 We apologize for that technical glitch. We were just having fun right here in the studio. As I was saying, thank you very much for keeping it wide to 5-4. This is why in the morning, my name is Ram Magukko. If at all you're just joining us, just in time for the next and the last conversation of today right here. And it's all about women. Happy Women's Day to everybody who is watching. It's International Women's Day today. We are celebrating our own women. Those who have stood up, those who have showed up, those who have come out to stand up for women's right in different areas. We celebrate you. Thank you very much for being part of our lives. Personally, I want to celebrate all the women in my life that have established me to become the man that I am today. We have posed a question on our social media platforms and we are asking there on that particular page Y254, is there a woman who has had an impact, who has made an impact in your life and how did they do it? Who is that person that made an impact in your life? Head over to Facebook Y254. Drop in your comment. I shall read them at the tail end of this conversation right here on Y in the morning. We shall sample them up. Head over to Twitter the hashtag Y in the morning at Ram Agugo at Y254 channel that is on Twitter. Make sure that you tell us about that particular woman. Now today we want to focus particularly on about women in geospatial information science. This is women in geospatial information science. What am I talking about? Joining me today to talk about the experience in the geospatial field, I am joined next to me by Nubiselo Murage, a research and development lead at the women in geospatial information science Kenya. Nubiselo Karumusana. I am joined to my extreme left by Karolina Koth, the advocacy lead to women in geospatial information science Kenya. Karumusana. Thank you very much. Thank you for having us. The hashtag as always is one in the morning. Tell us about what you think about this particular field. This one is all about finding out how geospatial information system can support gender related issues. What are we talking about? What are the impacts of the geospatial information system in the country? The hashtag as always is one in the morning, as I said, at Ramagugo at Y254 channel. Head over to Facebook and Twitter. This discussion is going to be interesting. Happy International Women's Day to the both of you. Thank you. Thank you. How do you feel? You have a whole day for yourselves. Karolina, women. Let me start with the power of a woman in the whole world, that the whole world is celebrating women. How do you feel? What do you make of it that the women are the impact that they have had in the lives of everybody that we live around us? It's a good thing that on top of International Women's Day, we celebrate very many other women globally. It's an amazing thing and I think it's a step that the world took all of us together. But women have different days that we are celebrating women of Valentine's Day, Women's Day, Mother's Day, Day of the Girl Child. Day of the Girl Child? It just tries that the world has taken towards making our voices hard, towards knowing that women exist and girls exist because let's agree, traditionally we were celebrating men a lot. Maybe not intentionally saying today we are celebrating men, but it was like standard. Every day any nice thing that comes up it's for men. So days like these are to commemorate women, to celebrate women, to celebrate girls and it feels amazing. It feels amazing. How do you feel? It feels amazing. Women are the pillar of society. I think all of us can testify that we will not be here without women. Our mothers are our teachers, they are our friends, they are our loved ones, they are literally everything that we, how we conceptualize and view society and it's important that we celebrate them because we would not all not be here without them. Do you both have like that woman or those women, those particular divyos that have had an impact in your lives? Like who? For you? For me it's my mum and my twin sisters. They have shaped a lot of how I perceive the world, how I move through and carry myself and the courage that I take in doing new things like being on TV. Oh, they also encourage you to do this? Yeah, they also encourage me to like go for what I believe in. I hope they are watching. They are high-well. Hi Dan. That also. But I don't know, so today someone sent me a message saying happy women's day and I was wondering why would you send me a message and I'm not a woman and she told me that I celebrate you today because you are also a fighter of women because you also support women. Does that also make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. I mean the conversation about women's issues and women's rights has largely to be to involve men because we cannot exclude half the society, we cannot be talking about that we are advocating for women's rights and we are advocating for the inclusion of women by disengaging the men. Yes, because the whole point of the women's movement was that we were not actively and intentionally engaged and as a woman and an activist and a feminist we want to engage men just as much as we want to engage women because we don't want to turn back now a few decades from now and talking about men's rights and men's issues. We all need to be collectively involved in the society we are creating. Who is that woman that stood out for you, that is standing out for you in your life that made you who you are today? My mother. My mother, God bless that woman, I hope she lives forever. She's really been a pillar in my life, taught me all the greatest life lessons I know about hard work, about respecting your elders, about