In 2018, the Kenyan government entered a joint effort with KAIST to establish the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kenya-AIST). After five years have passed, the fulfillment of their vision nears as Kenya-AIST is set to open in Konza Technopolis, dubbed Africa’s “Silicon Savannah”, in September 2024.
Kenya-AIST was one of the key goals of Kenya Vision 2030, a development program aiming to raise the standard of living in Kenya and transform it into a middle-income country by 2030. Kenya-AIST’s role in this vision is to improve research and development at the national level, foster future industries in Kenya and East Africa, and help improve the quality of life of the Kenyan people through cooperation in education, research, and development.
With KAIST serving as a benchmark, Kenya-AIST has put emphasis on not only retaining Kenyan talent and preventing brain drain, but also attracting students from abroad. First, Kenya-AIST will be tuition-free and will provide living subsidies and other avenues for additional financial aid to those who get accepted. In addition to that, training courses at Kenya-AIST will be recognized by the Engineering Board of Kenya as industry experience, which is a requirement needed for qualifying as a professional engineer in Kenya. Kenya-AIST also aims to cater to its graduate students by providing generous student exchange opportunities.
The pioneer departments of Kenya-AIST are Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, ICT Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Agricultural Biotechnology. KAIST developed the academic curricula for these six departments as part of KAIST’s commitment to the success of Kenya-AIST. These departments and their curricula were designed to be practical to Kenya’s economy and society, academic, and customizable in response to industrial conditions.
In addition to the special cooperation with KAIST, Kenya-AIST is also eyeing cooperation with the Kenyan industry to boost its goals of becoming a technological and research hub for Kenya. Kenya-AIST’s location in Konza Technopolis is of strategic importance. Kenya-AIST will drive innovations beneficial to companies; in exchange, corporations would create more jobs that Kenya-AIST graduates can benefit from. However, that is still far in the future, and in its early stages Kenya-AIST has found it helpful to collaborate with other universities. The University of Nairobi, which had readily available advanced equipment, aided Kenya-AIST when it first accepted students in 2021. Kenya-AIST also initially functioned as an affiliate college of the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology in Kenya.