John Mwangi Maina

John Mwangi Maina is the Intellectual Property (IP) Management Officer of University of Nairobi, Kenya whose duties include Intellectual Property protection, training, innovation commercialization and industry engagement. He holds a Master’s degree in Intellectual Property law from University of Melbourne in Australia. He has a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, University of Nairobi and is currently a doctoral candidate in project Management in the University of Nairobi. During his tenure at UoN, the University has lodged 142 IP applications, commercialized 25 innovations and established 3 innovations hubs within faculties. He worked as a senior patent examiner in Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) prior to joining the University of Nairobi. He is comprehensively trained in Intellectual Property and technology transfer including by organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), European Patent Office (EPO), Japan Patent Office (JPO) and IP Australia among others. He served as the Kenya national focal point for the WIPO project of Technology and Innovation Support Centers (TISCs) where under the project, he facilitated numerous trainings on Intellectual Property and technology transfer and also established six TISCs centers in Kenya. He has carried out consultancy work for WIPO including training for senior government officials in Nigeria and also in piloting the WIPO guide for identification and use of patent information in the public domain. He was initiator and coordinator of the WIPO funded project for the Intellectual Property audit of University of Nairobi. Other projects include the study for the Market Potential of Biomass-Based Micro Gas Turbines to Address the Energy Trilemma in Sub-Saharan African Countries, a GCRF Project as project team member and a team member in the Innovation for African Universities (IAU) project that was funded by the British Council and  an IP consultant with Scinnovent Centre project for IP Audit under the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) and carried out specialized IP Audit trainings for research institutions in Malawi and Namibia.