Lupita Nyong’o, Trevor Noah, their meaningful roles

The most intriguing stars seem to appear from out of nowhere.
Take Lupita Nyong’o, the Mexican-Kenyan actress who had not even graduated from Yale School of Drama before landing her star-making role as Patsey in “12 Years a Slave,” for which she won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in 2014.

Ms. Nyong’o, 32, has since appeared in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and lent her voice to “The Jungle Book,” which will open in April. She has also acted on stage in an Off Broadway production of “Eclipsed,” about the struggles of a group of women during the Liberian Civil War. (“Eclipsed” will open on Broadway next month.) Ms. Nyong’o quickly became a fashion darling, too, as the first black face of Lancôme. She has appeared on the cover of Vogue twice. 
read more: www.nytimes.com

The Opus Dei Central Banker Shaking Up Kenya

Heads of central banks seldom achieve celebrity status, but residents of the Kenyan capital regularly stop Patrick Njoroge on the street to talk interest rates and the state of the economy, even to snap selfies.

The tall, slim governor of Kenya’s central bank is a far cry from many of the continent’s top officials. He evinces no interest in amassing personal wealth, and he’s a numerary in the Roman Catholic group Opus Dei. That means he has taken a vow of celibacy and lives with others of his religious rank in a group home, after declining to live in the regal Nairobi residence reserved for the country’s central bank governor. read more: www.wsj.com

The 28 Year-Old Kenyan Entrepreneur Who Built A $7 Million Retail And Advertising Business

Trushar Khetia is one of Kenya’s most outstanding young entrepreneurs. The 28 year-old serial entrepreneur is the founder of Tria Group, an outdoor advertising firm that uses public transit vehicles to market leading consumer goods in Kenya. Tria, which was founded in 2013, places advertising on more than 200 buses in Nairobi for clients such as Unilever, Google, HP, Dell and Konica Minolta. The company has annual revenues exceeding $1.3 million.

Khetia is also the founder of Society Stores, one of the most popular supermarkets in Thika, a thriving industrial town 40 kilometers north east of Nairobi. The four-storey retail outlet is doing more than $6 million in annual revenues and Khetia is set to open two other stores before the end of this year.  READ MORE: www.forbes.com

Inspired by a music box, Stanford bioengineer creates $5 chemistry set

Manu Prakash won a contest to develop the 21st-century chemistry set. His version, based on a toy music box, is small, robust, programmable and costs $5. It can inspire young scientists and also address developing-world problems such as water quality and health.

After talking with graduate student George Korir, Prakash started working with him on a way of pairing the hand-cranked toy with a small silicon chip containing tiny channels for manipulating fluids. These chips, called microfluidics chips, are increasingly common in research labs, but require expensive equipment and electricity to run. The expense and equipment required is a bottleneck in adapting the technology for science education and global health, Prakash said.

What Prakash and Korir invented is inexpensive, hand-powered, self-contained and programmable. "It's important to bring open-ended tools for discovery to a broad spectrum of users without dumbing down the tools," Prakash said.  read more: phys.org/news/2014-04-music-stanford-bioengineer-chemistry-video.html

Oscar Winner Lupita Nyong’o Is ‘the Pride of Africa’

image source: blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact

Celebrations were everywhere in Kenya, after their own hometown girl, Lupita Nyong’o, took home the prize for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars.

Nyong’o, born in Mexico but raised in Nairobi, comes from a prominent Kenyan political family. She gave a shout-out to her roots with her dazzling Prada Oscar dress, calling it “Nairobi Blue.”

The 12 Year’s a Slave actress made headlines across the continent, including in Nigeria and South Africa, as the first African woman to win an Academy Award.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta tweeted his congratulations, calling her “the Pride of Africa.” Kenyatta also issued an official statement praising the Kenyan actress. In keeping with the African tradition of honoring community elders, Kenyatta congratulated Nyong’o's parents as well for their role in her achievement. Read more: abcnews.go.com/blogs.

10 Things you Didn’t Know About Lupita Nyong’o

Moipei sisters on US tour

image source: connection33.com

Four Kenyan sisters popularly known as the Moipei Quartet have began a tour of the US which will take them to several major cities.


The sisters who arrived in New York on February 18 will provide Kenyans with an opportunity to enjoy their beautiful voices during live performances.

The singers include triplets Mary, Magdalene and Marta as well as their younger sibling Seraphine.

Read more: www.nation.co.ke

You Tube Channel: www.youtube.com/user/MOIPEIQUARTET

First Kenyan woman judge with a decorated career of 33 years

Kenya: Perusing the newspapers of the 1980s and 90s, one name keeps popping up, that of Lady Justice Effie Owuor. When she was not prosecuting civil and criminal cases, she was protecting children and advocating for women rights.

