One of  key roles of KENET as an organization is to catalyze collaboration in research and education among member institutions. KENET promotes collaboration through the facilitation of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) academic areas namely Engineering, Computer Science and Information Systems and Computer Modelling and Material Science, Medicine, Agriculture and Education Technology.  The travel grants are awarded to participants presenting papers in conferences whose proceedings are indexed by Elsevier's Scopus or Web of Science.

Dr. Mburu presenting her paper at the ICMECE conference

Since 2014, KENET has awarded 138 travel grants to participants from 32 member institutions. The institutions include universities, research institutes and Technical and Vocational Educational Training Institutes (TVETS).

Dr. Lucy Waruguru Mburu, Chair of the Networks and Applied Computing department at KCA University is a KENET travel grant awardee. Dr. Mburu learnt about the travel grants during KENET engagements and applied to enable her present her papers/research findings in conferences. Through the KENET travel grants, Dr. Mburu has attended and presented papers in three (3) international conferences.

The conferences include the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) in 2019 and The Interdiscplinary Conference on Mechanics, Computer and Electrics (ICMECE) in 2022 and the 29th International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation in 2023. Dr. Mburu presented two (2)  full papers in the conferences titled, "Modelling Credit Risk using System Dynamics: The Case of Licensed Credit Reference Bureaus in Kenya" and "Evaluating the Efficacy of Elearning in Higher Educational Institutions using Educational Data" enhancing her ability to grow in the field.

Attending the conferences opened avenues for future collaborations with other researchers from the Polytechnics University of Catalonia (UPC)  and Aalborg University helping Dr. Mburu advance her research through publishing in IEEE Xplore and being indexed in Scopus and discussing collaborative research.

Through the KENET travel grants faculty, researchers and graduate students present referenced conference papers and gain an international perspective enhancing their research experience and networking with professionals who have similar research interests and resulting in more meaningful and impactful results from the research conducted.

Grant Application can be made here