A group of Kenyans in the Diaspora are putting final touches on a plan to construct a 30,000-student capacity university in Taita Taveta County.
Also included in the over Sh100 billion project is the development of a new town to serve the university in what is called the Institution Town Development Plan whose implementation has been approved by the county government.
Already, 1,500 acres of land has been secured and surveyed. The group is now in the process of securing another 1,500 acres to get the requisite acreage earmarked for the project.
According to Dan Kamau, on of the officials in charge of the Diaspora University Town Project, they expect the groundbreaking to be in August.
Kamau says the ‘University Town’ is modelled around the Amherst Town in Massachusetts.
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He says the project plan is currently awaiting a strategic environmental assessment and is expected to create 20,000 new jobs in the first five years in construction of the infrastructure, including that of the university and 6,000 town houses.
“Entrepreneurs are planning to supply materials and equipment. The site physical planning is ongoing. We are still developing resources needed and are awaiting a bill to be passed at the Taita Taveta County Assembly for additional land,” Kamau says.
Taita Taveta Governor Granton Samboja says the project will create huge employment and spur development in the county.
“As we have given them land, we will provide them with every necessary support to have the project become a reality,” Samboja says.
In the plan, the university will have schools of engineering and applied science, business and technology, residential buildings, a hospital, hotels and an industrial park.
The idea was started by Prof Arthur Gerstenfeld and the late Prof Raphael Njoroge of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
“The professors’ vision was to have a new university in Africa to apply WPI project-based learning approach that incorporates research and innovation through projects.
“Wall Street Journal has rated WPI as Number 1 in combining research and teaching in US,” says Kamau, who is the author of Gambling with Destiny and an Entrepreneur who lives in the US.