being a woman, about having impact in the society, she's really been that woman for me. She has been, we thank God for our mothers, my mum, we thank God for our mothers. They have made us who we are and to the whole crew, why the morning crew, send your parents a text, I'm seeing our camera crew, damn send your people a text, tell them happy international women's day. Now let's talk about youth sexual systems. So this looks like a technical term it looks, it sounds too technical, I don't know just to clarify or to give us just a brief or to highlight what do we mean when you're talking about geospatial information system? Okay yeah I know it's a heavy term and it's those terms that just like you see on your face is the room and yeah but very simply I'd like to say just especially the science of where it's important for us to understand how we perceive the world even as human beings like if I tell you to go somewhere you'd be like where is it at what time you know so just especially the science of where understanding that there are so many different contexts in which we can perceive our our society and how we can inform policies but if we understand where resources are distributed, where people have been impacted and how these people have been impacted differently in these different locations then we're including the the science of where so generally geospatial is the science of where location. So we are talking about women in geospatial information system. So what is Wigis all right? Wigis all about. Wigis KE all about Karo. So Wigis KE is a platform we like to call it like an association it's a group that brings women in our industry together so we know that generally in the technology field it's not very common to have to have women or girls in that field and women ingest the platform that gives us an avenue to network with other women in the industry because when we started it we were not we were not very many of us and probably to also mention that geospatial in Kenya is not offered in in all universities like it's offered in select universities so you can imagine by the time you get to industry it's not very many of you and if it's not very many of you it's difficult to find the other next person so when you're just getting into into a job industry you don't have like a clear a clear path on how your career is going to project so you start off as being probably a geospatial engineer in this farm and you don't know how you how the next 10 years how the next 15 years are going to be looking for you so that's basically what women in GIS does we find each other and in this group we will have people who are just getting into the industry and people who have been in the industry for about 20 15 years so these are people who will guide us into knowing so now you're doing this in the next in the next five years you don't want to be doing this you want to grow into a different role so women in GIS is basically a platform that offers that you get to meet other women in the industry who do the same thing and connect and relate and learn from each other so how was how is your experience especially in this field of you know in the geospatial field yeah um for me my experience was very um like coincidental uh i i didn't i didn't know i i did not know about geospatial until i was in high school and this lecturer from university of jikwa who came to our high school and was telling us about geospatial systems and how you're going to work with satellites and you can eventually go to nasa and that's where my mind goes like there's something that can get me to nasa and and that's how i got into geospatial uh but moving forward i realized it's it's such a wide field uh moving from remote sensing to to survey which most people know at least yeah a lot of kenyans know shamba and it's such a wide field and and when i when i got into this industry and maybe just a personal story of how we just started is uh we for my particular year when i got in we were only five five ladies when you started the uh women in the jazz yeah and we're like against 37 men and it was first of all graduating class yeah and then first of all you are like what is this campus or high school campus in campus okay yeah so um by the time when we were by the time we were graduating we graduated for for ladies and all the men who who are in our class thank you for their support um but i got into an industry where i didn't see a lot of people like me we we we had those are lady who are approaches and they she was looking for ladies in geospatial who can mentor a certain group and we kept on calling we kept on calling people around and and we realized there's no one so we just hosted an event with us so you are the host yes and you are the attendees anyway and you are the ones without experience you're the one who are looking for experience and we are here to tell people about the geospatial industry and we are like two years into the geospatial industry post graduation you must have been you know um trying to make things make sense out of things yeah here at the same time they are challenges of experience that you still yeah you're looking you're looking for a mentor you're looking for a mentor and the first event who like the first event was for us to attract mentors to look for people in this industry it was like an event who can those who can support you yeah who can support us and then turns out like we just catapulted ourselves into being the mentors because it's like oh you ganaise this thing in geospatial and like actually we are looking for mentors but but thank you so uh it's it's like you know you're going to an event and um you want someone to like it's like asking for for money yeah you i meet you karo and then