Marian Muthui is a mechanical engineer by profession. Having fallen in love with automobiles in high school, she knew she wanted to work with cars like Bentleys. Today, she is living her dream by working with the team assembling Kenya’s first electric buses.
Here is her story as told by WoK,
Education
She attended Loreto Msongari Girls. In Form 3, when they were asked to envision their career and put it on a board, she knew she wanted to work with cars.
The impressionable Marian would look for photos of cars in newspapers and put pictures on the board. This was the driving force that prompted her to join the University of Nairobi to pursue a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering.
The number of female students pursuing the course were few. In her year, they were a class of one hundred and only 11 were women. During this time, her passion for engineering deepened and she started looking for opportunities abroad.
Workshops and studying abroad
She worked for GE for a while before getting admission to the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. After paying everything, buying a plane ticket and doing a farewell party, she was denied a Visa. She tried everything but to no avail.
Following this disappointment, she decided to take a break. She then began going to school and universities for workshops and to encourage other people in the field in a project dubbed Mekatilili.
One of her first schools was her alma mater, Loreto Msongari. Many people knew of her and she talked in different workshops in various places including: France, Denmark and the United States.
During one of these sessions in France, Marian Muthui was approached by the Director of Lifelong Kindergarten at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who, impressed by her work, told her to reach out if she wanted to pursue a Masters.
She reached out and joined Massachusetts on a scholarship. Thereafter, she secured a job in the United States.
Joining Basi Go
After being retrenched, she got the chance to speak to the CEO of Basi Go. They worked out an agreement and upon her return, she joined the team.
The company’s aim is to make locally assembled electric buses and sell them to hundreds of Kenya. In an interview with the Daily Nation, she said that they have assembled two buses so far.
While the process has been lengthy, they intend to assemble more buses in the future which are engineered for Kenyan roads.