CENIT@EA Conducts its 1st Summer School in Arusha, Tanzania at NM-AIST

The Centre of Excellence for ICT in East Africa (CENIT@EA) at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in collaboration with IBM East Africa at Nairobi Kenya, have organised the first Summer School of CENIT@EA at the NM-AIST in Arusha, Tanzania from 4^th to 8^th November 2019. 

During the Opening Ceremony held on 4^th November, 2019, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the NM-AIST, Prof. Anthony Mshandete said that, this summer school is one of the initiatives by NM-AIST and partners particularly under Centre of Excellence for ICT in East Africa to promote Academia-Industry linkages to ensure that students of the Master’s in “Embedded and Mobile Systems” (EMoS) are equipped with necessary and appropriate skills and techniques that will enable them to solve real life challenges.  He thanked the IBM East Africa Skills initiative Program Manager, Mr. Wahome Gathondu, for accepting the invitation to come and facilitate this event. Students will be able to bank on modern IBM technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and many others that will help them to solve challenges confronting the industry for their benefit. He added that, working close to giants like IBM is one of the best ways to creating a world-class environment for teaching, learning and research and innovation at the NM-AIST. 

“The NM-AIST is a regional institution of higher learning for Masters, PhD and post docs that strives to become a world class , therefore collaborating with giants like IBM, which is 108 years old, with all the technologies they offer, is one among the efforts to the goal”.   

Prof. Mshandete thanked the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for funding CENIT@EA to realize its goal of providing offers that meet the needs of the public and private sector in East Africa for the digital transformation. He also thanked students from University of Technology and Arts of Byumba (UTAB) Rwanda, University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), State University of Zanzibar (SUZA) and the host institution the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) and faculties that are attending this five-day event up to 8th November 2019. 

Mr. Wahome Gathondu, Programme Manager of Africa skills Initiative East Africa, facilitated this Summer School. Among other things students and faculty will learn about design thinking as the way to groom up innovative and entrepreneurial IT generation for social and industrial change. Mr. Wahome among others, will facilitate on design thinking, a skill which is necessary to students wishing to be innovative in the IT field. 

The main objective of the Summer School is to gather students together with academicians and industry captains to share, discuss and look for solutions of various industry and society problems by using design thinking approaches. In this weeklong event, participants works in interdisciplinary teams to brainstorm, discuss, analyze and apply innovative and entrepreneurial skills to generate solutions to societal challenges.  

CENIT@EA is a regional centre serving Member States of the East African Community (EAC), namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. It was initiated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the East African Community (EAC). It is funded by the BMZ and implemented by German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in collaboration with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA).  The aim is to strengthen the capacity and capabilities of the EAC region in ICT through building skills for instance through the newly established Master of Science in Embedded and Mobile Systems (MSc. EMoS), and foster regional networks and cross-sector partnerships between higher education institutions, industry, the public sector and civil society. The centre is hosted at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) in Arusha Tanzania, at the School of Computational and Communication Sciences and Engineering (CoCSE