Saturday January 16th 2016 saw the winning Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund project by TechWomen 2014 ‘Mombasa Girls in STEM Solve IT’ kick off the much anticipated Training of Trainer (ToT) sessions in Kizingo, Mombasa.

The first of the five full day training sessions planned was Design Thinking and Entrepreneurship. The training was conducted by Global Minimum/Innovate Kenya. The course for the day was designed to enamor the ToTs with design thinking principles to train girls in creative thinking processes and problem solving methods as they design their projects.

As the training progressed the audience were pleasantly surprised to have the Kenya ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru grace the event and speak on the need for great ideation, in line with the design thinking methodologies of the day while offering his support on behalf of the government of Kenya for the project.

The Mombasa Senator, Hassan Omar who is also graciously providing his office space for the training sessions also took time to grace the occasion and learn more on the vision to further tech among women in the Coast region. Senator Hassan Omar furthermore offered his
support to ensure that winning applications such as Gold in Garbage get an audience with National Tech and Science Board.
After a highly interactive training session that involved several break out sessions where ToTs experimented with ideation, prototyping and problem solving skills, the ToT were further treated to a talk by Leroy Mwasaru, who in 2014 was Kenyas representative to Techonomy in San Francisco and together with his fellow high school team were Innovate Kenya finalists for their community solving project dubbed ‘Poo power’ where human waste is utilized from dormitories to provide a safe alternative source of renewable energy. His presence was a good example of community problems, Mombasa girls in stem project hope for high school girls to solve, using STEM skills.
The day came to an end with the handing out of certificates of participation to all participants by Global Minimum. It was a hugely successful first training session and all who attended left buoyed, encouraged and looking forward to the remaining training sessions.