Monday 2 March 2026
Dean Faculty of Science and Technology Prof Francis Nyongesa addresing the participants
The University of Nairobi (UON), through the C4DLab, officially launched the UNIHUBS International Training Activity and the 4th Partners’ Meeting, taking place from March 2nd to 6th, 2026. This event brings together a consortium of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), and international partners to test and evaluate the UNIHUBS educational package.
The Director of Innovation and Intellectual Property Management, Prof. Maina Wagacha, while opening the training on behalf of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research Innovation and Enterprise (RIE), Prof. Leonidah Kerubo, underscored the strategic importance of UNIHUBS’s activities for the university's mission. "We must be able to move from research for its own sake to innovative research that can go all the way to commercialisation," he stated.
Prof. Wagacha lauded the strong North-South collaboration exhibited by the initiative, whose partners are drawn from East Africa, Europe, and West Africa. He called for even stronger South-South ties as well as academia-industry linkages while also challenging the participants to make their research relevant and attractive to industry partners.
UNIHUBS is an initiative aimed at bridging the gap between higher education and digital innovations in Africa and Europe, focusing on enhancing employability, fostering entrepreneurship, and promoting collaboration among universities, industries, and innovation hubs.
The week-long training is a practical? pilot implementation" phase. It features a rigorous agenda
including simulation exercises for collaborative teaching, action-learning schemes, and co- creation workshops aimed at adapting educational materials to local contexts. Participants will also engage in interactive sessions with industry representatives and test a new international online course platform to provide user experience feedback. The participants are drawn from Europe, East Africa, and West Africa convened under the Erasmus+ UNIHUBS framework.
The Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Professor Francis Nyongesa, highlighted the critical need for a cultural shift within academia. “Scientists are very good at doing research and putting it away in the shelf, but at the end of the day we need to see this research coming out”. He further challenged educators to adapt to the digital era, noting that as technology continues to transform how their students access information, instructors must strive to remain relevant.
By the end of the programme, the UNIHUBS project aims to have a refined, evidence-based
educational framework and a pool of trained staff ready to lead digital innovation pilots across
their respective regions.