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 & Fauna & Flora
I am the WILDLABS East Africa Conservation Technology Coordinator
- 102 Resources
- 32 Discussions
- 4 Groups
- @Jkavutha
- | Her/She
I am currently pursuing an MSc Conservation Biology at the University of Kent. My research interests are based around wildlife economies and how communities can be at the frontline to drive initiatives that promote sustainable livelihoods and safeguard wildlife habitats.
- 1 Resources
- 2 Discussions
- 5 Groups
Project planet is working to mitigate conflict between farmers and forest elephants in Gabon, Central Africa.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 3 Groups
Conservation Biologist; Research interest Human Dimensions on Wildlife Conservation and Conservation Tech
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @Benedicta
- | She
My name is Ninying Benedicta a PhD student under the Department of wildlife resource management in Cameroon. I love learning about wildlife and their habitats. I also love working with communities surrounding the forests, learning on Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
- 0 Resources
- 4 Discussions
- 4 Groups
I am conservation and sustainability researcher based in Tanzania with 15+ years of field work experience. I enjoy working, mentoring and engage youth in conservation efforts and using technology to enhance my work.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 1 Groups
- @nicoboenisch
- | He / him / his
Co-Director FOS Europe, Conservation Strategist and Technical Advisor to the Miradi Software Team, Improving Conservation through Adaptive Management and Evidence-based Learning
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 8 Groups
I am a budding engineer doing Electrical and Telecommunications Engineering and I am passionate about innovation and technology and how I can use it to make an impact in society.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 5 Groups
- @Brian_Gachiri
- | Him/His
Experienced Web and Mobile Application Developer with a passion for climate and environment conservation. I aim to have every keystroke a step toward a more sustainable and greener future. #TechForGood #EcoInnovation
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 1 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @fmnrandrew
- | he, him
I hold a PhD in terrestrial ecology (2010) and am an Adjunct Research Fellow at Charles Sturt University. I also work with World Vision Australia as Monitoring Coordinator for a project called "Scale Up FMNR" which is short for "Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration"
- 0 Resources
- 2 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- @sheilaotuko
- | She/her
Electrical and Electronic Engineering student with passion for green energy and climate action.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @APendael
- | Mr.
Amos Pendael is a renowned conservation and research specialist with extensive experience in the field of Management Oriented Monitoring Skills (MOMS), remote sensing, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). With a M.Sc in Natural Resources Assessment and Management.
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
With the support of Women in Conservation Technology (Kenya) and Arm, I had a chance to work with Kijabe Environment Volunteers in Kikuyu Escarpment Forest. This was an opportunity to channel my passion for the...
1 December 2023
Hello, My name is Rita Orahle, a Rhino Monitoring Officer from Loisaba Conservancy. In this article, I will give an update on research on the fence and key gained skills and support from the Women in Conservation...
1 December 2023
Pathways to the resilience of agro-pastoral communities in Kenya- PhD Position at NTU
1 December 2023
Using baited remote underwater videos (BRUVs) to survey seagrass habitats along Kenya’s North Coast
30 November 2023
Hello, and welcome to this article. My name is Cynthia Waithera Gichimu, and I am passionate about bird conservation. I will share with you some of my experiences and insights as a volunteer with two amazing...
30 November 2023
Article
Read our interview with Clementine Uwamahoro, African Parks’ Country Manager in Conservation Technology overlooking technology operations for both Akagera National Park and Nyungwe National Park.
29 November 2023
In the sprawling African savannas, the Acacia xanthophloea takes the spotlight, weaving a tale of resilience against herbivores. The defense mechanisms of plants, such as spines, thorns, and prickles emerge as nature's...
28 November 2023
TagRanger® is a state-of-the-art wildlife finding, monitoring and tracking solution for research, conservation and environmental professionals. With superior configurability for logging data, reporting location and...
23 November 2023
There are six opportunities aimed at enhancing conservation science capacity, education and leadership in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Read on to learn more.
21 November 2023
The Women in Conservation Technology Programme, Kenya Cohort have made substantial progress towards their conservation tech objectives as pitched at the closing workshop in November 2022. We catch up with the cohort as...
14 November 2023
At KENVO's Environmental and Conservation Department, I was able to participate in detailed bird, biodiversity and threatened plant species monitoring in Kereita Forest as part of an ITF restoration project, as well as...
