Kenyan woman wins top prize for AI innovation dealing with pests and diseases

A Kenyan woman and a budding innovator has won the prestigious Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation for her innovation that relies on artificial intelligence.

Esther Kimani, together with her team, has developed a solar-powered tool using AI and machine learning-enabled cameras to swiftly detect and identify agricultural pests and diseases. 

Kimani was named the winner at a fete organised in a Nairobi hotel on Thursday that brought together more than 80 innovators from across Africa. She took home Sh8.3 million as prize money. 

Her early crop pest and disease detection device was selected as the winning innovation for its ability to swiftly detect and identify agricultural pests and diseases, reducing crop losses for smallholder farmers by up to 30 per cent while increasing yields by as much as 40 per cent.

Kimani's innovation not only provides real time alerts within five seconds of an infestation, offering tailored intervention suggestions, but also alerts government agricultural officers to the presence of diseases or pests, contributing to broader agricultural management efforts.

Speaking after receiving the award, she said that she developed her innovation, dubbed as 'Farmer Lifeline Technologies', while undertaking her Computer Science degree course at the University of Eldoret.

Kimani said the losses incurred by smallholder farmers in her village in Tigoni, Nyandarua county, due to pests and diseases, inspired her to embark on a journey of finding a lasting solution that would help reduce losses and maximise on their production.

The solar-powered tool uses computer vision algorithms and advanced machine learning to detect and identify crop pests, pathogens or diseases, as well as the nature of the infection or infestation.

The device then notifies the farmer via SMS which is an affordable alternative to traditional detection methods. She leases the devices for just $3 per month, which is significantly cheaper than hiring drones or agricultural inspectors.

Kimani and her team are currently working with some 5,000 farmers in central Kenya, and she hopes that by the end of this year the number will have doubled as they have spread their wings to five more counties.

“My parents would lose up to 40 per cent of their crops each farming season, which affected our standard of living. We are empowering smallholder farmers, many of whom are women, to increase their income. We aim to scale to one million farmers in the next five years,” she said.

She said she will spend her prize money to further develop her innovation so as to reach out to more smallholder farmers and help in enhancing food production and security in the country and across the continent. 

Kelvin Maina, another innovative Kenyan, bagged Sh2.5 million to enable him develop his innovation dubbed as 'Eco Tiles'.

Maina makes environment-friendly roofing material made from recycled plastics that are stronger and lighter than clay or concrete tiles. The innovation is a dual solution to plastic pollution and high building costs.

He told journalists that the innovative manufacturing process involves a custom-made extrusion machine that blends different plastics at varying temperatures, eliminating the need for energy-intensive processes like kiln-burning and reducing carbon emissions.

“The tiles are enhanced with UV stabilisation chemicals and construction sand to improve durability and sturdiness,” he said.

His firm, founded in 2016, currently handles about 20 tonnes of plastics to produce about 1,500 tiles on a daily basis. Maina says he's currently working to expand his production capacity.

“So far, half a million eco tiles have been used in the construction of about 348 houses. The demand is still very high. We endeavour to fight plastic pollution in our country while at the same time offering affordable building materials and aiding in job creation,” he said.

Catriona MacArthur, the senior manager Africa Programme, said that the Africa Prize has supported almost 150 entrepreneurs across 23 African countries, generating more than 28,000 jobs and benefitting more than 10 million people through the innovative products and services developed.

The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2014, is Africa’s biggest prize dedicated to developing African innovators and helping them to maximise their impact.

“It gives commercialisation support to ambitious African innovators developing scalable engineering solutions to address local challenges, demonstrating the importance of engineering as an enabler of improved quality of life and economic development,” MacArthur said.

The prize is supported by the UK government, including the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Official Development Assistance funding, as well as charitable trusts and foundations, individual donors and corporate partners over the last 10 years.