Dr. Kevit Desai

Chair, Board of Trustees

Dr. Kevit Desai is the former Principal Secretary State Department of East African Community (EAC) prior to that he was the Principal Secretary in the State Department of Vocational and Technical Training (TVET) in the Ministry of Education. He is the Chairman of the Social and Political Pillar of the Vision 2030 Board Committee (2018) and a Trustee of KENET Board of Trustees (2018).

Kevit is also the Chairman of the Permanent Working Group on TVET in Kenya (PWG). He has championed private sector, TVET, government and development partner linkages, towards transformation of Kenya’s technical and vocational training platform. The PWG initiative is promoting continuous communication, common agenda and cross sector coordination throughout different stakeholder networks.

He served as a Governor, Director and CEO of Kenya Private Sector Alliance and a former Commissioner of the Commission for Higher Education. As a Task Force Member of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Dr. Desai was responsible for the development of the University Act; Science, Technology and Innovation Act; and Technical, Vocational Education and training (TVET) Act of Parliament. This was a culmination of 15 years of his involvement in all the sessional papers, policy documents and strategies for skills, education and research.

He is also founder and former Managing Director of Centurion Systems Limited, and he holds a PhD in Robotics Systems Engineering. Dr. Desai also served as an Industrial Automation Development Engineer at Nippon ABS Ltd in Tochigi, Japan, and is a master trainer in automation and drive technologies.

Dr. Desai is also the founding Chairman of Linking Industry with Academia (LIWA), Chairman of Council, Technical University of Mombasa (TUM), and Chairman of The Board of Governors – Karen Technical Training Institute for the Deaf (KTTID). He is also Chairman of the Board of Young Scientists Kenya. Dr. Desai stepped down from Centurion Systems, LIWA, TUM and KTTID after his appointment to the Ministry of Education in February 2018.

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