The IBD Letter of the Year 2024

Dear IBD Mentees and Kind Supporters,

Down Memory Lane

Let’s go down memory lane, shall we? Do you remember where you came from? Never trash history; it is the only authentic and unaltered reference you can learn from.

Impact Borderless Digital (IBD) can now look back on a rich and eventful history, conceived in 2019 while aboard a train from Cologne to Dresden, Germany. Having benefitted from a variety of training modules in international project management and GraFA’s good governance programme for developing regions, the vision bearer, then as now a lecturer at Taita Taveta University (TTU), remained deep in thought throughout the swift cruise at more than 200 km/h on InterCity Express (ICE) electric train. He was perturbed by what he perceived as a wanton indifference among the favourably exposed and educated elite to the future of the African youth in a world increasingly becoming borderless and digital. How could he make a difference with the knowledge and international exposure he had acquired? He eventually came up with the idea of a youth mentorship programme, giving birth to the eponymous Impact Borderless Digital, to communicate his triple-legged mentorship purpose. He assigned it the core values of diligence, excellence, and intergenerational responsibility and the tagline of Impact without imposition. 

A series of in-person meetings in 2019 ensued, held in the counties of Nairobi, Kisumu, Kajiado (Deliverance Church Ong’ata Rongai – DCOR) , and Homa Bay (Ndhiwa). The first mentees to participate in the so-called skills revolution and career enhancement sessions included Beda Ogola, now a Nairobi-based statistician and agripreneur, and Bonface Osoro, now a US-based geomatics engineer and researcher in satellite communication systems.

Fast-forward to 22 February 2020. IBD held a major youth mentorship training in Voi attended by more than 80 Taita Taveta University (TTU) students and students from the tertiary learning institutions in Voi. Soon after, the IBD website, YouTube channel, and social media pages were launched – receiving key input from the TTU students themselves. However, soon after again, COVID-19 set in, but IBD never looked back, exploiting the uptake of virtual meetings to organise monthly online youth mentorship forums that kept hope alive for students and young graduates alike during the yearlong closure of learning institutions. It has been forward ever in youth mentorship. Like magnetism, IBD has been attracting all the mentees made of the magnetic stuff of mentorship – which is the purposeful self-driven passion to learn and multiply (Impact without imposition).

Turning Five

As Impact Borderless Digital (IBD) turns five, it turns the page to close 2024 and cross over to 2025. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the journey we shared through 2024. It has been a year of purpose, growth, and learning. It has been a year of contrasts as well, expecting so much in return for so little (e.g., the slow pace of youth subscribing to the IBD YouTube channel, yet the answers to the scholarship and career-related questions they have been asking are all there! Subscribe to the IBD YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ-bzUMq7jhnXiPKGKbqpxw). In the same year, Esri Education Summit 2024 slotted in the IBD Founder for a talk as a GIS Education Champion on GIS Championship in Education and Research: A Roadmap for Influencing Cultures – a great opportunity and privilege of recognition. It was also a year of expecting so little in return for surprisingly so much (e.g., the opportunities that opened up to engage the youth meaningfully in research and sponsored field trips, even when all the signs were dimming and not promising). Together, we explored opportunities, confronted challenges, and uncovered new ways to create meaningful change in our communities and beyond.

Let’s now revisit some salient messages, achievements, and lessons in 2024 which set the pace for an exciting outlook for 2025.

Key IBD Messages in 2024

1. 1. Empowering the Youth and Communities through Technology
      This year, we proved that technology is more than a tool; it’s a bridge. The IBD platform popularised the Mtaa Wetu App, whose pioneer is James Gachanja, a Kenyan researcher based at the University of Hong Kong. Working together with him on the app were the IBD Founder, Nashon Adero, who is a lecturer of mining and engineering surveys and GIS at Taita Taveta University (TTU), and John Ngugi, a Geoinformatics graduate from TTU.
      • • For the second year running, a student-driven International GIS Day organising committee that the IBD Founder put together delivered on the assignment of successfully making arrangements for the annual GIS Week. This student-driven approach has been proven to be more effective and beneficial to students as they get nurtured to be leaders who can organise and manage events competently upon graduation. Thus, TTU celebrated its 10th International GIS Day on the Main Campus in style on 20th November 2024 (“The Decade of Delivery”), featuring Mtaa Wetu and similar tools and solutions of citizen science advanced by Esri (Environmental Systems Research Institute), the global leader in developing industry-grade GIS software.
      • • James Gachanja, Nashon Adero, and John Ngugi presented the Mtaa Wetu App at the GIS Day Conference at TTU on 20th November 2024, complete with its AI-driven generative chat function. The app was appreciated as a beacon of hope, enabling citizens to report local development issues, fostering transparency, and empowering neighbourhoods to own their progress.

