IBM announced that it will open its first African IBM Research lab in Nairobi. The Nairobi lab becomes IBM’s 12th lab joining existing labs in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Switzerland and the United States.
The research lab is based in Catholic University and in the collaboration with the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology through the Kenya ICT Board. It will conduct basic and applied research focused on solving problems relevant to Africa and contribute to the building of a science and technology base for the continent.
It will have a Resident Scientist Program and an international recruitment program to reach Kenyan and other African applicants. The program will aim to attract top Research and Development talent to work side-by-side with IBM researchers in the lab. The Resident Scientist candidates will be pre-doctoral and post-doctoral researchers including scientists and researchers from academia, Government and industry. The resident scientists will begin with a one-year tenure with options for this to be extended.
Resident scientists will be integrated into the IBM Research – Africa lab as well as IBM’s global network of labs. Each resident scientist can collaborate with IBM researchers throughout IBM’s global network of laboratories as they carry out their research.
The research lab will explore the following areas:
- Next generation Public Sector
- Smrt Cities
- Human Capacity Development
I am perplexed that this lab has not been set up in South Africa. How did that happen? We need to form a Commission of Inquiry to look into this issue. And by the way, how did they choose Catholic University and not Strathmore, KU, JKUAT, Moi or UoN?
No idea but I think it is a good thing that it is at the Catholic University and not these other Universities you have mentioned. You see we need to spread the new things around and not at the same places. You see, with everything going to be at Strathmore or UON, the other universities remain unattractive to students. I guess, the best thing would be to have some of these things in different universities
True, as long as it is open to students from all other universities in Kenya, its location at CUEA is not an issue.