14 November 2023
My passion is in designing and implementing conservation projects that address conservation challenges in the grassroots. The WiCT Programme is exactly what I needed to realise and get a clear picture of my...
14 November 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Thank you very much for this Esther. I also came across Trade in Wildlife Information Exchange (TWIX) which is a enforcement tool for international wildlife trade. |
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Women in Conservation Tech Programme (WiCT), Citizen Science, Emerging Tech, East Africa Community | 3 weeks ago | |
Hello Ms Esther👋Thank you for taking your time to reply to me with such helpful response.I'm interested in conservation technology such as camera traps, GIS and Remote sensing,... |
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Early Career, East Africa Community, Community Base | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
I got assistance. super grateful! |
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Climate Change, Community Base, East Africa Community, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Hi Rokshana,Maybe you can try this product from India called ANIDERS - I think this product would help you a lot. This is their website - |
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Human-Wildlife Conflict, East Africa Community | 2 months 4 weeks ago | |
Hi, I have used a commercial company for drone work for my PhD and they were willing to give me a significant discount for research purposes. One thing to consider is that in SA a... |
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Drones, East Africa Community | 4 months 1 week ago | |
I dont have anything written up but I can tell what parts we used and how we tested.Its pretty straightforward, we used this M10 Enclosure Vent from Blue Robotics: Along with... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Acoustics, Camera Traps, Climate Change, East Africa Community, Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
Thank you for this! Will take a look. |
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Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, East Africa Community, Remote Sensing & GIS | 4 months 3 weeks ago | |
Hi folks! Happy 2024 and thanks in advance for your patience in case I over-used tags. If you’re using any form of natural language... |
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AI for Conservation, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Early Career, East Africa Community, Emerging Tech, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime, Women in Conservation Tech Programme (WiCT) | 4 months 4 weeks ago | |
Hi Zach,Our organization (SEE Turtles) has a campaign working on the illegal tortoiseshell trade around the world called Too Rare To Wear. We are going to be updating our Global... |
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Community Base, Conservation Dogs, Early Career, East Africa Community, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Wildlife Crime | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
Digital Earth Africa are doing fantastic work to make Earth Observation data free and accessible, delivering decision-ready products to the... |
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East Africa Community, Remote Sensing & GIS | 8 months ago | |
Alina has been a longtime friend of WILDLABS, and has been incredibly generous about sharing her knowledge as a Tech Tutor, an expert... |
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East Africa Community, Protected Area Management Tools | 8 months 3 weeks ago | |
Am helping a conservation project use iNaturalist for their work in bio-diversity monitoring and also citizen science, STEM program with... |
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Community Base, Citizen Science, East Africa Community | 9 months 2 weeks ago |
ONLINE COURSE: Project Management for Wildlife Conservation
4 October 2022 2:00pm
Live Q&A Discussion on Ceres Tag: An animal monitoring Solution!
17 August 2022 6:57am
26 September 2022 9:17pm
Is there any sort of automatic drop-off mechanism for the tags? Or does the animal need to be re-captured to take the tag off?
29 September 2022 3:52am
Hi Carly,
There are no built in automatic drop-off mechanism for the tags. We do have customers that have purchased and incorporated the tag into different types of harness and collars.
Happy to discuss further with you to understand your use case. Head over to www.cerestag.com and there is a "let's talk" button.
Shop GPS Animal Monitoring Ear Tags
Buy Ceres Tag online. A smart ear tag with direct to satellite capability, allowing you to monitor your animals anytime, anywhere with no towers or infrastructure required.
CERES TAGSenior Conservation Technology Expert Position (Consultancy) with the Global Wildlife Program
22 September 2022 5:35pm
Catch Up with The Variety Hour: November 2022
22 September 2022 2:12pm
Key Takeaways: Building the East Africa community!
7 September 2022 6:44am
8 September 2022 1:00am
Establishing and Building the East Africa Community: Looking back on Year 1!
7 September 2022 5:55am
ONLINE COURSE: Grant Writing for Wildlife Conservation
31 August 2022 2:38pm
Online Hackathon: Predators conservation in the Maasai Mara
22 August 2022 10:32am
Ceres Wild Rhino application
22 August 2022 1:29am
29 September 2022 4:05am
RCMRD Map Competition 2022
19 August 2022 1:54pm
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
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!
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.
1 September 2022 5:48am
Hi Peter, Other users are having success embedding the tag into the rear face of the rear horn, see photos