This Year Kenya Innovation Week 2024 took place from 25th to 29th November 2024. The Theme being " Re-Imagining Africa future Kenya's Innovation spark".
The event was officially opened by the His Excellency Dr. William Samoei Ruto, C.G.H. President of the Republic of Kenya and Commander in Chief of the Defense Forces.Among other guests. Kenya Innovation Week 2024 intends to champion relevant policy engagements on innovations within institutions while promoting practical skills necessary to create innovations that impact people. In addition, it purposes to strengthen the research and commercialisation practices for greater socio-economic impact. To achieve its objectives, Kenya Innovation Week convenes the local governments, private sector, development partners, media and civil society in order to capitalise in as much shared value as possible.
University of Nairobi was also showcased different innovation which include:
First was is the Medical devices that are produced by a multidisciplinary team from UoN, centered at Electrical engineering, Faculty of Engineering with partners from Nairobi and Siaya Counties. The low cost devices are used to add to human capacity to medical engineers to maintain the devices locally. NRF competitively provided seed money to produce the machines that will be sent to KEBS by February 2025 and then clinical trials. The seed funding will be helpful in delivering 40 machines to the county hospitals.
Second from Physics department, They have developed a local solar cooker. It helps in reducing carbon emissions and reduce use of fossil fuel in cooking by use of renewable energy. Cereals (beans and maize) are the cheapest food yet very expensive in preparation. The cooker targets cooking cereals with solar energy that is cheaper and freely available as compared to use of charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas (lpg). Another benefit from the cooker is the use of electricity after cooking for lighting and powering electronic devices. The cooker is designed for low maintainance with operations from solar energy which is freely available. The cooker is suitable for rural/marginalized community with no grid connections.
Third one is Mac milk, which is a plant-based milk alternative made from 100% raw macadamia nuts locally sourced from Kenyan farmers. Value addition of macadamia nuts is the goal.
In Kenya, Macadamia nut farming is an established and lucrative part of the agricultural sector. However, more can be done by food processors to increase the incomes of local farmers.
The Kenya Innovation week 2024 was a great platform to showcase products and interact with potential investors.
