By Dr Jamie Cross, Social Anthropology and Development, School of Social and Political Science
Later this month I will be taking a small group of prize-winning students to Nairobi to learn about the work of one of our newest partners, iHub.
iHub is an innovation hub for Nairobi’s technology community, providing a tech community facility for the technologists, investors, tech companies and young entrepreneurs to come together and learn from one another.
We hope to help establish new collaborations around data and international development.
Four undergraduate and postgraduate students will accompany me to Kenya, having won first prize in this year’s Innovative Learning Week Global Development Academy/Practical Action Smart Data Hack.
The students won the opportunity after building a bespoke search engine to help development professionals filter news on technology trends.
A prototype search-engine is now being built into a fully functioning discovery platform by Scotland’s Tirami Collective, funded by the US Rockefeller Foundation.
During their prizewinning trip they will visit iHub and meet with technology companies including international NGO partner Practical Action.
The student group includes Katy Hartin, Judy Duong, Mateusz Rogozinski and Olafs Vandans, from the schools of Informatics and Social and Political Science.
This is a great opportunity for the students to learn from technology professionals amid the spectacular Kenyan backdrop.