KENET in its role as the operator of the National Research and Education Network (NREN) of Kenya has been selected as one of the grantees of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) first cohort of its grant program. See the May 29, 2025 announcement by ICANN at ICANN Announces First Cohort of Grant Program Recipients.  KENET was one of 23 grantees from different global regions of Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. 

The $500,000 grant shall be applied to the project titled “Strengthening Kenya's Cybersecurity Posture: Inclusive Capacity Building across Five Regions”.  At least two cybersecurity staff (i.e., network administrator and/or systems administrators/webmasters) from each of the connected member institutions shall participate in FREE in-person hands-on cybersecurity capacity building workshops that shall be hosted at five different regions of Kenya over a period of two years (at least 500 trainees). Another 1,000 ICT staff shall participate in instructor-led online workshops that will kick-off in the second year of the project. These workshops are therefore inclusive because all connected member institutions shall be trained in a train-the-trainer model.

The training and subsequent implementation of cybersecurity policies and measures at each of the participating member institution is expected to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of the academic sector of Kenya. All the training materials to be developed shall be released under the Creative Commons with Attribution License and can be re-used by members or other sectors in Kenya (e.g., banking sector, telecoms sector, and government sector) 

KENET shall administer a detailed cybersecurity and ICT skills baseline survey questionnaire and schedule of capacity building workshops for the FY 2025/2026. In the first year, priority shall be given to member institutions that have already submitted the cybersecurity baseline survey questionnaire and that have at least two full-time critical cybersecurity staff (i.e., experienced systems and/or network administrators). 

The capacity building workshops shall be conducted in two main tracks: Track 1: DNS and Email Security & Identity and Trust Services while Track 2 covers IPv4/IPv6 Addressing and Network Security. There shall be a bootcamp session for all participants that will cover fundamentals of Linux commands and networking commands as a refresher. The two tracks (Track 1 and Track 2) shall run concurrently over a 5-day training period and each participant is required to attend either one of the tracks as per their preference and job role. See the summary table below that outlines the different tracks and the modules that will be covered.