 I'm Stephen Kubert and I'm glad to be here. My story, as you can see, is Kenya's youth mapping technology to combat soil erosion. You can give me the first slide. If you look at that landscape, it's green, very fertile, and it's flat. Now let's go to the second slide. What do you see there? Deep valleys. Soil which has been eroded and productivity has been reduced. That is the problem we have in Keriofale and Baringo in Riftifale province. So having grown, I saw the effect of soil erosion in the area since I was young. And my story dates back to 80s and 30s when my grandfather was born. When I grew up, I asked him, grandfather, what happened? Was the land this way? And the hands I got was that, my grandchild, it was not this way. It was like the first slide we saw. Then the second question is, how did it happen? The hands he gave me was that, as time continued, people cut trees to create lands, farming lands, and also to cut trees to plant charcoal for sale. It was a great problem to me. I got the opportunity to join the university. And remember, I have a problem in my heart that I want to look for a solution. Fortunately, I was among the very few in Kenya who happened to have done geography. And that is where I came across geographic information systems and remote sensing, which is a technical cause that deals with mapping. With a lot of enthusiasm, I started the course. In the third year of study, I had a very good proposal of going and to do mapping of soil erosion in Keriofale. The approaches that I used were very simple. GIS and remote sensing. Ask the capability whereby you can do land use, land cover analysis, and to know how the land has changed over time. So with GIS, you can use models to map soil erosion, such as the universal soil loss equation. And from there, you can be able to know where is erosion taking place, which is actually a very great question that we ask ourselves. After doing my research, the results that I got were interesting, because I could relate actually what I had mapped with what was actually happening in the ground. I went back and shared the maps that I had generated from my research with some friends in the village, and they were really inspired to see actually that what I had generated from my research, they could relate it to what was actually happening in the ground. And one of them asked me a simple question and he said, Steve, can you train us to do this mapping? But the answer was, it's really difficult because geographic information systems we use very expensive software. And the only place I could get the software is in the university. But that didn't kill our dream. We had the passion to continue with our mapping. I shared this with my professors in the university, colleagues and professionals in the mapping field. And they told me that there are many available mapping software that are freely available, which you call it open source. I started several of them and I narrowed to one which is called Map Window. Map Window is an open source software. You can download it and install it in your computer. It's very simple. And after learning all the software, I went back and I told them, my friends, yes, it's possible that I can train you so that we can map our landscape and know where erosion is taking place. But now the second challenge came in. How do we do it? We needed to bring on board the youth. We realized there were existing youth groups and religious youth groups. So we thought it's good to work with them. So we called a meeting and they came. So far we have 10 groups. Then from there we said, yes, because we can train all the members at once. Let us have six and ensure it's gender sensitive. So my responsibility is to take them through the software and then most of our data we download them from open source and then some of the data we get from the local agencies. It has created a lot of interest in the youth because after training the six, they will call and train the other members. So my work will be a advisory role where I go around and look at how they are doing the mapping. So far we are in the process of training the six and we hope by much next year we will be able to train all the groups. Then after that we will subdivide the landscape using GIS and then they will be able to map specific land areas and then we would compare and then come with measures that can be adopted. The approach has become of correct interest but I can say there's been challenges on our way. But one of the issues that we face as the youth is that we don't have sufficient computers but in the process we've been able to use the little resources that we have. I have a computer, one of my friends has one. So we collect these computers and train them. So actually resources is not an issue. We can use the little that we have. Another thing that we usually have is the time factor. Youth are very dynamic but the interesting thing that are coming out of our mapping is that now whenever we call a meeting there's a lot of correct interest that is coming out of it and they are coming on board and we do the training. So those are some of the things that we've been able to do and in carrying out all these mapping we've been able to capacity pool the youth in using technology and we are bringing this technology to the local level. I may have studied in the university I may have done my research in the university but now I'm taking this little knowledge back to the village and training them how to use mapping technologies. Apart from this, the IT skills they are gaining. They will be able even to go ahead and do other activities related to IT and from there they will be able to generate employment opportunities. So actually it is possible to bring knowledge from class to the village level that I assure you. The other thing that we've learned practically from our mapping is that this is not the first mapping we are doing. There are some researches that have been published but they are lying in the shelves but my responsibility was to bring this thing to the ground. So most of the researches we are now preaching the cup in the research whereby we do the research and then we do the research with the youth and by doing that we are making them to be actively engaged. The other thing that we've been able to do is we are giving youth a voice. Interestingly the maps that we are generating we use them and even show the local administration and say yes, you are saying the land is not being decorated. Look at what happened in 1986. That is from the image that we have analysed. Compare it with what is happening in 2012. Don't you see the changes? From there now we get a voice as a youth to air our issues concerning environmental conservation. As I conclude I want to bring this point. It is that little amount of soil lost every year that causes our land to be decorated and it's my responsibility and your responsibility as the youth to contribute towards this. We are using mapping as a way of contributing towards conserving the soil. You have a skill. You start to promote landscape and agriculture. Thank you so much.