Aust design thinking heads to Kenya

Australian experts will help Kenya's young leaders come up with solutions to development challenges with the establishment of a new design school.

Canberra-based design firm ThinkPlace and Stanford University in California are teaming up with the University of Nairobi to set up a design school in Kenya.

ThinkPlace founder John Body says the school aims to foster innovation and help the country reduce its reliance on foreign expertise.

"It wants to leverage that innovative spirit in young people, but Kenya knows it's got big challenges," he told AAP.

These include poverty, HIV rates, poor health status, a lack of quality education, infrastructure and food security as well as the transition of subsistence low-income farmers to an urbanised economy.

"The students will be working on real problems, not made-up ones," Mr Body said.

The school will build on Kenya's already "highly innovative culture" and is pitched at undergraduates because the age profile in Kenya is very young, partly because of the HIV situation.

It will be up and running from early 2016 with a pilot program before being scaled up.