i'm looking at you and i'm like i need a hundred bob from you but i don't know how to ask you so when i approach you you tell me but they run i need i had to go from you yeah that's exactly exactly what happened because imagine we have we have organized uh this nice event uh they call out is come meet other women in the geospatial industry let's talk let's network let's learn from each other so people who come are coming with expectations um they're coming with expectations of we are the ones who are teaching them but now in this case we are the ones who are like okay uh we're actually looking for people who are experienced so that we create like a mentorship program program you know like and then we do a march for for people who are currently in uni and uh we imagine we imagine to pull who are in the industry it ended up being us we're the ones who are mentoring the people who came because there's no one else in the industry and the event was successful it was it was very successful um not just because of the people who attended but because of realizing the voice that you had um even however small or however young you and your profession and that is what women also need to have no matter how small you may feel no matter how small you look no matter how manu to you see your idea to be speak it out yeah yeah and that's what you did yeah so if how long ago was this that since it started the women in GIS we started in 2017 okay our our starting process was was gradual if we can say that um when we started I think like three of us were working in the same the same organization doing different roles in these organizations so one of the roles actually the uh the role that I was doing I was in charge of an education conference yeah so part of the work was to to organize to plan the agenda to get speakers for the conference to to technically get things going for a conference so along the way we realized um we don't have women speakers or the women speakers that we have will say that oh my paper is not ready um I haven't been able to submit because maybe such project is not done yeah I need my supervisor to present with me but my my supervisor my supervisor is not available um that was like the actual first start of women in GIS because then we started something like just send us your paper we'll review the paper and then we'll have a practice session so we started creating many many sessions where we we invite people we we probably have a meeting online or we use the office board room to to prepare the students and the women to be ready for the conference yeah so I'm looking at COVID-19 how was it working through the pandemic for women in GIS oh that was such a beautiful and impactful project because being able to be brought on the table um with so many other experts was just very humbling for us so we were part of that uh technical task first for the office of the president uh to create the decision dashboard for COVID-19 and we now this is where with the science of location comes in because when we were looking at the the national uh decision dashboard for COVID it was intelligence space location intelligence space and we're seeing the hospitals Ocarini Nakuru and Nairobi and Mombasa and you seen the entry points of um people from abroad coming in and how it's impacting the country and how it's spreading and how it's spreading from these hotspots and these epicentals so um we were we were part of that task force with several other people at university jacoa jacoa there was jama kenyata university or you partnered with students from different universities no no no students and that was the I think I think that was the greatest thing about our 2020 that we were a small organization impactful enough to partner with bigger organizations in the industry so we partnered with jama kenyata the university not students yeah yeah partnered with palladium palladium is uh uh an organization that uh that supports um what is the the the health the health sector in kenya to to to deliver health projects uh there was also thunderbird there was azri who provided software there was a series of actual stakeholders in the industry that we that we supported so there's there was good will yes yes there was good will in them accepting us accepting that uh we are young women in the industry but we actually know what we are doing and what we are providing to the project is something something great you know that like we are not just reporting every day that we have this number of cases in kenya we are reporting that we have 50 cases in kenya 25 are in aerobi 15 are in akuru and this is how they are going to spread we are also able to do like some sort of prediction model are you remember when um the president used to have yes day briefing and you are the view behind those information yes yes yes today we know when he said the scientists have advised for us to not open the border yes we were the scientists you were the ones yeah okay let's look at the projects that you've done in the past term the success stories that you know came up from the projects that you've you've you've worked with and uh what are the uh you know future expectations of you know women in the GIS for the projects that you have uh so far okay maybe just before we get there i want to circle back to our pillar and our how we function as a community okay okay because it defines how we conduct our projects and what engagements we do or the pillars that you have are the ones that define the projects that you you you do okay so like we mentioned women in GIS started like as a networking networking event like we just have monthly sessions and get people together and um sort of experts from different fields uh okay no just special experts but when