School News

Water quality sampling of River Kuja near Migori Town by Dr Lewis Sitoki (June 2021)

Construction of an ecological sanitation system (dry toilet) for a primary school in Juja, Kiambu County. Courtesy of Austine Otieno, PhD student.

Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy - Basic Training Programme

Africa is becoming the focus for the world of radio astronomy. It will host the mid-frequency Square Kilometre Array (SKA) –the next generation global radio astronomy facility that will be built initially in South Africa, and then rolled out across eight African partner countries, including Kenya.Prior to the SKA,a network of radio telescopes called the African Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network (AVN) is being built in the African partner countries. To support this effortthe Development in Africa with Radio Astronomyproject (DARA:www.dara (link is external)-project.org)has setup abasic training programme with the aim of offeringany suitably qualified person the opportunity to undertake the training and become familiar with the basics of astrophysics and radio astronomy and gain hands-on experience. The programme will take place at the host institute:The Technical University of Kenya. Hands-on training in radio astronomy will take placeat the Ghana Space Science & Technology Centre (GSSTI) in Ghana. Experts in radio astronomy from the UK, EUand South Africawill deliver the training virtually together with local experts on the ground. The programme is funded by the UK’s Newton Fund together with matchingeffortsfrom South Africa. Additional training in the industrialopportunities afforded by knowledge of radio astronomy techniques will be provided by experienced entrepreneurs from the satellite communications business.The basic training programme will consist:

8weeks of lectures, workshops and hands-on sessions spread out over a half year;
students who require additional English language study will be given the opportunity to attend a course prior to the start of the programme;
on completion trainees will receive a certificateof completionand can request a reference letter from their trainers;
trainees will then be in a position to apply for advanced training places in radio astronomy at Masters or PhD level, or use their new skills to aid the development of related high tech industries in the host country

>> More about the Training programme
>> Download Training Programme Application Form 2021

DARA Big Data Workshop, July 12th – 16th 2021 at T-UK

The Technical University of Kenya ( TU Kenya), Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA Big Data), the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) and Inter-University Institute for Data Intensive Astronomy (IDIA) are hosting an intensive data science event entitled “Big Data Kenya”.

This will be a 5 day workshop consisting of tutorials in Python and machine learning concepts followed by a guided hackathon. The event will be held on campus at TU Kenya in Nairobi and will be led by an experienced team of tutors. The event will begin on Mon 12th July and end on Fri 16th July; participants must be able to get to TU Kenya each day and must commit to attending each day in full. A travel stipend will be provided for participants.