Prof. Ogada has enormous experience from senior management levels in research, university, public and private sector. Prof. Ogada holds an MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the Belarusian Polytechnic, Minsk, USSR (1987), PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University Hamburg-Harburg, Germany (1995) and MBA in Strategic Management from Moi University, Kenya (2005). He started his career in Moi University, where he worked for 18 years and rose to the position of Associate Professor of Energy and Environmental Engineering in 2000 where he helped to establish MSc and PhD programs in Energy Studies. He was Head of the Department of production engineering for six years (1996-2003) and founder Managing Director of Moi University Holding Limited, a technology transfer arm of the University (2003-2006). From 2006 to 2009, he was the Managing Director of the Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute. Between 2009 and 2011, he joined the National Economic and Social Council, a Kenya government policy advisory body, as an UNDP funded research fellow where he was responsible for the manufacturing sector and the development of the Science, technology and Innovation policy. Parallel to this assignment he was also Advisor to the British Council on a DFID funded project – African Knowledge Transfer Partnership-. Between 2013 and 2017, he was County Minister responsible for Trade, Industrialization and Investment in Homa Bay County. From December 2017, he has been the Chairman of the Kenyan National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI).
Since 2000, Prof Ogada has been a consultant for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the areas of national intellectual property (IP) policy and strategy, institutional IP Policy as well as commercialization of research results and technology transfer. A respected regional expert in this area, Prof Ogada has participated in development of national IP policy and strategy for Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Uganda, Ghana, Zambia. He developed three guidelines and tools to help developing countries in formulating national intellectual property policy and strategies. in addition he has also helped several universities in Africa to develop Institutional IP Policy and authored a guideline to support institutions. On technology transfer and commercialization of R&D results, Prof Ogada has been invited as a speaker in several forums globally. Apart from the above mentioned five countries, Prof Ogada has also shared his experience in Rwanda, Senegal, Morocco, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, as well as in South Korea, Malaysia, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. This wealth of experience will be critical as he steers the STI Agenda of ACTS