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Simon Gicharu is an educationalist and founder of Mount Kenya University, which is East and Central Africa’s largest private university. He was born in 1964 in Gathiruini village, Kiambu County, Kenya. He is the first in a family of seven. Gicharu is also the Chairman of the Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation and National Private Universities Owners Association of Kenya. He is the founder of Equip Africa Institute and patron of the Mount Kenya University Graduate Enterprise Academy. He is also a board member at Thika Water and Sewerage Company, and the patron of Inter Universities Rover Moot under the Kenya Scouts Association. In 2015, Gicharu was named the Eastern African Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, and subsequently inducted into the Ernst and Young Hall of Fame. He is married with three children.

At Murang’a High School where he undertook his O-Levels, he was the captain in his final year. While in school, he etched a reputation for entrepreneurial acumen, and for assisting fellow students in Mathematics, a subject he excelled in.

In 2008, the Institute was awarded a Letter of Interim Authority by the Commission for University Education in Kenya, to operate as an independent university under the name Mount Kenya University. The university was granted a full Charter status in 2011. At the age of 46 years, Gicharu became the youngest Kenyan to have established a chartered university. The only other indigenous Chartered university was started by the former President Daniel Arap Moi. Mount Kenya University, with 16 Campuses and Centres in Kenya, Rwanda, Somaliland, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda employs over 3,000 people and has a student population of about 50,000. The University is a member of Inter-university Council of East Africa and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

Gicharu has also previously worked as a lecturer at Thika Technical Training Institute. In 1995, he earned a British Council scholarship to study Managing Enterprise Development at Cranfield University, Britain. When he came back he established Kenya Entrepreneurship Promotion Programme (KEPP), which provided micro-loans and training to young entrepreneurs. His seed capital was only Ksh20,000 (US$220). KEPP later started offering training in Computers and changed its name to Thika School of Management Studies (TSMS), with introduction of Management courses. Gradually, TSMS increased its student enrolment and the number of courses. The type of courses it offered was determined by the job demands of the day and with the explosion in use of information science and technology, TSMS changed its name to Thika Institute of Technology (TIT) in 2003. TIT was the first private college in Kenya to be accredited to offer the Diploma programme in Pharmacy Gicharu is also the founder of Cape Media, which owns TV47 in Kenya.

Gicharu obtained a Bachelor of Education Science (Honours) degree from Kenyatta University in 1990. His majors were Mathematics and Chemistry. Soon after graduation, he continued to exercise his passion for education, teaching his favourite Maths subject at various secondary schools in Kenya, and later at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, and at the Thika Technical Training Institute. He would also author Kenya’s first post-secondary school book on Mathematics, Applied Mathematics for Craft Engineering.