Karibu to the WILDLABS East Africa Community!
Why WE Exist
After 7 years of strategically building the global WILDLABS community, it was now time for our team to venture into the next phase of our programme: creating regional virtual hubs. The very first regional hub to go live is the East Africa community, a space that will create opportunities for members to build their knowledge, skills, expertise and reach. The idea behind creating the EA community spanned from the need to foster connections and collaborations of conservation and technology players in EA as well as make a true positive impact by tailoring resources and opportunities that will help solve conservation challenges in the region. Learn more
All we do at WILDLABS is firmly grounded on the community we serve and hope to serve! As part of this commitment, time and resources have been dedicated to ensure that this platform will be a reliable and credible resource to advance one’s knowledge, skills and be a step towards solving some of the most pressing conservation issues WE face in East Africa.
WE exist to fulfill the needs of conservation technology players in East Africa through resources & opportunities, to add value to their work, to inspire innovation & collaboration and most importantly, to contribute towards making the world a better place!
What WE Hope To Achieve
Purposefully designed to connect conservation technology practitioners and experts based in East Africa, the WILDLABS EA community will be a great space to access and share conservation technology resources, ask and answer questions unique to the landscape, collaborate and generate new and innovative ideas.
This platform is a great space for members to collaboratively fill in regional conservation tech knowledge and skills gaps present and share their work and other resources, reducing and/or eliminating replication and leading to more streamlined and effective solutions. Through the conversations taking place within the community, members will be able to connect with each other and get advice to advance their work, careers, and innovative ideas.
The community hopes to encourage level interactions that will generate new ideas on solving regional conservation tech challenges, encourage innovation, introduce members to new applications of tech in conservation, as well as spark new questions on Conservation tech in EA.
How To Get Involved
Are you keen on getting involved and understanding the intersection of conservation and technology in East Africa? This community offers an exceptional space where you can join us and get involved; to learn, share, collaborate and support one another on matters regarding conservation technology in East Africa. From posting articles, engaging in discussions, attending virtual and in-person events to supporting, applying or taking part in Programmes and opportunities in the community, these are some of the ways for you to get involved.
The first thing you can do when joining our community is to jump into our welcome thread and introduce yourself to our community. Get started here
Resources
The WILDLABS team is dedicated to making conservation tech resources accessible to the whole community in a strategic and equitable manner. With a myriad of engaging events, programmes, weekly conversations and opportunities lined up, the East Africa community will be a great virtual place to build one’s skills, knowledge, and networks. Growing a vibrant and diverse community will be made possible by the collaborative efforts of all members through their interactions and their active participation in regional activities organized/supported by WILDLABS.
Some of the resources that will give you a feel of Conservation technology tools and systems implemented in East Africa include:
- Using IoT and Machine Learning to Protect Kenya's Rivers.
- Learning Resource: Exploring Species Interactions with Snapshot Serengeti.
- Mobile Phone Reporting for Rapid Wildlife Health Response in Uganda
Members of the East Africa community are invited to share their projects, organizations, experiences, failures, and ideas in their Conservation Tech work, to support the development of tools that will form part of the resources made available to other members.
Programmes
Women in Conservation Technology Programme
With a cohort of 15 talented and emerging female conservationists, our inaugural Women in Conservation Technology Programme, is the first of many Programmes organized for the community. WILDLABS, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, and Fauna & Flora International partnered to run this programme as the very first opportunity organized for the East Africa community.
This programme is designed for early career Kenyan women in conservation who are looking to explore emerging conservation technologies. In addition to in-person and virtual training on foundational skills and knowledge on conservation technologies to overcome conservation and wildlife challenges in Kenya, participants have an opportunity to network with a strong cohort of other women leaders in the field and gain professional development skills. Through this unique blend of training and networking, we hope to empower Kenyan women in conservation who are often underrepresented in the sector. It is an avenue to encourage the group to generate innovative ideas, novel solutions, and diverse perspectives that engender conservation success.
We received close to 200 outstanding applications for the Programme this year, and this reminded us of the collaborative conservation efforts, implemented through great projects running, exceptional conservation and technology organizations and visionary conservationists in East Africa. We hope to reach more conservation technologists to build their knowledge and skills through such trainings and capacity building Programmes.
'Women in Science are often underrepresented in Kenya. Intentionally creating this training Programme for Women in Conservation Technology goes a long way to show that well-thought out initiatives are currently being put in place to empower women in the field. This Programme will not only benefit me, but will be a motivation to upcoming Women in Conservation Technology.'~ Consolata Gathoni Gitau
With the knowledge and skills garnered from this programme, participants will be able to spread awareness of novel conservation technology solutions to their home organizations and empower other female conservationists. We believe that this Programme is a great strategic direction towards empowering early career female conservationists!
