Are they planning to reverse engineer Chinese tablets?
No, that's too modest. There are bigger things on the way
![Big smile :D](https://nipate.net/Smileys/fantasticsmileys/smile.gif)
Just imagine how many thousand bill gates we will unleash to the world from 8M kids in primary now.
I see no fundamental problems with the idea of Kenya assembling or even manufacturing tablets and laptops, although manufacturing is a long way off without serious players involved, and there is not the slightest hint of things in that direction. Still, I'm all for assembly as a starting point; and, in general, one can support some of these ideas without getting involved in some jerk-off fantasy about global IT powers.
But where in the world are supposedly serious universities in the business of large-scale assembly (or manufacture)? And what sort of university proudly states that its technology
graduates have good job prospects on an assembly line (because the university plans on setting up one)?
Two points:
(1) Can such organizations produce at competitive rates even for local consumption, let alone for export? JKUAT, for example, has been quite busy with its Taifa laptop. (We'll assume that they are being locally assembled, but
that's actually not entirely clear.) In order to sell them, JKUAT's leadership has made statements that make Mucheru look like a man "with a functioning brain". Listen from 00:47 here:
What the %@#&%!
(2) Recent reports from places like the World Bank claim that there is very little product-innovation, R&D, ... taking place in Kenya---businesses are not putting money and effort into it, universities are not producing any ideas that can be turned into useful commercial products, etc
Here is the IT department at JKUAT proudly giving details of its Taifa laptop (as usual,
no mention of the Chinese partner and its role):
http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/departments/it/taifa-a3-laptop/Under "Research Publications":
http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/departments/it/publications/The IT Department is part of a "school" that includes a Department of Computing, whose research highlights are:
http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/schools/scit/research/What the %@#&%!
JKUAT needs to focus on its core mission, as a university, and none of that includes whacking home-made labels onto cheap Chinese junk and then, in a rip-off exercise, forcing the products down the throats of unsuspecting students and parents.
Moi University is even more of a joke ... and not just in IT.