• • In a year Kenya experienced immense flooding in April, which forced residents of posh Nairobi estates, such as Runda, to row boats instead of driving to navigate their way to and around their otherwise impregnable residences, IBD fronted GIS as a powerful tool for flood risk modelling and management through location-specific derisking interventions. As IBD mentees, Bonface Odhiambo and John Ngugi were instrumental in the GIS analyses that demonstrated the much-desired GIS-based flood management solutions.

• • Following his formal invitation by the Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK) to speak at a professional forum, the IBD Founder presented ideas and concepts on The Digital Mine at the ISK Pre-Conference forum held in Mombasa, 8-9 May 2024. He made extensive reference to the application of geospatial technologies to solving complex and interconnected governance issues in the mining sector.

• • As part of continuing professional development, the e-learning training was held in June at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa, and AI in higher education training for DAAD scholars was held at Chuka University, Kenya. These capacity-building activities equipped the IBD Founder to be a better teacher and youth mentor.

• • The 2^nd CEMEREM/DAAD Alumni Seminar, on lifelong learning, was held at Taita Taveta University. The presentations featured examples from IBD on youth-centred research towards minimising ecological footprints and addressing youth unemployment by matching lifelong skills development needs with talents and labour market demographics. 

• • Thereafter, in October 2024, the IBD Fouder was invited by the Football Foundation for Africa to host a workshop on modelling football based on the successful World Cup mathematical prediction models he developed in 2018 and 2022. He christened the workshop, “From Classroom to Championship: Transforming African Football through Game-Changing Models”. The workshop excited the international audience as they came to terms with how amazing the mathematical concepts of set theory, reflection matrices, probability, and statistics can be when applied in real life. The 2022 version of the model could predict goal differences as well, unlike the 2018 version, which could only predict the winning team but with no goal difference. Wilson Kibe, a young graduate of Kenyatta University and IBD mentee, is appreciated for his exemplary work in collecting the data that was key to calibrating the 2022 World Cup Model. Other supportive inputs came from TTU students and alumni, notably Dickson Wachira, Imelda Nasubo, Lacena Amanda, Paul Njinu, Bonface Odhiambo, and Fred Mutri, among others.

• • In 2024, over ten young graduates and continuing college students, mentored by Impact Borderless Digital (IBD), were engaged, with competitive remuneration, in research projects aligned with IBD’s key mission to foster critical youth skills and career development. Their participation in the field exercises focused on a wetland monitoring study in Kisumu County and an artisanal gold mining study in Migori County, Kenya.

Sample links:

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/10/16/neighborhood-associations-embrace-mtaa-wetu-app-nhc-langata-court-residents-lead-the-way

MY PERSONAL GIS JOURNEY: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gis-sustainable-futures-age-big-data-artificial-nashon-adero-qpjbe/

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/05/09/envisioning-the-digital-mine-navigating-ai-prospects-for-mining-surveys

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/06/18/touring-the-eastern-cape-a-rediscovery-of-hospitality-and-digital-connectivity

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/10/09/inspired-by-germany-made-in-kenya-homegrown-football-models-to-feature-at-the-africa-football-business-summit

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/04/30/the-flood-crisis-in-kenya-a-wanton-disregard-for-geospatial-expertise

2. 2. Youth Leadership Matters
      Participation in forums such as the FIG Mentoring Programme for Africa and Enactus Kenya Leadership Forum at Kabarak University, Kenya, demonstrated the immense potential of equipping young minds and emerging leaders with skills tailored to this AI-driven era. Student members of Enactus TTU Club participated in the leadership forum held at Kabarak University.

• • In 2024, the KIPPRA Mentorship Programme for Universities and TVETs was hosted for the first time at Taita Taveta University. IBD mentees who are TTU students participated by presenting winning innovative ideas. Standing out among them was the demonstrated application by IBD mentee and mining engineering student, Jared Etaba, of 3D laser scanning (LiDAR) technology to enhance the accuracy of volumetric estimates for bulk material and stockpiles in mining environments, even in GPS-denied areas such as underground mines. University-industry collaboration was key to realising this milestone, with the contribution of POLKEN Ltd (Surveyor Peter Ndirangu), who offered the equipment and guidance the student needed to capture and analyse the required LiDAR data. All this started when the IBD Founder invited Peter Ndirangu as a keynote speaker on SLAM LiDAR technology on the 9th GIS Day celebration at Taita Taveta University in November 2023, whose theme was GIS for Sustainable Futures in the Age of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence.  

• • Towards the end of 2024, the IBD Founder selected active Enactus TTU Club student members for a sponsored tour to Base Titanium Ltd, Kwale, to witness international best practices in post-mining environmental responsibility as implemented by the Australian company that has been mining titanium ores in Kenya since 2013. The key observations included conserving indigenous biodiversity (manily trees) and rehabilitating and improving closed mining sites for alternative uses, including agriculture. Base Titanium took care of all the costs of travel, meals, and accommodation. 

