Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU-Africa), through its Industry Innovation Lab, has opened applications for the TechSkills Marketplace Program 2026—an initiative designed to connect African startups and MSMEs with top graduate talent from CMU-Africa. The program supports businesses seeking innovative solutions to real-world technology challenges, while empowering students with practical, industry-focused experience.

Participating startups and MSMEs gain access to:

• Highly skilled CMU-Africa graduate interns equipped with advanced technical capabilities
• A co-funded internship model, with CMU-Africa covering a portion of the stipend
• Increased visibility and networking opportunities within the Industry Innovation Lab community
• Support to scale technology-driven products and solutions

How to Apply

Eligible businesses can submit their applications via the TechSkills Marketplace portal on the CMU-Africa website. The application window is open from 1 November to 1 December 2025.

Read more and Apply

DELETION OF STUDENTS FROM TURNITIN WHO HAVE ALREADY CLEARED TO ENABLE ACTIVE STUDENTS TO BE REGISTERED TO USE THE SYSTEM

ALL Academic Staff and Research Administrators

 The University of Nairobi, through the Library and ICT department, acquired limited number of Turnitin licenses through subscription to facilitate project supervision of postgraduate students.

 Enrolling a student into an active class consumes 1 license. Currently, the enrolment of students and supervisors has depleted the licenses. This is not because the licenses are not adequate but it is due to duplication of enrolment and instructors failing to delete students who have already cleared from the university. This has resulted in some supervisors not able to use the system or register active students.  

 An 'active class' is a class that has not yet reached its expiry date. Any students enrolled in an active class are considered active students, even if they have cleared and left the University.

 Instructors/supervisors are therefore required to drop (delete) students who have finished their studies and cleared with the University to allow other students use the licenses. This is because once supervisor’s student count reaches its limit, new students will not be able to join classes using the account, submit their papers, view instructor feedback, or receive a Similarity Report. These limitations will also affect the instructor.

 The system does not grant rights to librarian/super administrator to drop or delete students registered by the supervisor/instructor. It is therefore the responsibility of the supervisor/instructor to drop/delete students registered in his/her class because it is only the supervisor who can identify his/her active and inactive students.

 To redeem the licenses being held by inactive students or students registered in duplicate, following are some guidelines to help supervisors maintain a healthy student count: 

 1.        Regularly Check your student limit and student count - Knowing the student limit and how close you are to reaching it will help you control your student enrollment numbers.

 2.        Drop duplicates and students who have already cleared or graduated - The preferred method of enrolling students is by the instructor adding them directly as opposed to giving them the class name and enrollment key. This will prevent students from creating multiple Turnitin accounts, and even sharing the enrollment key with their friends in other Universities. The Library therefore recommends that instructors enroll students directly into their classes so that students don’t have access to the class information, such as the class enrollment key.

 Instructors can delete multiple enrollments in their classes by dropping duplicate students. Similarly, upon graduation from the University, enrolled students must be dropped.

 Conversely, active classes that are no longer in use should be deleted to pave way for registration of genuine active students.  

 3.        Classes should be allowed to expire - Classes should be created with a short lifespan, for instance, they can run the duration of a semester. Creating new classes each semester ensures that students who complete their studies the previous semester are automatically disabled when the class expires. This is because inactive students or students in expired classes do not contribute to the student limit.

 Any unused classes can be expired/deleted easily by editing the class and changing its end date to a past date. Please let us comply to enable active members use the licences

Please do not hesitate to contact the Library Department through the Library Helpdesk link below for further inquiries: https://uonlibrary.uonbi.ac.ke/library-helpdesk.

This is a reminder about six Grand Challenges requests-for-proposals (RFPs) that are currently still open. We encourage you to apply and to share this with others in your network who may be interested.

The following five RFPs will remain open until Tuesday, March 25th, at 11:30 AM Pacific Time — two weeks from today.

• Innovations for Gram-Negative Antibiotic Discovery: a collaboration among the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Wellcome, and the Gates Foundation.
• Accelerating Innovations to Address Heavy Menstrual Bleeding in Women in Low-Resource Settings
• Enhancing HIV and TB Diagnosis: Adjunct Technologies for Sample Collection and Processing
• Innovative Data and Modeling Approaches to Measure Women's Health
• Reducing the Burden of Preeclampsia

The following RFP will remain open until Saturday, May 31st, at 11:30 AM Pacific Time.

