The first ITU Green ICT Application Challenge sought to uncover innovative concept papers for climate change related ICT applications.

One of the challenge’s finalists, Ms. Euphraith Muthoni Masinde from Kenya, developed a concept for an application entitled, “A Community-Based System for Biodiversity Degradation.” This application aims to tackle climate change through community engagement and knowledge sharing. The app proposes a system harnessing traditional and indigenous knowledge on biodiversity and conservation. This information will be brought to light through community-based focus groups, and then disseminated to users through a database feeding data directly to mobile phones. Users would then build on this knowledge to create their own conservation practices.

Ms. Masinde is a lecturer on study-leave from the School of Computing and Informatics at the University of Nairobi. She is also a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, a member of the HPI Research School in ICT for development (ICT4D), as well as a member of the Intelligent Systems and Advanced Telecommunication Laboratory.

To read her story go to http://www.itu.int/osg/blog/default,date,2011-10-31.aspx