Events
From in-person and virtual events, this hub is a great place tailored for conservationists and technologists in East Africa to support each other in creating novel solutions to complex regional conservation challenges. The East Africa community will be part of already established virtual events such as Tech Tutors and Virtual meetups, where topics covered will answer questions related to conservation challenges unique to East Africa. The virtual events will bring together members and participants to learn new skills, get expert advice, ask questions, gain knowledge and foster existing knowledge and skills.
The East Africa community exists because of each of you, and we hope you are happy to join and use the platform for knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking. You can join the community and interact with other members here. To get in touch with Netty Cheruto, our WILDLABS East Africa Community Coordinator, email her at: [email protected].
Header Image: @Dylan Habil
Group curators
- @EstherGithinji
- | She/Her
WILDLABS
I am the WILDLABS East Africa Conservation Technology Coordinator
- 101 Resources
- 24 Discussions
- 4 Groups
- @diyaquanauts
- | he / him
Digital nomad, software developer, running mechatronic engineering firm in Seychelles to assist ocean conservation groups.
- 0 Resources
- 7 Discussions
- 9 Groups
- @lhughey
- | she/her
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
I am an ecologist and program manager with experience leading collaborative research projects in international settings. I specialize in the application of animal tracking data to conserve migratory species on a changing planet.
- 3 Resources
- 8 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Researcher in wildlife conservation, hydrology and meteorology
- 1 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- @Shakirah
- | She
Passionate lover of nature, Birdwatcher, Biotechnologist, Genomics
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @ChloeSutcliffe
- | She/her
Working with drones and LiDAR to build datasets on above ground biomass
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 4 Groups
A wildlife scientist, focusing mainly in primates conservation & research, Community-based conservation and ecosystems management.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @Mary_Waithira
- | she/her
I am a conservation enthusiast who aims at learning more about conservation and its technology. My research interests lie in wildlife conservation in anthropogenic landscapes.
- 1 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 9 Groups
- @mbkowalski11
- | he/him
University of California Santa Cruz
PhD Student (UCSC, Wilmers Lab) interested in large carnivores, behavioral ecology, human-wildlife coexistence, and biologging
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 11 Groups
- @kyliedefeo
- | she/her/hers
Recent data science graduate from the University of New England in Maine, USA. Looking to enter the field of data science with a focus on environmental and social issues.
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 4 Groups
- 2 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 8 Groups
- @Shadrack
- | SM
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 1 Groups
- @brittanypalmer
- | she/her
Entrepreneur and environmental attorney with a passion for wildlife conservation.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 4 Groups
Tap into our new and exciting community-focused conversation series! In this first season of InConversation, we're in East Africa with host Esther Githinji. Listen in as we chat one-on-one with your favourite...
30 April 2024
Article
What better way to conclude InConversation Season 1: East Africa than by delving into the exciting yet complex world of #tech4wildlife innovation across the region. This episode is going to be double the insight and...
30 April 2024
It has been an extraordinary year supporting and growing the regional East African Conservation Technology Community at WILDLABS. We've made great strides and unlocked exciting opportunities for our community as we...
29 April 2024
Watch our interview with pioneering young Tanzanian vulture researcher Vainess Laizer! Her research investigating the breeding success of white-backed vultures in the western corridor of the Serengeti ecosystem using...
16 April 2024
Are you passionate about wildlife conservation and eager to contribute to meaningful research efforts? Lion Landscapes is seeking a dedicated and proactive Research Assistant to join their team.
11 April 2024
On 27th March, our Women in Conservation Technology Programme Kenya Alumni and East Africa Community participated in a vibrant #IWD2024 gathering in Nairobi in collaboration with other women-focused organisations...
9 April 2024
Space for Giants is looking for a Conservation Science Intern to help support the Conservation Science team in managing data flow, storage, and analysis to maximize the efficiency of monitoring and evaluating impact.
9 April 2024
A grant of $150,000 will be awarded to one successful applicant with a proposal that's strongly linked to biodiversity and conservation. The grant will support a research project or programme for up to three years (...
2 April 2024
Are you an emerging Tanzanian conservationist looking to leverage new technologies in your conservation practice and become part of an empowering network of female conservation leaders? Apply now for our Women in...
25 March 2024
As we launch the search for our third Women in Conservation Technology cohort, let’s take a moment to reflect on the highlights of our 2023 journey and shine a spotlight on the incredible women of our inaugural...
