Kendi Muchungi
Manager, Education & Technology and Strategic Partnerships Development
Dr Muchungi holds a PhD – Computational Neuroscience, and a master's degree (Distinction) Management and Information Systems, from University of Surrey, United Kingdom. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the Africa Nazarene University, Nairobi, Kenya and a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Web Development in E-Business from Humber College, Canada.
Dr Muchungi's PhD research:
Considered new findings with regards to the Retina and comprised the replication of the retina's functionalities to inform the design of retinal implants.
Prior to joining Aga Khan University, Dr Muchungi honed her expertise as the Communications and Technology Lead, and the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning team member with the Transforming Employability for Social Change in East Africa (TESCEA) Project through the Department for International Development, United Kingdom. In her last engagement, she was a Lecturer and Programme Leader at the Africa Nazarene University, where she is working on introducing new pedagogies for curriculum efficacy in a technology-centric environment. In addition, Dr Muchungi is the co-founder of Nikola Energy, a waste-to-energy start-up founded in 2017, focused on conservation of resources to ensure financial inclusion and personal empowerment of the marginalized.
Dr Muchungi has presented numerous in-depth academic papers on transformational, strategic, and responsible business leadership, sustainable development, and gender equity. Her academic work includes, facilitating a 'Mathematics for Machine Learning' session for INDABA Africa, at Stellenbosch University, Cape Town, South Africa; IST-Africa Week Conference – Mobile Subscribers Vulnerability to Financial Crime over the SMS Platform, Windhoek, Namibia; 4th Gender Equity and Sustainable Development Conference – Leveraging on Digital Financial Services Emerging Trends to Drive Financial Inclusion, Nairobi, Kenya. She is a recipient of esteemed awards at Bernstein Conference, Gottingen, Germany, and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Artificial Neural Networks and Machine Learning, Lausanne, Switzerland.
On the national front, Dr Muchungi is part of the Kenya National Research Fund development team for a food security project to tackle aflatoxins using ICT. Ever since 2012, she has successfully received grants, amounting to approximately USD 5.5 million, towards transforming university teaching and learning, embedding critical thinking and problem-solving skills in curricula. Internationally, Dr Muchungi received grants to present a poster and paper on modelling rod-cone convergence to improve our understanding of how quality of vision is impacted and simulating light adaptation in the Retina with Rod-Cone Coupling, separately.
Dr Muchungi's latest role is as an Instructional Designer and Partnerships Manager at the Aga Khan University, as an intervention scientist within the Brain and Mind Institute. BMI's mandate is to promote the mental health agenda by actively seeking out collaborations within The Aga Khan Development Network and without to promote awareness and the destigmatization of mental health in a stepped approach. Dr Muchungi's diverse wealth of experience in emerging technologies, science, design, and development of pragmatic solutions will contribute towards the attainment of this vision within the Region, by the introduction of innovative and localized interventions.
"Everything boils down to availability and capacity with regards to the use and the ability to leverage resources to promote inclusion, for self-actualization. Self-actualization empowers you with the capacity to build mental-resilience and allows you the opportunity to impact others through your practice."