different industries coming together and we were just sort of creating a platform where people can discuss things related to the industry just special industry it's um a bit young in Kenya but so it's it's in the wider internationally um just special is is a mature industry uh but it's a bit young in Kenya yeah so that morphed from the networking events it morphed into a community engagement where where we like gather datasets together and and put it out in the community for them to analyze for them to give their own expert of free expert opinion towards the community uh towards even it generally for the public to be able to say that this and this we looked at it this way and it can impact the society if we were able to handle such and such things in in in such a way and that's what we're getting to the main projects like our main community project and then we also have a consulting consulting arm where we now take on like actual industry projects like the kovid-19 technical task force where we're developing the the decision dashboard for the office of the president so those are the three main pillars we have networking community events and and then we also have our consultative arm so i think so so so so so if if if that is uh those are the pillars then how do you get the project from you know these pillars that you have networking community events and uh the third pillar was uh the third one was projects yeah consulting uh consulting yeah how do you get um so so mainly our projects are are based on community and also based on issues around women and girls so in as much as we do um our community is open to both um male male and female anyone anyone technically anyone who wants to join because well the industry is small um it's the space that we've created for kovid-19 so our projects come in through identification of issues that affect women and girls in the society so around 2018 2019 uh we started something on on on gender based violence it was it was basically someone asked a question during um during a capacity building workshop how can we how can we map how can we be able to map gender based violence in kenya and how can we be able to identify factors that contribute or lead to gender based violence in kenya for different locations um that created a series of like thinking in a series of projects because then we realized after after research and after like working with different stakeholders realized uh different factors in different areas contribute to gbv so for instance you can see um a domestic violence case in Nairobi is similar to a domestic violence case in kilifi or in kakamega uh all these cases are are are are are are influenced by location so like location is a very important aspect in all this so we started doing such projects and the impact of such projects is that we are able to guide mitigation measures or we are able to guide um um policy yes policy development of policy and and and grassroots organizations to actually have uh focus focus measures like if they are targeting kakamega to be able to to eliminate domestic violence they know for sure uh the issue in kakamega is probably not um financial the issue in kakamega is educational maternal and paternal education so they target that so based on um that particular project uh it makes me want to find out uh how far we as a nation as a country in this fight against you know gender based violence in both urban and rural areas based on the project um um there's an index this is a global index that has been identified by the by the united nations under SDG five for gender equality so we are expected as uh as a as a globally globally to be able to get to an index of of one um so Kenya on this scale we are not yet there but also again some areas of Kenya are almost there some areas of Kenya are not yet there because we have we have measures that that are being implemented in different locations but they're not getting the rights they're not getting the rights impact on the ground because we are targeting the wrong thing I don't I don't know if you have the numbers with you uh do you have the areas that are almost there in Kenya yes yes um urban areas urban areas are almost there because the three biggest factors that contributes to that contribute to domestic violence are maternal and paternal education that is how educated uh the woman the man and the woman in the household are so that is true the level of education of a man or woman can determine whether we will have high affinity of gender based parents yes yeah because it also it also indicates the level uh at which someone can disabuse themselves of harmful cultural practices and usually that's the most impactful like when they like the correlation of education levels and um cultural biases is usually highly correlated that you're able to see that um hi um someone who's more highly educated is able to easily disabuse of themselves of um harmful cultural practices like uh FGM like not taking your your girl children to to girls to to school hahahahahhaha well umholda dzumbe o kwa de shole yes yes i mean there's so many other factors including socioeconomia yeah outside of education socioeconomic is genre factor to to in so what other projects did you have maybe reviewers one more and then you give me a a a feature project that you have looking out for another interesting project which I learnt so much from was on cervical cancer like she mentioned most of our projects are spying the moment kind of questions and I think we were talking with some health practitioner who's the jazz person but is also a health practitioner and we realize that a lot of women don't know so much about reproductive health and that conversation led to cervical cancer and the