Nyambura Kamau
Kenyan aerospace engineer and entrepreneur Nyambura Kamau has spent the past decade turning big-sky ideas into grounded impact. Armed with an aerospace degree from the University of Sheffield and a postgraduate certificate in Space Studies from the International Space University, she cut her teeth on aircraft-assembly lines before founding Viwanda Africa, a venture studio stitching aerospace, advanced manufacturing and med-tech into market-ready products. Its flagship, an AI-powered predictive-maintenance platform, is already cutting airline downtime across Africa and Asia while building data sets that boost safety compliance.
Kamau’s orbit extends well beyond Nairobi. She scouts frontier deals as a senior associate at Pyramidia Ventures, advises the EU-funded WildDrone robotics consortium, and briefs policymakers from Addis Ababa to Singapore on indigenous launch corridors and satellite supply chains. A regular moderator at the UN “Space for Women” forum and a headliner at the Kenya Space Expo, she frames space technology as Africa’s fastest route to industrial self-reliance and high-skill jobs. With Viwanda now prototyping a reusable micro-launcher and expanding its creator fellowship for young engineers, Kamau is positioning Kenya and the continent to claim a meaningful stake in the trillion-dollar global space economy.