 We have another guest, a little bit more serious, but he's fun in his heart. In fact, nikuwan memulisa iswali, wacha kwenza ji introduce ala fwa tjajisema. Hi, welcome to the show. Thank you. You will find I'm very loud. I hope it infects you also. Yes, it is. Please introduce yourself to the people. Oh, my name is Kenneth Kasera. I work for the Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development as the youth engagement lead. So basically my job is to connect the user to the technology. The simple as that, right? Okay, all right. Can I just be very honest with you, Kenneth? When I was in high school, Yes. nikuwa fanya ekitu ya maps, tulikuwan eksama lafuna shitu kia mutuwa na tumia stream. Na tumia stream. That thing used to give me headache, headache, headache. And I've never used it still then today. So in pointe, ekitu di kwa nini first of all. No, it possibly was used to measure the distance of a road, right? You can remember na inapinda, pinda, inapinda, pinda. Then you stretch it on a ruler, right? Then you get the distance of that road, then you... Nikuwa pili mei tukini as my shuwali. Nikuwa pili. Um na sumo wa tukichi wa. Like, shuwali, witu zi nili za shule. Ah, hashtag is one more. Nikuwa pili nikuwa pili sa idea. Interesting. I want to hate also on these mathematic things but kufanya make up pili na take his elbow. No, you see, glaning symmetry. Hey, you have to garag angles. Do you know how to use a ruler to do some things? Arula, like arula. I'm not joking guys, I use arula. Yes, I want it to be precise. Anyway, aside from that, now that we are melting down into this. Tell me, I want you to break it down for me. Lema language, exactly what you do and how you do it. Let me bring it down for you in this sense. You can remember when you were young, you took some photos, right? And now you still take photos as well. More than I did then. So from that you can be able to tell these words to my heart by then. Your height. And this is how you are now, right? Then you can see the changes, right? I used to be a little bit rounder, now I'm a little bit small. Okay, now you are, you didn't have air, now I have. So you can be able to tell the changes in that, right? So assuming that you are a forest, then possibly we go back to 1990s or 70s and look at that forest the way it was. And then we look at it now. You can be able to see the changes. Okay, in terms of people settling in or some trees are no longer there, cut down. So the only difference is that now you are using a camera and our cameras are in space. Wow. And the higher resolution. And the higher resolution. And more expensive. Not only high but there are a number of them depending on the applications. Okay. So we, okay, again please guys I'm very uneducated. There are very many things I don't know about this particular field. So please, please just allow. Forgive me. Forgive me. I was under the notion that perhaps we share satellites or we share the said cameras in space. Is that something or we have particular plans to connect this to the Kenya? No, some of these things are global initiatives and there are countries with the satellites and they share that information with the rest of us. By us I mean the African countries but in Africa we have countries with the satellites as well. So when I say satellites they are quite a number like we have Earth observation satellites that deals with imagery. The same principle that works with your phone when you take a photo, the same principle they use. The only difference is that you are holding your phone but they satellite on space running in their own orbits. So based on some science that we don't want to go to they keep on that track. So they're able to help you see possibly because from the time they're launched they can tell you this is how it was, this is how it is and so we can predict based on what you've seen this is how it can be if we don't do one to three. That's how policy makers and decision makers come in. So it's... Apokwa Earth Observation these things are making a lot of sense we'll get to all the different things that they use out of that Earth observation but let's get into agriculture and food. Exactly. So now you are going to say let's say I'm a farmer. How are you going to help me? What is your role with me and let's say the people in between shareholders or stakeholders and then there's me, the farmer. So the various levels in this regard for example if depending on what you're farming because we mentioned that we can be able to see various things, the physical aspects of your plants one of the critical things that possibly as a farmer you need to possibly want to know what can I plant here and that brings the aspect of suitability. So this cannot be one factor if I call it so for us to be able to know that this place is suitable there's various factors that we need to have overlaid with each other. So once we can be able to use auto-servation and GIS, I mean geographic information systems we can be able to map all the various layers and bring them together and then based on some theory we possibly also get from schools and from research we can be able to weigh them so why once we weigh them we can be able to tell for maize this is the right place for it for wheat this is the right place for it so the first simple application of auto-servation in agriculture as a farmer is that we help you to know what should be here in terms of even the soil, right the soil structure, the soil holding capacity of water and things like that and to tell that by even overlaying us I've said various layers of these factors to help you know as you plant maize here and the second level is that as a country it will be interesting to see what you're feeding to I'm a large scale farmer but I need