• • IBD maintained the regular sharing of social media (X, Instagram, Facebook) weekly messages branded Monday Motivation, Mid-week Special, and Weekend Reflections. Faith Juma, a student at Multimedia University of Kenya, made engaging posters to this effect, making use of Adobe Express tools. Towards Christmas Day, Peace Juma showcased her creativity by exquisitely decorating our space to remind us that it was time to take a break and enjoy the festive season.

Youth, you are the leaders who will and can chart a new course for the future! IBD posted the names of the youth who have been active mentees as champions (Mashujaa) on Kenya’s Mashujaa Day 2024. It should be recalled that the IBD Founder received encouraging words from some of those mentees, giving evidence of how the IBD mentorship programme has influenced their scholarship and career growth trajectory. Just to list a few of them, Dickson Wachira, Imelda Nasubo, Tony Birya, Kevin Sang, Emmanuel Kiamba, Emmanual Koech, Ben Adwar, Bonface Odhiambo, Trevor Lang’at, John Ngugi, Stephen Katang’a, Moses Karanja, Kennedy Modi, Waruru Gitau, Joyline Yego, Isaac Wanyoike, Jared Etaba, Paul Njinu, Antony Gatii, Fred Muturi, Wilson Kibe, John Okwaro, Agather Wakio, Esther Oulo, Lacena Amanda, Octor Vitalis, and many more. Most of them, either TTU students or alumni, have made TTU proud by winning the 2022 National BIC Education Challenge, the 2023 Young Scientists Contest at the 4th Biennial CEMEREM Conference held in Kenya and the 17th Freiberg Colloquium of Young Researchers (Responsible Consumption and Production in the Use of the Earth’s Resources) held in June 2023 at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany, in addition to the 2023 Kenya Mining Week essay competition for university students on transforming the mining sector, among others.

Link: https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/02/26/2024-enactus-kenya-leadership-forum-key-takeaways

3. 3. Advocacy for Mental Health and Reforms
      Through level-headed discussions on the #GenZ revolution in Kenya, IBD spotlighted the urgent need for youth-focused socioeconomic reforms. Mental health is not a side issue; it is central to unlocking potential and nurturing hope among young people, especially jobless graduates. IBD demonstrated how a Confusion Matrix could be applied to streamline a youth-inclusive decision-making process to avert a crisis of the nature and magnitude Kenya witnessed in June 2024 as the GenZs proved their restlessness to break loose from the yoke of routine confines, almost mirroring the message of a key verse in Genesis.

Link: https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/07/09/reflections-on-a-kenyan-x-space-on-the-genz-revolution

4. Sustainable Mining for a Better Future

• • The knowledge-led advocacy advanced for the mining sector under the banner of IBD and TTU reminded us that Kenya’s natural resources hold immense potential—if managed responsibly. Integrating technology with local expertise will be key to sustainability and prosperity. In addition to the Digital Mine presentation in Mombasa, the IBD Founder was honoured to speak on green technologies and sustainable innovations for a low-carbon mining future to an international audience of mining experts, investors, and university students at the Gala Dinner held in Nairobi on 27^th November 2024, crowning the Kenya Mining Investment Conference and Expo 2024. Notable in their support towards the organisation of the event were Imelda Nasubo and Dickson Wachira, both TTU alumni.

• • Thanks to the exemplary performance of TTU in training and TTU alumni on the job market, TTU rightfully received from the National Mining Corporation the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024 for educating mining engineers for the region.

• • TTU is the host of the Kenyan-German Centre of Excellence for Mining, Environmental Engineering and Resource Management (CEMEREM). CEMEREM, the 8^th African-German Centre of Excellence and the first to be engineering-oriented, will be celebrating its Decade of Delivery in September 2025, “CEMEREM at 10”, having been impacting East Africa through DAAD funding in support of postgraduate scholarships in mining and natural resource management, annual summer schools and research stay in Kenya and Germany, CEMEREM alumni seminars, international biennial CEMEREM conferences, equipment support, and support for scientific innovations.

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/11/28/shaping-a-low-carbon-mining-future-with-green-technologies

https://impactborderlessdigital.com/blog/2024/08/28/transforming-the-mining-sector-in-kenya-challenges-and-opportunities

5. IBD Education Support
Since IBD started the IBD Education Fund in 2023 to sponsor underprivileged learners aged 14-24, the beneficiaries have been progressing well on their educational pursuits. They are students at various tages, in high school, TVET college, and university. In 2024, the hard economic times saw the contributions towards this noble cause dwindle. However, IBD would like to heartily thank again those who have supported the young initiative and wish them a merry Christmas and a propreous 2025. Among them are family members, IBD mentees, colleagues, and friends living and working in Kenya, Jamaica, the USA, Canada, and Germany. To mention a few, they are Beda Ogola, Billford Otieno, Etta Jackson, Ivan Taylor, Lilian Mbani, Dickson Wachira, Emmanuel Kiamba, Imelda Nasubo, and various staff, postgraduate students, and alumni of Taita Taveta University (TTU). 

