IEEE CASS Kenya Chapter Launch
We are excited to announce that on 29 July 2022, the IEEE CASS Kenya Chapter was officially launched. The launch event took part at the Nairobi Safari club hotel, in Nairobi, Kenya. The event attracted 65 Young Professionals from across the city.
The attendees came from local industries in Kenya. Some of the industries that they came from included Gearbox Europlacer (a PCB assembly company), Konza smart city, W.Gietsen Nairobi (Renewable Energy company), Kenyatta University, Autodesk, Roam (an Electric vehicle manufacturing company), and Safaricom (local telecommunications company).
This was a two hours event that had speakers and dinner after the launch. The first talk was about the design of power supplies for electric vehicles. It was given by Mr. Hampton from Roam. The next talk was by Prof. Ricardo Reis from IEEE CASS, who gave an overview of CASS activities and the benefits of membership in CASS. The next was by Dr. Victor Grimblat of Synopsis, who talked about the introduction to IC design workflow. This talk gave the audience an idea of how integrated circuits are designed and formed a basis for future workshops and talks on this subject. Synopsis through Dr. Victor also donated their tools to Kenyatta University. This was a really good gesture and will help strengthen learning and research not only in the university but in Kenya at large. The guest speaker, Mr. Ken Okolo, the strategic partnership manager for Raspberry pi in Africa was next. He talked about the need for a hardware community in Africa and why academia and industry should come together. He commended CASS for enabling this dream in Africa and pledged his support for CASS in Africa. His talk was really inspiring to the attendees. Mr. Ken flew from Nigeria just to attend this event in Kenya.
Mr. Kithinji was next who was standing in for the chair of the IEEE Kenya section, Mrs. Esther Muchiri. He talked about IEEE Kenya and need for YP volunteers. Finally, we had Mr. Steve from W.Gietsen who talked about the need for innovation in the circuits and systems field in Kenya. This event was a huge success and the entire CASS team in Kenya is very excited and has started activities already. We had a lot of young professionals develop an interest in CASS and we have even had an increase in attendance at successive events from CASS Kenya.
I would like to thank all the speakers and the volunteering team in Kenya who made this possible (Allan Koech, Stacy Awinja, Kithinji Muriungi, Esther Muchiri, John Muchiri, Shadrack Kipkemoi, Valery Chebet, Anthony Gatau, and Winfred Wandii). I would also like to thank the CASS leadership under CASS President, Manuel Dalgado for the support offered to the chapter.