This has to be one of the most exciting developments for Kenya in regards to developing world-class mobile software services and products! Earlier today, Nokia Research Centre Africa (NRC-Africa) and the University of Nairobi’s School of Computing & Informatics (SCI) jointly launched a Research and Sub-contracting Lab as well as a Usability Lab at the Chiromo Campus.

This exciting initiative is the culmination of a strategic partnership between NRC-Africa and SCI which has been facilitated through funding from Nokia to build student capacity at SCI, through the SUCA project. This has also included the training of two SCI staff members in Finland on software sub-contracting management including ICT project management.

The purpose of these two labs is to enable the University of Nairobi to to:

• Provide training to students, and local software development houses on ICT Project Management, Subcontracting Best Practices
• Undertake contracted software application and prototype development
• Undertake Academia research and contracted research
• Conduct usability testing/evaluation both for in-house developed software and contracted see more here