22 March 2024
Do you know anyone interested in this position? Let them know by sharing widely.
27 February 2024
The American Society for Mammalogist has multiple categories of funding to support early career conservationist doing research on mammals. Currently, the African Research Fellowship award is open. The awards is mostly...
12 February 2024
June 2024
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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The overriding objective of many economies in East Africa is to progress the nations with more efficient systems in the different sectors,... |
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East Africa Community | 1 year 10 months ago | |
its nylon rubber material |
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East Africa Community, Biologging | 1 year 10 months ago | |
Thank you so much Netty, I really enjoyed it.Good luck to you all with your work.Keep well! |
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AI for Conservation, East Africa Community | 1 year 10 months ago | |
Hey Carly,Good question. Data collection for the assessment was structured into; Interviews (12 conservation organizations were interviewed), online survey (64 respondents) and... |
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East Africa Community | 1 year 10 months ago | |
Thank You Netty! I love the new developments and the community setup. I am excited to see what is next. Thank you. |
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East Africa Community | 1 year 11 months ago |
Developer, Mara Elephant Project
19 August 2022 12:35pm
Live Q&A Discussion on EarthRanger: All you need to know about the system!
22 July 2022 6:41am
12 August 2022 12:34pm
Hello Kennedy,
Many thanks for sharing your experiences with ER.
Does ER support integration with Qgis and Arc gis desktop or its only configured to support Arcgis online only?
15 August 2022 6:53am
@Ann_Wambui , Qgis and ArcGis Desktop are stand alone apps that are useful in coming up with geojson files and/or shapefiles that store the location, shape, and attributes of geographic features.
Earthranger does provide a mechanism to upload these geojson and/or shapefiles so that the geographic features stored within these files can be visualized on Earthranger.
From the Field: An interview with Arjun Dheer
11 August 2022 6:27am
Earth Ranger Projection
28 June 2022 10:15am
30 June 2022 12:40pm
Hi Turu,
To be able to assist you, I would like to understand the following first:
1. What feature of data did you export/get from EarthRanger? i.e shapefile? CSV? etc.
2. What coordinate system was your data from EarthRanger?
2. When plotting did you match/project with the correct coordinate system?
3. Do you think there was an active layer with a different projection system in your work frame?
4. Did you check whether your work frame projection was correct to match what you were plotting?
28 July 2022 11:47am
HI benard sorry am replying late,and yes i the data was exported as shapefile 2.i used same projection which is 37N WGS 84 on both apps and still the exported shape file projection read away from the wanted location
funny story is,the exported shapefile pins quite well when using QGIS but then on ARC GIS pro i don't get what the issue is
CERES TAG
22 July 2022 3:36am
2022 EarthRanger User Conference
20 July 2022 9:08pm
Tech Tutors East Africa: Call for Topics and Speakers
19 July 2022 9:28am
19 July 2022 11:41am
Definitely second doing one on SMART! It's been asked about before a number of times in other virtual events so I think the need/want is for sure there.
19 July 2022 12:20pm
100%! Also heard many asking about SMART Connect & Mobile, and their integration with other software.
Thank you for your input :)
Call for Abstracts for #AGU22 Fall Meeting: Applications of Earth Observations for Addressing Environmental and Development Challenges in Africa
18 July 2022 6:43am
Earth Species Project - Senior AI Research Scientist
15 July 2022 6:40pm
Camera Trap Image analyzer
2 June 2022 10:41am
17 June 2022 3:58pm
Hi Ann,
The best thing to do is contact Nic and Hannes directly:
https://wildeyeconservation.org/contact-us/
They can provide you with an overview of the software and answer any questions you have. I've heard good things from a couple of others who have tried out TrapTagger.
Best,
Matt
2 July 2022 9:48am
Hello Matt,
Many thanks for your recommendation . I contacted Nic and we have planned a session where he will take me through the software.
Regards,
Ann
2 July 2022 2:39pm
Hi Kate,
I highly appreciate your feedback. I love your idea of using wild ID .I have registered for the wild ID and am looking forward to using it in future. I wont hesitate to contact you incase of any inquiries.
Many thanks,
Regards,
Ann
How are you contributing to Regional or Local Sustainability?
29 June 2022 7:52am
Hydropanels; a self-sustaining renewable water technology
29 June 2022 6:39am
Elephant Collar
11 June 2022 3:53pm
16 June 2022 11:33pm
Great work @kangs and Technology For Wildlife Africa! Can I ask, what's the collar material made out of?