indicators that as a woman you need to address or be aware of or even the level of testing that you need to do so that particular project was very interesting because I think we gathered about 94 analyst data community data enthusiasts who came together and we collected a dataset on cervical cancer and opened it up to the community and they were able to do all kinds of analysis on it on the level of indicator that uh the kind of tests most Kenyan women go for the the what is it the where these tests are where the test are yeah well shell facilities are what kind of treatment you can you can you can get started on yeah yeah so so based on uh uh what you've done so far so that is what stood up for you from the projects that you did and I'm looking at the the impact that these projects had were you able to you know acquire from the ground that we did this project and there is this story and there is this particular individual that actually got influenced or got positively you know a challenge to us you know becoming a better person of themselves did we have such stories that that came up yeah okay for me what I can say is the conversation of women and uh advocated for women and women empowerment is so much more easier easier easier and more palatable to the men or the stakeholders or the policymakers in our society because when you have facts you're not there saying it emotionally like I'm a woman take care of me but when you have the facts behind you when you have statistics that guide you it's more of a nuanced conversation on this is exactly how we need to get there and it's not emotional and that's the beauty of data that we data and technology is taking out well of course there will be an emotional aspect to it but it's taking out it's about facts yeah it's taking out the biases that are there that someone can have a conversation based on the number and we are we are able to have a very targeted action driven kind of approach to towards policy and not just we feel like maybe we should improve education here no it's the the numbers are if you improve education here this is the impact by this certain percentage and so forth how was the impact on the ground the impact on the underground is amazing so mainly what we use to try and gauge impact on the ground is our community and the rest of the community so we have we have various community platforms that we that we try to monitor and mostly what we do after after sessions is try and open up the discussions and and we realize that if someone comes to a session and we have trained on data analysis and we have taught them to do things and we've run a project like for instance on the cervical the the the cervical cancer project uh that uh that project really opened up conversations for us around um availability of tests the the kind of tests and we we noted that people from different locations because um we mainly do a lot of activities in Nairobi but that is a project that created impact in Kilifi we had impact in Kakamega because we had people in those locations and actual health practitioners asking for the visualizations asking for the products that we had created for them to put in their hospitals like to to to hang in their hospitals and encourage women to look at them and to talk about them and to basically have that conversation wow yeah it also opened a larger conversation on why was the health was the test distribution in the country like that's a very important question that now our health practitioners had evidence based data to show that um the three major towns in in the country the only ones that have access to uh it it was ip hpb yeah in Nairobi kisumu and and uh kakamega just kakamega kakamega yeah and can you imagine that we are 47 counties and you can only test for cervical cancer that particular test for in only for towns i mean that's evidence based that's not emotional that that oh we feel like we need to increase testing here no that's been that this particular towns this particular individuals will have to get to one of these four towns to have testing yeah i want us to wrap this conversation up now i want to give you just 30 seconds each to have a final word to speak to women out there you know those who are watching you what will be your parting shot to someone to that person who is uh watching you uh let me say to the carol your camera is there okay um last year i we got invited to a conference and someone asked me what is uh what advice would you give you young herself uh then i didn't have an answer but later on i thought about it and the answer i got was occupy space uh what what that meant for me was that sometimes you think what you have is not enough but when you actually talk about it when you actually table it when you and when people actually see what you have uh you realize it's much greater that than what you anticipated so yes occupy space occupy space your parting shots that is your camera yeah um i'll just put it very simply uh do your best try put yourself out there uh because you don't know what will come out of it and the only thing you owe yourself is to try yeah all right thank you very much that is carol nakot advocacy lead at women in gis kenya and the research and the development lead at women in gis ke both co-founders thank you very much ladies it was a pleasure thank you very much for her dinner thank you happy international women's day leave it this is how kusimayo happy international women's day that that's just the end of one in the morning thank you very much for keeping it why two five four uh it has been a pleasure having you from the beginning now to the end my name is ram maguko a blessed day to you god bless you god bless the work of your hands happy international women's day