to see on the bigger picture how do I feed Kenya so on that aspect we are able to help you do something we call yield estimation so at the end of the year you can tell if this is possibly what's happening or this is how my crops are based on their health because even from the leaves you can tell the health of a plant, right so based on this we can be able to tell that we expect you to be having this at the end of the season your maize maybe 10 bags or 3 bags or 6 bags then you can be able to tell ok then I need to maybe what do I need to do to improve the yield so based on theory again and what researchers do in most of the universities in Kenya is we can be able to tell that so the first thing you know the size of your farm right because we can be able to map the size of your farm then you can be able to using that just simple mathematics in terms of the spacing if I plant maize here another one there so based on that simple calculations you can be able to tell the yield if everything is ok at the end of the season why is it that every other time in the news news the yields as to how the climate or lack of rain too much rain is it us who are not really working with you accordingly are we not educating ourselves or is it acts of God no no I think we are added there to a level where stakeholders and engagement and stakeholder participation will be something critical because if technology cannot help us then it's useless right so I think it comes in the aspect of engaging the right institutions within each and every country or Kenya per se their institution managed to do one or two things so they should be engaged they should be capacity built in terms of the skills required and let's go as fast as even the tools that are appropriate for that particular kind of views so once we have everyone on board then this aspect of opportunities will be something of the past because each institution come with their data if I can call them so and most of the times the prediction that we do are not that accurate because of lack of data so if each institution is in then it means they'll come with a bit of information then we bring this together then we come up with the robust information that can be used for decision making so the future is bright so the future is bright something else that we can derive from all this data and all these cameras up there is climate change but why is it that we are all shocked that it's so cold and it's not July I've grown knowing July but before and after are we saying that it's global warming we're going to blame it on that or once again are we not preparing ourselves accordingly are we not listening to the right people are we not working with you right what's going on here so allow me to start by and help us understand what climate changes something that happens once it's something that takes a period of time to happen based on what we studied in school we all know it's a change of weather for a long period of time 35 years and so so then what causes the changes to it's more than my years of life trying to do the math so what really brings it I think some of the easy bits of it is that human aspects really cause it the way we live as a way in as somehow affects the environment that we live in and so that's why we always talk of sustainability and some development and some such kind of goals that are globally appreciated by countries so the cause first of itself is aspect like a differentiation there's a way in this as a system is connected so once we interfere with one for a long period of time we change things domino effect one of the things that we change is the with our behaviors like if we go to the urban space like in towns we have industries all over we have people settling in forest and things like that so and I mentioned that once we interfere with one part of that ecosystem that is fragile for a long period of time then we cause a problem so some of these changes have led to possibly increase in temperature right because that cover that you used to have no longer yeah so some of them are de-frustration we cut trees and trees are very critical in terms of even the carbon stocks and things like that so once these things are done then that effect trickles to the environment then the environment the way the left professor used to say that nature is unforgiving right so it hit back so once it does that it changes even the things we depend on like agriculture the rainfall become erratic at times if they are frequent but unpredictable so you see if the season is changed then there are a little bit of issues even in terms of what we should put on right if we are used to having from maybe April to August to be called in Nairobi then that changes a little bit so it will affect even your pockets in this sense because you need to start running for possibly you bought it for warm clothes right it's difficult then you find yourself you need not warm so much of these things is the nature being unforgiving and for a long period of time just think the same thing there was a notion that was trending I want to say it last year sometime but it was I don't know how to measure COVID-19 because I want to say the halfway point but we are not even over with it yet so at some point when COVID-19 the pandemic had just hit so we had people coming out on social media talking about the earth is healing itself because we are all at home now we are not doing what we are doing to destroy or erode things so at home and now the earth is healing itself it's supposed to be feeling better why are things much changing that's a tough one because I'm not a COVID expert in the first place no no we are at climate you are observing are you not yes so it's healing itself so why are things not back to normal now we need a longer