| Strathmore joins Effort to Assemble Low Cost PCs |
Strathmore University jointly with University of Nairobi, and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Monday, 22nd January 2007 with Kenya Technical Training College (KCCT) to assemble personal computers locally.
The MoU was signed at the Ministry of Information and Communications headquarters at Telposta Towers, Nairobi. The three universities will act as incubators of the project while KCCT will be the implementing agency. The Informal Sector Business Institute (ISBI), an initiative of Strathmore Education Trust will run Strathmore University's component. The project is jointly funded by the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) and the Safaricom Foundation to the tune of Kshs20 million with each of the two institutions contributing Kshs10 million. The universities will research on the computer parts and pass over the findings to local assemblers. According to Dr Bitange Ndemo, the computers to be assembled will be priced at about KShs 31,500 a piece. The universities are also expected to train manpower that would be involved in the assembling. The project follows the Taiwan model where small enterprises are encouraged to produce and certification given before export. A long-term goal of the project is to grow local expertise to enable the country cope with changes in the ICT sector. |