Cheers,
Rob
25 June 2022 3:26pm
its nylon rubber material
Live Q&A on AI models to process Camera Trap Imagery: All about WildID
21 June 2022 6:49am
23 June 2022 11:35am
Nothing too much more to share about WildID - I think you've had an earful already! But just to say that we really do enjoy working with our users, so don't be shy to get in touch for any questions, or think you would be bothering us if you need support. We're excited to bring more projects on board and extend our training sets to new locations, camera types and species.
For those in regions outside Africa, we are considering releasing a version of WildID that uses MegaDetector from Microsoft AI - so it will classify your images into empties, and then human, vehicle and animal (just those three classes). You would then be able to define your own species list, and edit the animal pictures to the correct species. Still a fair amount of work for you to edit, but you are probably doing the work already, and at least you would have an easy interface in which to do it, and particularly empties excluded already for you. Get in touch with us if this would be of use to you.
23 June 2022 11:43am
Thank you so much Kate for the excellent answers, explanations, insights and pointers; This was nothing short of Amazing!
Thank you all for joining us in this discussion; I hope this has been helpful and you now have a solution for processing your 1 million + camera trap imagery. If you have any questions for Kate, please feel free to drop them in this discussion thread- she is more than happy to answer. If you’d like to reach out to Kate directly, you can Direct message her here or send her an email at: [email protected]
Thank you!
23 June 2022 11:45am
Thank you so much Netty, I really enjoyed it.
Good luck to you all with your work.
Keep well!
Live Q&A session on AI models for Processing Camera Trap Imagery:A highlight of WildID.
22 June 2022 1:42pm
The Women in Conservation Technology Programme: Reporting from our Opening Workshop
14 June 2022 6:49am
Conservation Technology Gaps in East Africa
13 June 2022 12:19pm
13 June 2022 2:21pm
Out of curiosity, how many people responded to this survey and what kinds of institutions did they come from? E.g., government agencies, universities, non-profits, etc. And am I right in assuming this was just in Kenya or was it from a broader region? I'm not that familiar with the regions listed in the first figure :)
13 June 2022 5:23pm
Hey Carly,
Good question. Data collection for the assessment was structured into; Interviews (12 conservation organizations were interviewed), online survey (64 respondents) and workshop (22 attended a two-day workshop). Those who took the assessment were from conservancies; both private and community owned, conservancy associations, government bodies/parastatals e.g Kenya Wildlife Service, Kenya Space Agency and Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD).
The conservancies and organizations are in Kenya but most have transboundary projects across East Africa. To complement the assessment, we also did desk research and spoke to a couple of stakeholders across the larger East Africa region and majority of the findings were quite similar e.g. need for tech training on i.e. GIS/RS tools (access, manipulation and use of data), data management and Protected area Management tools (selecting most appropriate tools and integration) and barriers to adopting up-to date tech due to the high cost and inadequate skills etc.
Baotree;A Participatory Data Management Tool Piloted in Kenya.
9 June 2022 8:02am
Conservation Science Data Specialist
17 May 2022 10:09am
Welcome to WILDLABS East Africa Community!
6 May 2022 6:47am
11 May 2022 11:58am
Thank You Netty! I love the new developments and the community setup. I am excited to see what is next. Thank you.
Passive Acoustic Monitoring - Malagasy Training Workshop
9 May 2022 4:10pm
Women In Conservation Technology Programme, Kenya
5 May 2022 8:45am
Apply now: Women in Conservation Technology Programme, Kenya
8 March 2022 12:00am
EarthRanger Announces Inaugural Conservation Tech Award Recipients
3 November 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: Expect the Unexpected
27 October 2021 12:00am
Using IoT and Machine Learning to help protect Kenya's Rivers
21 October 2021 12:00am
Deploying 'Ears' in Ecosystems: Using Bioacoustics to Monitor Bird Species
21 October 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: The Path to Success
14 October 2021 12:00am
Technical Difficulties: A Deployment Checklist
13 October 2021 12:00am
Tech4Wildlife Leaders: Resolving Human-Giraffe Conflict
21 May 2021 12:00am
29 July 2022 10:41am
Thank you so much for leading this Q&A session @kennedy_muriithi and for your time. It was lovely hosting you and I believe the community has learnt a lot about the EarthRanger system.
If you have any questions for Kennedy, kindly drop them anytime in this discussion thread- he is more than happy to answer all your questions!
Thank you Kennedy and see you all in our next Q&A session. We will be exploring an interesting conservation technology topic and featuring an amazing speaker, so stay tuned. See you next time!