period of time because in my head I guess one plus year should be enough for something to be significant so to try to guide that is that the only way that this can happen is if we change our ways so COVID is just came the other day and things already was because I can remember that like I read from somewhere that there were the predictions for Kenya they are saying that the temperature will increase by 2.5 degrees Celsius from that's between 2000 and 2050 so you see COVID came 2019 right so from 2000 already this was something that was seen and so the only solution for this was to ask to change our behavior in terms of afferestration those plant trees and I think the government is doing quite good planting million trees or something like that and also protecting forest and at that time we saw them evicting people from gong forest right so some of these initiatives are just meant to help bring this down and it's not only Kenya I think most of African countries are walking towards making sure they have appropriate land cover to help really deal with the aspect of global warming because carbon is involving this and so if we can sort that mess up then it will be something that but it will take another long time since I say this to whether it's a climate thing it will take us time to change but I think we are moving towards the right direction I mean it's towards 2000 2050 so wow predictions like 50 so those are numerical models that really help us to see where we are headed to if we don't change so most of the time we try to come up with scenarios as well that most of us call them business as usual if we continue to do this this is how it will end up and I've seen the CS for health really using it quite a lot so those scenarios help us to know business as usual if we change a little bit of one factor if we change a little bit of the other then possibly this will end also so it's interesting right you have a very interesting job let's get to one of the projects that you're doing they have a website by the way cannot remember the name of it but he'll give us soon enough and one of the projects that you are working on first of all there's Agra but that came to an end around May so now the one that is going on is Severe exactly so very difficult, very fancy name tell me about the project Severe first of all is a Spanish word that means to serve so we are really in tune with serving look at you so we are in tune with that and so we really appreciate the opportunity given to us by Kenyans first of all to be able to be part in terms of providing information that is useful for police makers and farmers to that lower level so Severe means to serve and there is a project that is a partnership between the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development Bestia in Kenya and NASA NASA is not the political NASA not the political vehicle they disbanded but that's what we are talking about right now and that is the National Aeronautics Space Administration United States and the USID so the three come together to form Severe with the main objective of improving the capacity of institutions to use earth observation for thematic areas so one of them is Agrarian Food Security that we have been talking of one is weather and climate we have land use, land cover and ecosystem and also we have water and water related disasters so quite a number of thematic areas as well in terms of even air quality about planning they still find themselves in land administration they still find themselves in what we do so Severe has various hubs the same structure but now the change is the Regional Centre so we have Severe West Africa the one that we see here is Severe Eastern and Southern Africa so it means we cover Eastern and South African countries it's very impressive guys just take a minute we are representing Eastern and Southern Africa continue so there is one in West Africa that covers the Nigeria and the rest of West African countries it's called Severe West Africa so still the same structure the only change is Asimadi USID and NASA are constant but now they have institutions like Afridist being part of that we have Severe Himalaya and so far so good Amazonia came to be as well the one for then South America now this project sounds big but they also say that change starts with you and me so the viewer or personally how can I get in tune with what you're trying to do how can I make that one step even if it's kwancha kama picking up something but that's a little bit more digressive than I thought how can I help the bigger picture how can I participate so like I said the technology without the user being aware of it first of all it's useless good example is the use of Google Maps right and I think when you come from home you need a key and that's purely land administration and management and land use and things like that so you just key things you need to go to town to go to the station and then it will tell you this is the appropriate route so there's something going on behind that to help you to even choose the best route and so one of the ways in which users have been able to also come in this is just to be part of the participatory mapping allocating these features on earth so people have gone to an extent where we have application apps in Google Store that just helps you to be part of the mapping industry this is my home I just put a sticker this is my home then picks in all the systems so in terms of even locating where things are I think people have become aware of around them and so you just key in this is where I am speak that up you can be on Google open street map that's another technology that people use to be able to look at themselves on open street map then it picks that point for you so it keeps on adding and adding