• Innovations for Exceptionally Low-Cost Monoclonal Antibody (mAb) Manufacturing: a partnership between the Gates Foundation and LifeArc.*

Read summaries of selected Grand Challenges grants, explore an interactive world map of projects across the Grand Challenges network, and sign up on the Grand Challenges website to receive email updates like this one.

We are pleased to inform you that UPF GLOBAL STUDIES DEGREE is searching for faculty members  from the fields of Economy,  Political and Social Sciences, and Regional Integration, to participate in the UPF GLOBAL WEEK 
as speakers and professors, which will be carried out on mid February 2026. This academic event is a series of conferences given by multidisciplinary international professors and it is targeted to the UPF students. February 2026 the main subject will be related to Sub-Saharan Africa issues. It is a good opportunity for the participants to meet UPF faculty members and  also from other international universities. 

We will be glad if you can disseminate this opportunity among the academic staff of the mentioned fields in your institutions, since we have the current  A4U call for scholarships still open and they will be able to finance the travelling and accommodation expenses if they finally are awarded.

If you have candidates in your institutions that meet the requirements and are interested, they should send a message to silvia.vilanova@upf.edu (International Relations UPF)   before the 19th March 2025:

. subject   UPF GLOBAL WEEK /A4U Erasmus+ mobility,

. enclosures: CV and the attached teaching and training mobility filled and signed by them. 

Global Studies Degree coordinator, will be glad to analyze the candidacies received and will select and accept those wich will match better with the 2026 Global Week. Afterwards the selected candidates will be able to submit their applications to participate in the A4U  call for scholarship (deadline 21/3/2025)

For further details please contact silvia.vilanova@upf.edu

The National Land Commission (NLC) in conjunction with National Research Fund (NRF) has organized the 3rd Research Conference on Land and Natural Resources which will be held on 12th-13th June 2024. The theme for the conference is "Data, Innovation and Technology for Land Governance". The NLC extends invitation to staff and students to participate in the conference through paper presentation, abstracts and engagement with stakeholders.

For more information, please follow the following link:

https://www.nrf.go.ke/3rd-regional-research-conference-call-for-abstracts/

For feedback or clarification, please contact the commission through: conference@landcommission.go.ke or 0726848929

The Embassy of France has launched its call for  scholarship applications. Please visit website or the grant Search Engine of Campus France. for the full call and application guidelines. 

For further information, please contact: Alexis WIEBE alexis.wiebe@diplomatie.gouv.fr  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlqqM1a1GQI

Are you passionate about innovation and developing ideas to solve society's greatest challenges? In preparation for the Nairobi Innovation Week 2024, register to participate in the Faculties-based Hackathons and learn how to innovate!

The goal is to prepare students and staff to be job creators instead of job seekers. The top three winning ideas from each of the Faculties Hackathons will get a chance to participate in the final Nairobi Innovation Week competition in 2024

 Who is eligible to apply & participate in Innovation Hackathons?

- Open to all university of Nairobi students both undergraduates and postgraduates

- University of Nairobi Academic and Non-academic Staff

Important Dates:

Application call open: 8th March, 2024

Clarification/ Question &Answer Session.

 https://meet.google.com/dtw-enxn-vbd?hs=224  Clarification/Q&A  meeting link

 Application Call Closes: 14th March, 2024 

Selected and accepted teams Announcements: 17th March   

  Hackathons: 19^th to 21^st March, 2024 

  Nairobi Innovation Week 2024: 8th to 10th May 2024

 What is a hackathon?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlqqM1a1GQI

 What is a Pitch Deck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1VgqjBnv3o

 Examples of a Pitch deck and some tools to help create a great one:

https://shorthand.com/the-craft/pitch-deck-tools/index.html

 Register here: bit.ly/niw hackathon

 Please share this with friends and your community within the University of Nairobi.

For further clarification please contact us on: niw@uonbi.ac.ke, startinev@gmail.com

The applications for the 2024 DAAD fully-funded scholarships are now open. Please use the link below to access the full scholarship call. 

https://uonbi.ac.ke/news/fully-funded-daad-scholarships-2024-call-applications