President Uhuru Kenyatta is among dignitaries including world scholars who will grace the memorial service of the late Harvard don Prof Calestous Juma.
Juma’s memorial service will be held at the Holy Family Basilica in Nairobi.
He died on December 15, a week after his mother was buried.
The 64-year old at the time of his death was the faculty chair of the Innovation for Economic Development Executive Program at Harvard Kennedy School besides being the school’s director of the school’s Science, Technology and Globalization project.
Juma was born in Bunyala, in a family of 16. He beat odds and joined Port Victoria Primary School and later, John Osogo High School.
He proceeded to Egoji Teachers’ College in Meru where he graduated in 1974, and became a science teacher in Mombasa.
While teaching in Mombasa, he would write letters to Daily Nation editor prompting the media firm to hire him as the first science and environmental journalist in 1978.
A year later, his work caught the eye of Nobel laureate the late Prof Wangari Mathai who was by then serving as the board chair of the Environment Liaison Centre International.
He hired him to edit their Centre Report, later renamed Ecoforum.
Juma later won a scholarship from IDRC in Canada. He proceeded to the University of Sussex in UK where, he earned a Master of Science (MSc.) degree in Science, Technology and Industrialization focusing on solar photovoltaics in 1983.
Years later, he studied for his doctorate degree in Science and Technology. He returned to Kenya in 1986.
In 1987, his first book, Long-Run Economics, co-authored with Prof. Norman Clark, his supervisor at SPRU, was published.
He married Alison Field the same year. The two had first met at an IUCN conference in Ottawa, Canada, when they were both completing their graduate studies.
He is credited with the starting of African Centre for Technology Studies in Nairobi.
The centre broke the norm of having government as the only entity making policies.
Both in Kenya and abroad, he has received honours for his exemplary work in the field of Science and Technology.
Retired President Mwai Kibaki in 2006 awarded him the honour of the Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear citing he helped government solve diplomatic issues.
Other prestigious institutions he has served in recognition of his outstanding work include: Royal Society of London, the US National Academy of Sciences, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the African Academy of Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences.
He has been survived by his wife Alison, and two children: Eric and Roselyda Nanjala Kwada.