2024 Achievements Worth Celebrating

• • The pioneering recipients of the IBD Education Fund demonstrated remarkable progress, successfully completing their examinations at their respective learning institutions and earning promotion to the next stages of their formal education
  • The GIS Decade of Delivery was celebrated with the 10^th International GIS Day held at Taita Taveta University (TTU), following the IBD Founder’s pioneering campaign and championship of GIS at TTU, which he started in earnest in November 2015 by organising the first GIS Day at TTU.

• • The Mtaa Wetu App went from concept to community transformation, embraced by neighbourhoods, such as NHC Langata Court.

• • Key presentations at professional forums and international conferences enhanced the visibility of IBD as a youth mentorship platform.

• • Leadership forums, alumni seminars, and tailor-made training gave us platforms to discuss and act on ideas that matter—low-carbon solutions, AI implications, and more.

• • Your voices on youth empowerment resonated strongly, pushing important conversations forward.

• • Support by POLKEN Ltd and Base Titanium Ltd in Kwale exposed TTU students and staff to a deeper understanding and innovation in sustainable mining practices.

• • The active participation of IBD mentees in research consultancies with fieldwork contributed to profound youth skills development and economic empowerment.

Lessons Learnt Together in 2024

1. Technology is transformative. When applied thoughtfully, it bridges gaps, fosters accountability, and creates opportunities for progress.
2. Lifelong learning isn’t optional. In a rapidly evolving world, staying curious and adaptable is your best strategy.
3. Youth voices must be heard. The energy, passion, and ideas of the younger generation are not just important; they are essential.
4. Sustainability isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a commitment to balance growth with responsibility, ensuring the next generation inherits a thriving planet.
5. Success is a lifelong journey marked by personalised detours (X,Y) and contours (Z), guiding each individual to distinct 4D destinations across the space-time (X,Y,Z,t) fabric warped by the gravity of personal experiences. Therefore, the key to true success lies in recognising your unique talents and abilities, diligently nurturing them, and staying true to your own path. Straying from this path may lead you to a destination never meant for you, leaving you to lament in awe, “The effort was all in vain and here again comes another pyrrhic victory!”

Outlook for 2025

As we step into 2025, let us carry the momentum forward with these aspirations:

• • Expand our tech-driven solutions like Mtaa Wetu to reach more communities and solve more pressing challenges.
  • Raise more funds for the IBD Education Fund to sponsor at least five more needy learners aged 14-24 in 2025.

• • Hold Inaugural IBD Youth Summit. Organise a summit to enhance IBD’s visibility and footprint while recognising the IBD mentees who have stood out for diligence and excellence over the years.

• • Ramp up research and publications. Involve more IBD mentees in research for skills and career development. New IBD mentees joining the team, such as Fred Oyugi, are expected to inject new energy into progressive environmental research themes. A book project on sustainable development, at least two client reports, and at least three research publications are scheduled as key products for 2025.

• • Deepen our commitment to youth empowerment. Equip yourselves and others with the skills, mindset, and resilience to lead effectively. Active youth participation in the upcoming conferences and seminars must take centre stage in 2025, key examples being the Nyanza International Investment Conference (NIIC) to be held in Kisumu in February 2025, alumni seminars to be held in 2025, e.g., the 5^th Biennial CEMEREM Conference to be held in September 2025 at the Taita Hills Safari Lodge and Spa, International Mine Water (IMWA) Conference to be held in Portugal and Spain in July 2025, and the Alumni Week “Alumni in Transfer for Circular Economy” to be held at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany, in June 2025. Link: https://tu-freiberg.de/en/alumni/events/alumni-week-alumni-transfer-circular-economy

• • Promote sustainable development. Let’s keep innovating in areas like mining and resource management, ensuring progress doesn’t come at the planet’s expense.

• • Advocate for mental health and socioeconomic reforms. Change is possible when we remain steadfast and vocal about what matters.

Inspiration for the New Year

Each of you holds the power to make 2025 a year of impact. Your ideas, your commitment, and your courage to challenge the status quo are what the world needs. Remember, every small step we take today is a giant leap towards the future we dream of.

Let’s approach 2025 with hope, determination, and a shared belief in the change we can create. You are not just the leaders of tomorrow; you are the change-makers of today.

I wish you a new year filled with purpose, growth, and boundless possibilities. Let’s make 2025 unforgettable.

With pride and hope,

Nashon Juma Adero
Founder, Impact Borderless Digital (IBD)