This is because fisher folk venture into the sea for their daily bread sometimes without anticipating the dangers involved, especially when the sea is rough, and end up drowning.
This could soon be a thing of the past.
Five young people have come up with a digital application that can tell when the tides are high or low, so as to determine the safety of venturing into the sea.
Blessing Mwiti, who leads the group called the Startups, said the web and mobile application called Tide Safety Net, will determine and inform the user of the height of the wave, the speed of the winds, and the weather.
“This will help fishermen, swimmers and surfers know the opportune time to do their activities safely,” Mwiti said on Wednesday.
He spoke during an award ceremony at the Sote Hub headquarters following a two-day boot camp for the cyber security hackathon, where young people at the Coast were to come up with solutions on cyber security.
Mwiti said the app uses Application Programming Interfaces to fetch the data that is sent to the user’s phone.
“It can also be used to predict weather patterns and whether there will be a tsunami or something like that,” he said.
He said this will reduce accidents at sea.
The group won the hackathon, organised by Sote Hub in partnership with organisations like Slovakaid and the Mombasa county government to harness the power of innovation from the Coast youth.
They received a cash reward of Sh250,000.
Sote Hub director David Ogega said the innovation is revolutionary and could save thousands of lives.
“This is not the end. We want to see them scale their innovations into the market,” Ogega said.
He said Kenya has had tremendous challenges in terms of cyber security.
Last August, Kenya suffered a massive cyber attack, with most government services through platforms such as e-Citizen and even private firms like the giant telco, Safaricom, falling victim.
ICT and Digital Economy CS Eliud Owalo then said no data was accessed or stolen during the attack and that the state was looking at a long-term solution to future attacks.
He said all that the hackers did was slow down the e-Citizen website by putting in unusual requests.
On Wednesday, Ogega said Kenya has far less manpower and technical people that can support cyber security than required.
He noted that there are only 2,000 qualified cyber security experts in Kenya against a demand of around 40,000.
“So, it means there is a huge deficiency,” he said.
The Mombasa county government criticised the national government saying it was doing little to promote young people who have sharp minds especially in the ICT world.
County education executive Mbwarali Kame said the national government has not given priority to the digital and ICT world, especially at the Coast.
“Many of our youth have skills in ICT and innovation. If the national government put more focus on them, then the country would move forward faster and the economy would be much better than it is,” Kame said.
He said such functions should be attended by top national officers like the ICT and Digital Economy CS Owalo or even President William Ruto himself, so they can see firsthand the innovative minds that exist at the Coast and in Kenya.
“This would boost the morale of the youth and give them more energy to be even more innovative,” Kame said.
He said the Mombasa county government has been working to digitise the economy as envisioned by Governor Abdulswamad Nassir.
He said currently, the county is working to digitise revenue collection at all the markets including Kongowea, which is the biggest.
“We are in the process of even making our cabinet an e-cabinet. We are working on installing Artificial Intelligence systems in the streets to curb crime,” he said.
Another group, Bio Secure, have come up with a solution to stop hacking of ATM machines and credit cards.
The application seeks to replace the traditional ATM and credit cards with a biometric system that uses fingerprints to control access to funds in a bank account, as opposed to use of the Personal Identification Number.
Fingerprints are unique to each individual as no two individuals have similar patterns.
Misunza Festus said the team of six youth has been working on the app for three months.
“This is, again, a very good innovation and we want to see how we can be able to support them,” Ogega said.
A third group, Data Baiters, have come up with a solution that can identify risks when online like phishing or identity theft.
Ronald Ndolo and Morris Osoro said they came up with a way for the citizens to feel safe handling their own data and trusting it with another company.
“Many companies masquerade as legitimate companies and send their data for malicious purposes hence receiving unnecessary emails,” said Ndolo.
