SOCIAL FEEDS

Peter Njiru Ngoci, the Country (Kenya) Manager for ITIKI, was named a Shujaa during the 2020 Kenya Mashujaa Day celebrations. A Shujaa (Kiswahili word for hero) is a national title bestowed on accomplished Kenyans as a recognition for their contribution in different spheres of nation-building. Announced by the President during the national day of celebrating Kenya’s heroes and heroines, the holders of this title are selected through grassroot-based rigorous vetting process. Peter’s over 3 decades of dedication to community service saw him rise to the list of 2020 Kenya’s finest men and women. This is not surprising as his name is synonymous with community service. Whenever you mention his name among residents of Mbeere South (in Embu County, Eastern Kenya), they immediately recognize him and most of them would mention at least two community uplifting projects Ngoci (as he is commonly known) in which Peter has assisted them. For example, when @DroughtITIKI posted Peter’s victory, @MuthoniKiura wrote: “Ooohh am very happy to see Mr Ngoci being celebrated for the good work he has done in Mbeere, he got our family the best dairy goat breed and has kept checking on us. He is a real shujaa 2getha with Ndagara ngechu” 

Peter has been at the helm of ITIKI’s operation in Mbeere Kenya since 2013 and the great success is attributed to him. In the early stages of ITIKI, it did not take long to identify Peter as the right person to lead the Project as many residents, and indeed, the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), already identified him as an Expert of the Indigenous Knowledge of weather. He has, over the last 5 years, spearheaded the close working relationship between ITIKI. He is always a key speaker at the Regional KMD’s seasonal forecasts where the contribution of ITIKI forecasts play a critical role in shaping the forecasts disseminated to the residents of Embu Country. Peter’s job as Country Manager entails managing a group of ITIKI Ambassadors who dedicatedly provide the indigenous indicators used in predicting droughts/rains for small scale farmers in Mbeere and beyond.

ITIKI CEO - Prof Muthoni Masinde, has been chosen  as one of the finalists of the Africa-UK: Female Tech Founders and TeXchange programmes taking place this month and February, co-delivered with the UK-Israel Tech Hub. The most ambitious development-focused women tech entrepreneurs from across Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria are coming to London in just over a week’s time to participate in the Network’s inaugural programme specifically focused on supporting gender inclusive economic growth. 

The entrepreneurs will attend the Africa Investment Summit as part of the programme, which has been designed to empower participants with the skills and connections to tackle the existing digital gender gap.

For more: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/finalists-announced-for-the-international-tech-hub-networks-female-tech-founders-and-texchange-programmes

You are cordially invited to join us for the official launching one of our flagship Project: ITIKI – the drought predicting tool for Africa’s small-scale farmers, scheduled to be held at Central University of Technology, Free State, from the 20th June - 21st June, 2019. The Unit for Research on Informatics for Droughts in Africa (URIDA) was dedicated to the advancement of scientific research and development of relevant and sustainable (ICTs) tools for predicting Africa’s droughts.  We use an inter-sectoral (meteorological, hydrological, computer science, engineering, health, agriculture and planning) approach to ensure people-cantered solutions.  We leverage our solutions on the following tools: Indigenous Knowledge, ICTs (informatics): Mobile phones, wireless sensor networks (Internet of Things, Big Data) and artificial intelligence.  Download CUT/ITIKI Official Launch Programme below.

ITIKI presented a series of short videos about the current implementation sites, ambition and goals of the ITIKI project. The video provides an insights and a form of feedback from the small scale end-users using ITIKI drought prediction tool. Videos available on our YouTube channel.