Kenya has been selected to host Geohub, a technology hub for young people in Africa. The project is a partnership bringing 20 countries together with an aim of providing a geographic platform for the youth to discover their potential.
GeoHub is a platform developed by the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development. (RMCRD) Youth participating in the program will be able to access opportunities available from geospatial technologies and develop products that can serve member states in business or innovation and drive growth.
RMCRD comprises 20 countries with operations in Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda, and countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
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Director General of RMCRD,Emmanuel Nkurunziza, said GeoHub will provide an opportunity for the youth to take advantage of the latest technologies in efforts of developing solutions for day to day challenges.
“We are aware that data is going to be very critical. We are aware that internet of things is providing opportunities unheard of. We are aware Machine Learning and artificial intelligence are going to be the critical things if we will be able to manage what we have been doing mechanically with human brains,” said Dr Nkurunziza.
David Ongo, a GIS Specialist, said that the GeoHub is at the innovation stage and will be based in Kenya.
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The Plan was highlighted at the Geographic Information System (GIS) celebrations at the RCMRD. Experts attending the event challenged the youth to take advantage of technology which has advanced over the last few years.
There are opportunities that five years ago were not there. One is able to capture accurate data in centimeter and millimeter resolution within minimum effort currently,” said Dr Nkurunziza.
He pointed out that technology had enabled huge volumes of data to be stored in cloud with minimal challenges unlike a few years ago.
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High internet speeds have also allowed fast movement of data.
You can deploy all these computing capacities, connectivity and ready access to high resolution satellite imagery at very affordable prices.
“Now, the challenge is for you to make sure that this data that we are getting is harnessed to develop applications and services that are relevant to our societies,” he said.
“We have set all the administrative structures ready, we had planned to roll out our activities this year but Covid-19 happened,” he said.
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