*iHub_ Research

Team

Jessica Colaco

Jessica is the Research Lead and Manager at iHub – Nairobi’s Tech Innovation Hub. She is passionate about Innovation, Research, Visualisation, Mobile Technology and Mentorship and Entrepreneurship in Kenya as she uses her position at iHub to court local, regional and international stakeholders to adopt Kenyan-made solutions. Jessica is also TED Global Fellow 2009, a Mobile Technology Evangelist, Founder of Mobile Boot Camp Kenya, Co-founder of AkiraChix and a Bass guitarist in Nairobi, Kenya. She was named one of the top 40 women under 40 years in Kenya’s business scene by Business Daily on 2009 and 2011. She has organized several Mobile Boot Camps in Kenya as well as the first Facebook Developer Garage in Kenya in 2008. She has been featured by CNN Labs, Wired UK and other mainstream media.

Hilda Moraa

Hilda Moraa is the Research Strategist and has a wide network and comprehensive knowledge of applied research in East Africa. She is spearheading our in-house research study on ICT Hubs. She develops the research arm's framework by formulating its capabilities, policies, and processes using the different projects as a basis. Prior to her current position she has led and published research papers on ICT. In addition she has relevant professional experience in quantitative research, market research, management consulting, operations research or other fast-paced, high-exposure environment and experience designing and managing research projects. She is also the Co-founder of My_Order.

Angela Crandall

As iHub Research Project Manager, Angela’s main role is to coordinate and plan for the various iHub Research projects. Angela joined the iHub community in October 2010, and is passionate about innovation, especially in the agricultural sector; SME development; and the appropriate use of IT. Angela has been involved in corporate outreach to engage businesses in dialogue on sustainability at the World Wildlife Fund (Washington, DC, USA). She has experience working with infoDev, a global development financing program, housed by the World Bank; the US State Department; and start-ups such as MFarm. Angela studied international environmental issues at Georgetown University (USA) and recently completed a Fulbright research fellowship in Kenya looking at the use of SMS by farmers.

Leonida Mutuku

Leo is an Actuarial Scientist, Researcher, Data Analyst and Writer. She has conducted both academic and financial quantitative research. She has also worked in various capacities in financial institutions and is experienced in data audit, analysis and visualization using SPSS, Excel, R and IDEA software. Leo has profiled several upcoming and established entrepreneurs and blogs occasionally. She is enthusiastic about Twitter, the Open Data Movement and creative visualization of data as a tool to easily disseminate useful information to the general public. She is currently studying to be a Certified Enterprise Risk Analyst.

Mentors

Shikoh Gitau

Shikoh is Pseudo Computer Scientist, and holds a PhD and an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her passion in indigenous research is inspired from years of looking at how African Knowledge Generation Methods can transform complex problems into simple, often quite obvious solutions. The ingenuity of people to make the most of what they have, to creatively circumvent insurmountable challenges , the insatiable hunger to live and the resilient spirit of survival are lessons that Computer Scientist could greatly benefit from Africa. This, together with her love for technology and what it can make possible in ordinary lives is what makes her wake up every morning. Shikoh has worked in various capacities both with the private sector and non-government organizations in Kenya and South Africa. She worked as a business analyst before joining an NGO working on democracy, human rights and governance. Today, she works as the User Experience Researcher at Google.

Kentaro Toyama

Kentaro Toyama (www.kentarotoyama.org) is a visiting researcher in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. He is writing a book tentatively titled A Different Kind of Growth: Wisdom in Global Development. From 2004-2009, Kentaro was assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India, where he led interdisciplinary research in the application of electronic technology to the socio-economic development of developing communities. In 2006, he co-founded the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. Prior to his time in India, Kentaro did computer vision and multimedia research at Microsoft Research and taught mathematics at Ashesi University in Ghana.