for example as a farmer so any bit that you put in there goes towards helping us to make some decisions so any critical element that you key in terms of so long as it's a space element location element involving it you're helping us already okay this is for the people who make those apps why is it always some English person not pronouncing things that are kiyame kiyame street please get some local so we know where we are going that's critical that's how I get lost just because someone said something in a funny language in a funny language exactly that's not why we're here we're here to talk about I agree with you but I get the concept because there's sometimes I've used not really Google maps per se but just the concept of maps to get somewhere and it's telling me take a right turn but there's no right turn but I can see there used to be a right turn so development happened things things things so it's still kind of operating on the previous that needs to be updated right so the updating can take long because it's expensive I can't say so and that's why the aspect of participatory mapping came in to be to make it less expensive a little less not less costly so if you can go to someone else where you can be able to help you update it it can go a long way in reducing your cost as well because even you've had topographic maps right that came in handy exactly so that map that you used to put a ruler leave the it was an example of topographic map you're getting me emotional because you've not used it you didn't know where to take it you used to confuse me you get where to apply it right thank God for technology alright so there's a conference happening this year and it's a virtual one but I feel like just telling you but that would be kind of pointless because I want to engage him because I already know that would be important for me to know what really you picked from our website I got notes guys serious one alright so I see there's a RAC 2021 international conference and then the thematic areas but he has already kind of named some of them so we have agriculture and food security water and water related disasters land use, administration and management innovation and a software or applications development and in a nutshell what he does is provided you information services so can I help you did I fail somewhere no you didn't thank you just to give a background on how it came to be is somewhere along the line we got to know that it was impossible for us to find a platform where policy makers and scientists can sit down those are two separate lines very different so we had to find a way to bring policy makers and scientists together in one room because once most of the information that are supposed to be used in policies come from the scientist and at times they don't say why I wonder why so we decided to have this conference to bring those two together and the first one we did in 2018 and it was important because we got to understand the policy formulation process and how we and how we come in that chain how we come in so because we got to know that once we understand how where we belong in that chain it's easier for us to inject information because they move along so we had the first one in 2018 that is there in the international conference that brought around 400 participants from all over the world so it was an eye-opener to us as well and also we thought apart from just bringing policy makers on board and scientists why don't we also have an aspect of innovation in it so anybody who has an idea can be able to present is then we back it up because technology keeps on improving and we should not inhibit the young people from also trying to invent new ways of doing things so we came up with innovation half bit of it that enables us to tap into various technologies that the young people have to and recently we see in the use of drones in Kenya as well so some of these technologies has to be tested somewhere before they can be allowed to be used so we provide that platform that conference also has that platform with it so for this year our theme is resilience resilience is possibly how do we bounce back so we want to rethink about that and see how best the systems the earth systems can be able to bounce back after some disturbance and so we expect to see wonderful presentations from colleagues about the world as projects in Kenya and beyond demonstrate their role in resilience and link that to climate change as well so we welcome not only scientists but also all the users the users mean be it the media you pay a critical role in this as well in terms of information dissemination and that is a critical chain that I think we find so we really long to engage you more so to help us disseminate the information that we produce and that will be easier if you understand what we do right so we also intend to have the media on board as long as well as the farmers the general users of this information the governments, the private sector the universities, the colleges primary schools they are all welcome to this I saw you went to a state house girls high school for some mentorship situation so you said that this conference is important so that you know where you kind of fit in in the chain so in the chain the chain has a number of let me call them stakeholders from the bottom not the bottom up you're a funny guy the entire chain people that produce data the chain has people that use the data you produced the chain has people that now they don't know that you produce but they possibly need it so it's a chain of beneficiaries intermediaries a chain of data producers a chain of data archive they only do data storage but policy makers as well and all this should be steered towards possibly one direction so we go to understand