Read More: www.standardmedia.co.ke

Edna Kiplagat makes history in women's marathon

Kenya's Edna Kiplagat became the first woman to retain the marathon world title when she eased home on Saturday to earn the first gold medal on the opening day of the world athletics championships.

The 33-year-old - only 20th in the Olympics last year - timed 2hr 25min 44sec to take gold ahead of long-time leader Valeria Straneo of Italy (2:25:58) while Japan's Kayoko Fukushi took bronze (2:27:45). read more: www.nation.co.ke/sports

image source: www.iaaf.org

KIPLAGAT MAKES HISTORY WITH BACK-TO-BACK WINS
"Defending is hard... If you're running for the first time, no one knows who you are but going to defend, everybody is going to look at you." So said Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat before arriving in Moscow...

Trailing the early leaders by almost half a minute through the first 10km, many were questioning whether a title defence was possible, although she had finished as the runner-up in April for the second successive year in the top-quality London Marathon race and there were no physical questions that needed answering.
 read more: www.iaaf.org/competitions

Anthony Maina: corporate wonder kid

Anthony Maina has achieved in a span of less than two years what most don’t achieve in a lifetime.

At the age of 17, he was the CEO of a school-run bank. At 18 and still in high school, he had transformed more than 10 dwindling businesses into profit-making ventures and is now eyeing shares at the Nairobi Stock Exchange at the age of 19.

Meet the young entrepreneur with the magic hands and creativity to bet on.

read more: www.businessdailyafrica.com

Kenneth Mubea wins best paper at European Space Agency (ESA) in Athens

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A Kenyan PhD student, Ken Mubea, based in Bonn, recently won best paper at the 4th Advanced Training Course in Land Remote Sensing.


The 5-day course that was hosted by European Space Agency (ESA) at the Harokopio University in Athens Greece was only for Post graduate, PhD students, post-doctoral research scientists and users from European countries and Canada interested in land remote sensing and its applications.


Ken’s paper merged the best out of all the others that were handed in during the event. (If you’re like me and aren’t sure what Land Sensing is all about…..it has to do with Geography).

Ken is currently doing is PhD at the Uni in Bonn focusing on remote sensing; GIS; Land-use and land-cover monitoring and Land-use modelling…..basically in Geography. His writing his dissertation on Monitoring Land-Use Change in Nakuru (Kenya) Using Multi-Sensor Satellite Data.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is an intergovernmental organisation dedicated to the exploration of space. Source: mkenyaujerumani.de

Doctor emerges top in global contest

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A Kenyan doctor is the winner of Young Scientist of the Year Award the IFOS 2013 Congress Scientific Secretariat held in Seoul, Korea.

Dr Owen Pyeko Menach was feted at the 20th World Congress of the International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (IFOS), held from June 1 to 5, 2013 in Seoul, Korea.

Dr Menach, an ENT Surgeon at Kenyatta National Hospital, beat 100 entrants to clinch the coveted award at the global congregation of Ear, Nose and Throat specialist doctors held once every four years Dr Menach emerged first beating 100 global finalists. Read more: www.nation.co.ke/News

Juliana Rotich: Meet BRCK, Internet access built for Africa

Tech communities are booming all over Africa, says Nairobi-based Juliana Rotich, cofounder of the open-source software Ushahidi. But it remains challenging to get and stay connected in a region with frequent blackouts and spotty Internet hookups. So Rotich and friends developed BRCK, offering resilient connectivity for the developing world.
Watch : www.ted.com/talks/

Boy scares off lions with flashy invention

Richard Turere, 13, doesn't like lions. In fact, he hates them. Yet this bright Maasai boy has devised an innovative solution that's helping the survival of these magnificent beasts -- by keeping them away from humans.

Living on the edge of Nairobi National Park, in Kenya, Turere first became responsible for herding and safeguarding his family's cattle when he was just nine. But often, his valuable livestock would be raided by the lions roaming the park's sweet savannah grasses, leaving him to count the losses.
read more: edition.cnn.com/2013/02/26/tech/richard turere lion lights

Bitange Ndemo leads an IT revolution

Along Nairobi's dusty Ngong Road, so many start-up incubators and IT labs have popped up that the busy neighborhood has been nicknamed "Silicon Savannah."

Techies, geeks and innovators race one another to come up with the next big thing. They rush from meeting to meeting, work late, skip weekends. Every other day there's a pitch night for tech start-ups, a creative Web workshop, or a meeting of mobile app developers.

