Former Laikipia Governor Ndiritu Muriithi has been appointed as a policy research fellow by the Dedan Kimathi University of Technology.
Muriithi who was the leader of Raila Odinga’s campaign board lost his bid for a second term to UDA's Joshua Irungu.
The university said the appointment is as a result of his contribution in public service, particularly in developing new approaches to small project implementation in the public sector and innovation in the financing of the projects.
In addition, Muriithi created frameworks for promotion of innovators in the informal sector as vehicles for realising Kenya’s industrialisation goals as well as empowering small, micro and medium enterprises for wealth creation.
The university's VC Prof Paul Ndirangu Kioni in a statement on Monday said Muriithi’s appointment is affiliated to Dekut UNESCO chair on Anticipatory Socio-Technical Systems.
Through Research Fellow and Visiting Professors policy, the university aims at enriching research and knowledge dissemination environment.
“Research Fellows and Visiting Professors bring to the university new ideas and perspectives as well as knowledge acquired in an environment vastly different from that of the faculty in Dekut,” Kioni said.
The VC said the diversity of perspectives and backgrounds is a powerful catalyst for rapid generation of novel ideas and solution to problems.
Through Muriithi’s appointment, the university hopes to achieve better engagement of faculty with the industry and enhanced relevance of the university education and research, which is more responsive to the needs of society.
During his tenure as governor of Laikipia, Muriithi’s administration collaborated closely with the university in areas of innovation, manufacturing and project management.
In May, the university and Nanyuki-based Mwireri Engineering, a firm under Muriithi’s Laikipia Innovation and Enterprise Development programme-developed an industrial scale maize drier.
The county government purchased the drier for Kinamba cereal warehouse and were to produce two more for Sipili and Mutanga warehouses.
The university’s engineering department also worked with the county government to develop the Laikipia-made four-wheeler tuktuk BJ50 in Nyahururu.
At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the two institutions also collaborated to develop a medical ventilator.
In June, about 90 senior county government officers graduated with a post graduated diploma in project management, which they learned using public projects that they were implementing at the county level.