that in that process, in that chain we are possibly data producers but when you produce it and you hang it there then it helps no one so we need to link up with that chain to a bicycle chain if one is not so we've learned to be able to learn how to join that chain so we try as much as possible not to be technical it's not easy, I can tell you I can imagine it's data there's no painting it in yellow where's it? where's young zamaji? so it's data ato isemi kwa luga mama same thing so it's important for all parties to work hand in hand so that there's a smooth flow so do you ever this was not part of the questions but I'm curious do you ever find that maybe you're giving data and it's not being received well or you are asked to reevaluate your data because it looks wanting there's something wrong here is there something like that that happens when you don't work with people like I mentioned each and every institution in Kenya has a mandate so you don't step on their mandate but you support them, achieve them so when I'm trying to do something on weather or information or climate information services without involving the institution that is mandated to have that weather lens on everything we do then when you take the data to them they'll reject that because first of all you're stepping on their mandate and you didn't agree on that so the first bit has to come from the angle that you work together you could develop, you could design so that once the end product can be something that is a partnership something that you guys did not something that regional centre did so if you go that angle you've come to learn that it's much acceptable then me sitting in the office drawing my things in my software that I claim to know then I push it to them, they'll reject it and they'll reject it and they'll reject it there's a lot of customer care in this it's not just weather, it's not just you and data it's a lot of because you have the policy makers the people disseminating the data that you have collected exactly guys it's up to you to answer I think it should be compulsory how to deal with people once you get that right then technology has a place but once you don't know how to deal with people there's a problem various approaches are already in place but once you I don't know if it goes back to what we thought at home what our parents thought so it's wired to that direction when is the conference and can we join as it's open to the public the conference begins on 17th to 19th of August and the program will be out it's a virtual so it means we can't sit for long so most of the time on 17th it will start after lunch that is around 2pm so 2pm to around 5 for the next 3 days that is 17th, 18th and 19th we can share we'll be using Obilo Obilo is since it's a hybrid so we expect to it's a virtual so we expect to have a platform that can't be hacked it's another limitation on virtual systems where someone can take charge so that's COVID with us but it's fine so someone can take charge so Obilo Obilo is quite a robust system that enables people to join so we'll be sending that link to their emails so far so good we have like 562 people have registered so they'll be receiving that email with the link to Obilo they have to register again in that platform and we'll be sending also a video to help them go through and navigate through the Obilo system that's a lot because there's a generation that is not quite technologically savvy exactly no one was born knowing but there's a generation that will catch it a bit faster than another so I like that there's kind of a tutorial exactly any last words before we wrap this up just to welcome us to the conference and also to we are located around Kasarani opposite the Kasarani police station so we have our neighbors I don't know but we are peaceful people so we are not close to the police station because we are criminal or to be watched because of what we do but that's where the government got a piece of land for us because it's a government institution so that piece of land was provided to us by the government so that's where they located us and we appreciate and grateful for that so we welcome all to that conference the registration is still ongoing it's a rik if you just stop regional center for mapping international conference it will take you to the website for the conference then you can register then we'll be able to send all the tutorials that you require and also we also have training we have an institution that runs a training called regional center training I saw the prices on nothing it's not a lot of money but anyway you are dealing with very advanced technology we are grateful guys go check out that website please give them the website website is asimadi.org look at them confidentily asimadi.org asimadi.org go check it out guys recently I heard on the news that there was a petition for virtual meetings to be stocked because there are some politicians who are refusing to need to go to meetings or give funny excuses or no connection as the person was so annoyed like no we need to start meeting physically so please for this particular and just behave it's for our good it's for our own good and it could save future generations probably we will not go alright I usually ask for social media handles but I don't think this applies here I'm not good in social media very unfortunate I would like to see what you do I'm not good in social media but we can be able to send that to you guys later if that acceptable so in case you missed it or it was a bitch technical somewhere which I don't think it was come and meet me later if I have understood I tried right good job thank you on Facebook our hashtag is we are done for this one but we are not done in total so please stay with us see you in a bit