The result is a surge in innovative Kenyan apps, most designed to work with the not-so-smart phones most Kenyans can afford. read more: Los Angeles Times 
image source: theedition.co.ke

The Zawadi Africa Education Fund scholars

The Zawadi Africa Education Fund is a program designed to provide scholarships to academically gifted girls from disadvantaged backgrounds from Africa to pursue higher education in the US. The Zawadi Africa Education Fund is based on the highly successful Kennedy/Mboya Student airlifts of the 1960′s, through a partnership with individuals and institutions with an interest in creating leadership. The fund works to provide opportunities for university education for academically gifted but financially disadvantaged African girls, with the eventual aim of providing a pipeline of women leaders for the Region. more: zawadiafrica.org

Some beneficiaries of the fund interviewed by Jeff Koinange of K24 TV....
Lilian Olado
Sarah Osano
Quinter Faith
Rawia Abdi

List of 2010 Zawadi students

Nasimiyu beats cancer

Do you remember Rose Nasimiyu? The girl, who at nine years, last year, gained fame countrywide due to her brave battle with cancer?

Well, the princess who won everybody’s heart with her courage and positive nature was on Monday declared cancer free. It has been a battle that has seen the young girl fight for her life, balance medication and academics, and thanks to generous donations from well-wishers, she has undergone treatment and is now cured. Read more: www.standardmedia.co.ke

Young designer basks in a New York spotlight

Katungulu Mwendwa knew she wanted to be a fashion designer ever since the day she took the scissors to her mother's wardrobe.

"I think I did that to her wedding evening dress," said the 24-year-old from Nairobi, recalling her childhood. "I'm not sure she was very happy about that one - but here I am in New York, so she can't complain."

In a career breakthrough, Mwendwa was the lone African invited to join the GenArt Fresh Faces in Fashion showcase for up-and-coming designers during the recent New York fashion week. MORE: asiaone.com

Designer Bio: 

Katungulu Mwendwa is a young, enthusiastic, upcoming fashion designer born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya. Taking fashion as wearable art, her passion for design enables her to incorporate other art forms that she loves, such as music, writing, handcrafts, and drawing in the development of garments. Ultimately, her deep seated inspiration comes from those traditional cultures, both in Kenya as well the rest of Africa, that are barely touched by modernity. She combines these experiences and inspiration to create an unusual mix that is new and exciting.

Katungulu Mwendwa is aware that Kenya as well as other African cities rapid economic development may lead to the death of its traditional cultures. By referencing these cultures in contemporised designs while promoting her collections as extensions of these cultures, she hopes to popularise and create more awareness of them to safeguard their longevity.

The theme for both her past 2012 A/W and current S/S collection is inspired by the Tuareg (Indigo People), set in a fantasized concept of Northern Africa in the distant future of a post apocalyptic world. The setting for the collection provides a time period when the world would be undergoing recovery. It is a chance for humanity to re-examine the past and opt to do things differently and make things right. Source: www.genart.com/news

Kenya Rising

Can an award-winning Kenyan photojournalist set his camera aside and build a movement to fight political corruption? MORE: aljazeera.com/programmes

Wheelchair hero's 2,485-mile journey for Kenya's first spinal injury rehab unit

A Kenyan man who was paralysed after being shot by carjackers nine years ago has caught the imagination of the nation by embarking on a 2,485-mile journey to South Africa on a manual wheelchair to seek treatment for his spinal injuries. Zachary Kimotho, a 44-year-old veterinarian, began the journey in June with the aim of raising £1.9m to build a spinal injury treatment unit in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

On the first phase of his journey, Kimotho raised £650,000 and covered 78 miles of the route to South Africa, where the nearest spinal cord injury rehabilitation centre is. In a telephone interview on Friday with the Observer, Kimotho, who was near the border of Tanzania and Kenya, said he had continued despite cold and wet weather and he had blisters on his hands from turning the wheels. Read more: www.guardian.co.uk

Julius Yego in Olympic Javelin Final.

The 23-year-old Julius Yego, also known as "Mr YouTube Man" earned his nickname after revealing that he started training as a javelin thrower by self-coaching while watching You Tube. During the August 8th qualifications in London, Yego ranked 5th in group B with an impressive 81.81m throw.
Athlete profile: http://www.london2012.com/athlete/yego-julius-1234285/


Kenyan Yego qualifies for Olympic javelin final
Julius Yego threw a new national record of 81.81 metres on Wednesday to qualify for the men's Olympic javelin final at the weekend. Yego, who was forced to study YouTube videos of his rivals as his country has no traditional strength in the sport, qualified in ninth spot out of the 12 finalists who made it through from two heats.

The 23-year-old policeman stands the smallest of all the men entered into the javelin, at just 1.75m tall and weighing 85kg. Yet he nailed all three attempts in front of a vocal 80,000-capacity crowd at the Olympic Stadium, first landing 79.10m, before improving to 79.33 and finally marking the new personal best of 81.81m on his final effort. Yego qualified for the London Games after throwing 79.95m to clear the Olympic B-Standard of 79.50m. Source: AFP