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
- 101 Resources
- 24 Discussions
- 4 Groups
Article
My research sought to determine whether Acacia xanthophloea (yellow fever) trees allocate more resources to physical defenses, like spines, in areas where herbivore activity is high. This involved an experimental study...
14 November 2023
My project seeks to create awareness on bushmeat activities, through physical barazas as well use of technology (SMS – in Swahili) to disseminate messages on the offences and penalties under the Wildlife Conservation...
14 November 2023
Highlights from my participation in the nationwide grey crowned cranes census organized by the International Crane Foundation, and other partners between February and March 2023 in Kenya to survey one of the most...
14 November 2023
A Journey into Understanding Reticulated Giraffe Population Dynamics in the Enchanting Landscape of Mugie Conservancy
14 November 2023
Watch and read our interview with Dr. Kenneth Mubea, Capacity Development Lead at Digital Earth Africa, enabling the use of earth observations to address key conservation challenges across the African continent.
3 November 2023
Article
WILDLABS journeyed through the most significant climate event in Africa this year and delivered a Women in Conservation Technology presentation. Esther Githinji, our East Africa Hub Facilitator discovered that although...
27 October 2023
With the rising threats to biodiversity such as wildlife crime, climate change and human-wildlife conflict today, wildlife monitoring technologies have become vital to study movement ecology, behaviour patterns, changes...
25 October 2023
Listen in on our interview with Mara Elephant Project’s Tracking Manager, Wilson Sairowua, as he explains how MEP is using software, geofencing and drone technologies to resolve human-elephant conflict across Maasai...
20 October 2023
Connected Conservation Foundation is seeking a GIS and Data Science Specialist to help design and support remote sensing projects. This is a unique opportunity to work with local conservation teams across the globe and...
27 September 2023
Varaha is seeking a Geospatial Data Scientist to help design, build, and deliver a compelling spatial data science platform and develop industry leading AI models for satellite imagery.
25 September 2023
Conservation International is seeking a Chief Information and Technology Officer (CITO) to develop and champion the organization’s digital transformation agenda and deliver integrated technology solutions to CI’s...
14 September 2023
The WCS team in Uganda is working with impacted communities, district leaders and wildlife authorities to come up with innovative solutions to Human Wildlife Conflicts and curb wildlife crimes in our time. Check out...
5 September 2023
June 2024
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Technical Difficulties: A Deployment Checklist
13 October 2021 12:00am
Tech4Wildlife Leaders: Resolving Human-Giraffe Conflict
21 May 2021 12:00am
Interview: Protecting Vultures with Telemetry
18 March 2021 12:00am
Learning Resources: Exploring Species Interactions with Snapshot Serengeti
25 November 2020 12:00am
Meet the Scientists of Black Mammalogists Week!
10 September 2020 12:00am
Designing a Camera Mount with FLIR and WWF
24 August 2020 12:00am
#Sat4Wildlife project supported in £3.4million UK Space Agency funding announcement
20 August 2020 12:00am
Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching
10 August 2020 12:00am
New technology trialled to better monitor human-gorilla conflict in Uganda
23 July 2019 12:00am
Technology lab focused on wildlife protection opens on Ol Pejeta Conservancy
31 May 2019 12:00am
FLIR and World Wildlife Fund Announce Effort to Combat Rhino Poaching in Kenya
18 January 2019 12:00am
Beehive fences and elephants: Tanzanian case study offers fresh insights
27 August 2018 12:00am
Call for citizen scientists to help unravel the mysteries of South Sudan’s forests
22 August 2018 12:00am
Forest Watcher Brings Data Straight to Environmental Defenders
6 October 2017 12:00am
Rhino Carpentry: The Making of Lola the Rhino in Augmented Reality
19 July 2017 12:00am
Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge: Mars Omega LLP Boosts Wildlife Crime Intelligence
11 May 2017 12:00am
WWF develops a new technology to stop poachers in their tracks
27 June 2016 12:00am
Mobile Phone Reporting for Rapid Wildlife Health Response in Uganda
22 December 2015 12:00am