Stereotype pushed tech guru to start girls’ mentorship program

Linda Nakhulo Ochwada, 32, is the founder and managing director of AfroAl, an African Germany-based consulting company that looks into leveraging artificial intelligence and geospatial science in problems that face Africa.

She wears many hats. Ms Ochwada is also the founder and CEO of Fiko Tech (based in Kenya) – a company that deals with security system. She is also the community liaison manager – African Women in GIS (Geo-information Science), co-founder and board member – Kenderaalala Women Group in Samia (Busia) and mentor (online and e-counsellor) for young girls in rural Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana.

From a young age, Ms Ochwada aspired to be an aeronautical engineer. Born and raised in Uasin Gishu County, she loved mathematics and physics but in 2008, she was admitted to Moi University for a BA in Geography.

After graduating, Ms Ochwada applied for an MSc in Geodesy and Geoformation Science (Geo-informatics) at the Technical University (TU) Berlin, Germany, a decision that changed the trajectory of her life.

“My view and knowledge of technologies expanded and I felt that doing geospatial science was my calling,” she says.

Ms Ochwada also did a joint add-on Masters in EIT Climate-KIC, at the European institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and TU Berlin

The choice to study artificial intelligence (AL) opened doors for her.

In 2013, she moved to Germany with her four-month old son for her Masters, in a small village in East Germany before moving to Berlin after two months.

“In Kenya, I was in a social scientist but in Berlin, I studied a course with a lot of mathematics, calculus, statistics and programming from four different languages (Python, Maltab, Javascripts and C++),’’ she narrates.

With little knowledge of German by then, she suffered a serious language barrier.

Kendraalaa Women Group

While other students were busy studying and doing assignments, Ms Ochwada says she had to board a one-hour train ride to pick her son up, prepare his meals and work on her assignments when he was asleep. She took him with her to class since they ran past 5pm.

“Despite the challenges, the government-owned kindergarten was a saviour for me.it gave me nine hours per day babysitting vis-a-vis having a nanny whom I would be paying Sh1,500 per hour,” she says. 

Even with all the challenges, Ms Ochwada has mentored girls since 2013, starting with the children of mothers in the Kendraalaa Women Group in Busia, an organisation she co-founded.

She completed her Masters in 2018 and in 2019, became a geo data scientist at Supper & Supper GmbH, a data science consultancy for six months through which she continued her mentorship programme.

In the same year, she won an ‘African Woman in Europe Award’ for being a role model and the most influential woman for her mentorship programme and her role in technology.

“My platform has given me an opportunity to advice girls on career choice, transition from social science to tech and general guidance. Most of these girls are from Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria,” she says.

She then formed AfroAl, a company that seeks to solve tech issues in Africa. She says that the opportunities she has had in both public and private sectors, revealed a gap AfroAl consults on.

For instance, AfroAl seeks to support sustainable Development Goal Two (zero hunger) through estimation of crop yield as it relates to food security and market prediction.

Health organisations

“Technology in Africa is making tremendous advances. Although the continent has a huge potential in technology because of its young population and hence a significant consumption market and it is increasingly mobile phone – enabled, its current poor capability remains one of the significant constraints,” she says.

AfroAl has developed an algorithm that detects, maps and monitors seasonal changes of shallow water ponds in Western Kenya using Synthetic Aperture Radar with dep learning.

The project aims to provide information that can be intergrade into apps for various groups such as health organisations to identify breeding grounds for mosquitoes or for tourists to discover watering holes.

It is also used in food security projects and creation of early warning systems for water stress in local communities to prevent human-wildlife conflict.

The company is also looking into traffic management solutions.

Ms Ochwada says that with Nairobi, Cairo, Johannesburg and Lagos having the worst traffic in Africa, AfroAl is open to working with the governments and other private institutes to monitor and manage traffic.

“We are working with other organisations and private institutes as consultants in the analytic sectors, “she says.

The tech guru is also working on a track and trace system, a vehicle tracking, fleet management company that will utilise internet of things, AI and cloud computing.

Gender inequality

So impactful is her work that she was part of the panel discussing digitalisation opportunities and chances of AI in Africa in the German parliament in 2019.

Ms Ochwada says she feels the gender inequality in technology is as a result of lack of female role models, which has given women the notion that a career in technology is not for them.

“This stereotype has pushed me to be both a role model and a mentor to girls to be part of women in tech,” she adds

At the moment, Ms Ochwada is mentoring African women in the geospatial space in the African women in GIS programme, where she is also the community liaison manager.

She aspires to do a PhD in Geospatial AI, an emerging scientific discipline that combines innovation in spatial science. AI and high performance computing to extract knowledge from special big data.

With the emerging of AI, geospatial science also evolved into GeoAI. Geospatial technologies like LiDAR, Satellite imagery, drone mapping, surveying terrestrial cameras produces accurate data with 3D information.

The amount of this data generated far outpaces humans' ability to absorb, interpret, and make complex decisions based on that data.

In 2020, Ms Ochwada set up Fiko Tech in Kenya, a proximity alert and security system with a target to increase security and reduce stressful situations in gates that lack automatic gate openings.

She believes artificial intelligence will help Africa tackle many problems given the data generated from the young e-population it offers.

“If we can tap into this data without abusing the power of AI, then my future plans is to continue working with like minds to drive Kenya and Africa in general into achieving all the SDG agendas,” she says.

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