Prof Solomon Shibairo, the Vice-Chancellor of Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) is a storyteller.

As he welcomed participants at the ‘Build by Safaricom’ workshop at the university recently, he reflected on his experiences with technology and communication over the last few decades.

His experience ranges from sending letters in the post to his high school sweetheart, 50 years ago, that took months to get to the recipient, to damaged phone lines that meant no dialing tone miles away, to sending money via buses and relying on the trust and goodwill of neighbours upcountry.

“Between 2000 and 2023, technology exploded. People my age could never have imagined things like AI, drones, robots. We do not know exactly where tech is taking us but what I know is that humans will remain at the heart,” said Prof Shibairo.

The academic joined The University of Nairobi in 1981 for a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture and went on to graduate with a Master of Science in Agronomy from the same university in 1989. He would later study for his PhD in Plant Science at the University of British Columbia, in Canada.

As he now heads one of Kenya’s science and tech-centered universities, he worries about how ready his charges are for the brave new world. “We have been grappling with the issue in the Kenyan education sector, where employers complain there’s a mismatch between the students we produce and the market. Therefore, we have been calling on the industry and partners to come and give us a real industry experience.”

The VC’s call was answered by the Safaricom Engineering Community.

“What we are currently trying to do is to upskill 1,400 youths in Kenya with 10 in-demand digital skill sets. We will do this by building 10 centers of excellence across 10 universities in the country,” explains Naisenya Mungai, a Digital Delivery lead at Safaricom and one of the community’s founder engineers.

The Safaricom Engineering Community, which was born following the inaugural Safaricom tech Summit in July 2022, undertakes four interconnected programmes.

‘Build by Safaricom’ is a one-day show and tell event that aims at exposing the students to the courses available and also offering them life skills such as how to interview for jobs. Interested students can then join the Accelerate by Safaricom, one-year programme that offers training as well as internship opportunity for selected students. The mentored students are placed into a talent pool that Kenyan companies in need can tap into. This year the community started Safaricom Mizizi which is focused on high school students.

Additionally, the community is also partnering with Kenyan universities to update and modernise their tech curricula and ensure market-ready tech graduands are churned out.

Over one hundred students got tips on a variety of tech topics like hacking, AI, cybersecurity. There were also insightful conversations about the future of work and preparing for a future with AI which proved to be highly popular, and which showed the thirst for such information.

“What I really enjoyed about the session was the panel about AI. I learned a lot, especially about ethics in AI. I want to tell Safaricom, thank you for considering us. It is a big company and being that it is a big company considering us students really shows a lot and speaks a lot about it. We really appreciate this opportunity,” said Yvonne Majala, an Information Technology student at MMUST who harbours a dream of becoming an AI engineer.

For Prof Shibairo, the Build by Safaricom workshop allayed his fears and gave him renewed hope for the future.

“When you listen to talks about the advances in technology, in AI, for example, you get scared, but I was comforted today to see that we have a partner with whom we can improve our skills and move with the rest of the world, so we are not left behind,” he said.

The members of the Safaricom Engineering Community were at Masinde Muliro on August 26 as part of a variety of community-based activities that accompany every regional final of the Safaricom Chapa Dimba football tournament. These include a free medical camp, digital and financial literary training seminars, safety camps, players and coaches’ clinics, among other activities.