Ken’s mother, Mrs. Esther Mbugua who lectures here introduced Mr. Eric Kathenya, the University’s Communication Manager to Ken. Ken graciously accepted an interview by Mr. Kathenya.

Question: You spent 12 years at Strathmore School and 2 years at Strathmore University. How has the Strathmore experience impacted your life?
Answer: I learnt a lot from Strathmore, more than can be adequately put in a brief description. At Strathmore School, where I spent most of my growing years, I experienced how putting well-planned, hard and consistent effort into work is so invaluable in life, often leading to amazing opportunities and self satisfaction. I had the benefit of learning from arguably some of the best teachers and role models of our generation.

Q: You are involved in cutting-edge research on the effects of HIV and anti-retroviral Treatments (HAART) in children. People reading this might be asking: Is the Kenya medical scene in a position to employ your expertise?
A: While Kenya is sadly one of the countries bearing the brunt of HIV epidemic and third world politics, the country still plays its role as a leading light in fighting the disease, especially in provision of avenues for conducting world leading research. The relative social and professional standing may be lagging behind that of developed countries in some regard, but Kenya possesses massive potential, and I believe that these innovative advances are still relevant and applicable both in Kenya and the world over.

Q:  How many scholars are you working with at The Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in Massachusetts, USA?
A: Our Principal investigator in the US is Dr Andre van der Kouwe from the Massachusetts General Hospital Radiology and Physics. He is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Another key figure is Dr David Salat who is an Assistant Professor in Radiology at Harvard Medical School and also works at Massachusetts General Hospital Radiology and Physics Radiology)

Q: What is your typical day as a researcher?
A: It is quite boring actually, but sometimes this is beneficial after 4 hours of sleep. For most of my work days, I am usually crouched over my desktop PC doing some processing or analyzing my data.

Once or twice a week, I travel to the Cape University’s Brain Imaging Centre at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town to oversee the MRI scanning of our study subjects. This can get quite tricky with 5 year olds since they move a lot and can get quite claustrophobic (they fear closed spaces), but a lot of work has gone into adding motion tracking and correction into our MRI sequences.

SUF chair Thomas Konditi of GE (2nd from left) with Strath colleagues

Today Strathmore launched a new partnership with the American conglomerate General Electric Company. The partnership will develop graduate and post graduate recruitment program, student career development program, and training.

Speaking at the launch, GE’s Chief Finance Officer for Africa, Mr. Thomas Konditi (also chair of Strathmore University Foundation and a Strath grad himself), spoke highly of Strathmore and cited the University’s’ commitment to excellence and high academic standards as the reason why GE choose it as a working partner in its growth in Kenya and Africa at large.

“This year, our Africa operation recruited five out of six of our new recruits from Strathmore. The quality and integrity of Strathmore people is a good fit for GE,” added Mr. Konditi.

Also speaking at the launch, Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof. Izael da Silva envisioned the partnership as an opportunity for the University to take industry and commerce to a new level in the classroom. He noted GE’s global scale and its over 120 years experience as distinctive assets for the new partnership.

GE is the only company listed in the Dow Jones Industrial Stock Index today that also originally included in the index when it was inaugurated in 1896. GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. ]]> http://strathmorefoundation.org/2011/09/15/strathmore-partners-with-ge/feed/ http://strathmorefoundation.org/2011/04/07/new-video-commemorates-straths-50th/ http://strathmorefoundation.org/2011/04/07/new-video-commemorates-straths-50th/#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:11:17 +0000 Strathmore University Foundation http://strathmorefoundation.org/?p=1234 As part of its year-long celebrations of 50 years of service in Kenya, Strathmore University has released a new video. We invite you to meet our students and faculty as they describe Strathmore’s achievements.