Growing up Silvian Gitau thought of being a medical doctor as it would allow her to help people.
This was not meant to be as the sight of blood and people in pain made her sick.
Her
need to impact people’s lives along with her math teacher Ms Loise
Koile, who helped her exploit the love for the subject, saw her pursue a
career in technology.
She is constantly working at developing software applications that will have an impact in society.
This led her to being one of the recipients of the 2010 Google Anita Borg price in April this year.
“This actually did happen?” she says in an interview with Business Daily.
Her
proposal for a phone application dubbed M-ganga that would record,
catalogue and map out traditional medicine and knowledge for both
archival purpose and everyday use led to the global recognition.
Her M-ganga application aims at combining traditional healing, community health workers and doctors to provide healthcare.
The system looks at taking advantage of the knowledge by traditional healers by making it available.
“We
aim at using mobile phones as the tool to collect the information,
provide accessibility and disseminate it to villages,” she said, adding
that there will also be a web portal that people practicing modern
medicine can use.
Initially, this was just an idea and
when Google asked what she would do with the money if she won it she
came up with a full proposal that won the award.
Today,
she is in discussions with various people who have bought into the idea
and hopes it will become a product in the near future.
Ms
Gitau is currently a PhD student at the University of Cape Town (UCT)
where she is doing research on the semi-literate job seekers in
Khayelitsha in Cape Town and the use of technology.
As part of the award she got to visit the Google offices in Zurich in June.
She
did not have a list of who she wanted to meet there and was only keen
to “demystify Google,” as the company is seen as the “it” working place
for her field as they take the best.
“I wanted to see and interact with some of the engineers to make
sure they were all human and not robots,” she said. “They were pleasant
and was taken by the working environment, especially the massage chair
with piped music to relieve stress.”
In addition to the trip, Ms Gitau received an academic scholarship worth Sh714,000.
Most
of the money will go towards her PhD programme with some going into the
implementation and support of a new tool, which she refuses to
disclose, she has been working with.
After her O’ level
she joined the African Nazarene University in Nairobi where graduated
in a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, before moving to work for
the Centre of Multiparty Democracy (CMD) as a Programmes Assistant.
It is at CMD she realised what she really wanted to do; use technology to inform and educate people.
Armed
with this experience she set out to pursue her Masters at UCT in 2008
here she worked at merging her passion to help people and her IT skills
by researching on how mobile phones can be used to support voter
education in Africa.
Her research led her to work with a team that designed the system dubbed ‘Snap N Grab’,
a Microsoft registered product that is a notice board mainly used by
non-governmental organisations to distribute information.
Upon
her graduation she opted to continue pursuing her education and hopes
to finish her doctorate education by the end of this year.
Once
her dissertation is approved for submission she plans to get onto the
first flight into Kenya where she hopes to pursue non-academic research
and be part of the development agenda especially pertaining to ICT.
“The
government should help build the capacity for our graduates to create
for our underlying needs and even to export,” she said.
She
said the policies in the Kenya need to be updated and be more
supportive of the current climate of young up coming innovators and
innovations.
The accessibility of mobile phones to at least 60 per cent of Kenyans has helped a high uptake of technology.
By Kui Kinyanjui
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