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Juliana Rotich
Technologist and civic technology co-founder
She helped build tools for people to report what was happening around them.
- Theme
- Science & Innovation
Juliana Rotich co-founded Ushahidi, the platform that grew from efforts to map reports of Kenya's 2007-2008 post-election violence. Its technology made it possible to collect and display information contributed by communities.
She also helped develop BRCK, addressing the practical problem of connectivity where reliable infrastructure cannot be assumed. Her work connects software with the conditions in which people actually need to use it.
Life and work
Juliana Rotich is a Kenyan information technology professional, who has developed web tools for crowdsourcing crisis information and coverage of topics related to the environment. She is the co-founder of iHub, a collective tech space in Nairobi, Kenya, and of Ushahidi, open-source software for collecting and mapping information. She is a TED Senior Fellow.
She is a trustee of Bankinter Foundation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Spain, as well as a member of Kenya Vision 2030 Delivery Board. She was the head of East Africa Country Cluster for BASF from May to December 2018.
Rotich was born in 1977 in Kenya. After attending elementary and secondary school locally, she was admitted to the University of Missouri–Kansas City, in the United States. She graduated from there with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. She is an MIT Media Lab Fellow.
In 1999 Rotich started working at Sprint Nextel Corporation. In 2005 she left and moved to Chicago, Illinois, to work at InterCall Inc. A year later, she joined National Seminars Group, where she designed and maintained SQL Server databases. In 2007, she joined Hewitt Associates as a data analyst.
In 2008 Rotich co-founded the non-profit company Ushahidi, an Open-source software project which uses crowdsourced geolocation, mobile phone, and web reporting data to provide crisis reporting and information. She served as the Executive Director of Ushahidi from 2011 until 2015.
"Ushahidi" is the Swahili word for "testimony." Ushahidi was first put into practice during the Kenyan presidential election crisis of 2007–2008; it has since been used in Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Haiti.
As a blogger, Rotich has authored articles on Afrigadget.com, acted as Environmental Editor of Global Voices Online, and participated in the TED Global Conference in Arusha in 2007. As a public speaker, she is known for her commentary on technology in Africa and voicing concerns about the loss of indigenous forest and water catchment areas in Kenya.
To help solve the lack of internet access due to blackouts in Nairobi, Rotich co-founded BRCK Inc., which produces a battery-operated modem that can run for eight hours without electricity.
In 2014, Rotich presented at the annual Design Indaba Conference in Cape Town. From 2014 until 2015, she served on United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Independent Expert Advisory Group on the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, co-chaired by Enrico Giovannini and Robin Li.
In 2017 Rotich participated in the W20 Summit in Berlin, Germany and took part in a panel discussion together with Chancellor Angela Merkel, IMF director Christine Lagarde, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, Ivanka Trump and others, where she represented BRCK.
In 2022, Safaricom named Rotich as its Head of Fintech Integration Solutions where she oversees the company’s financial solutions, which are anchored on M-Pesa.
In 2011, Rotich was named Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year in Africa by the World Economic Forum. She earned a TED Senior Fellowship and a Director's Fellowship by the MIT Media Laboratory. In 2011, she was named among the "World's Top 100 Women" by The Guardian Newspaper.
In 2019, she was presented the German Africa Prize, awarded by the German Africa Foundation, for her longstanding efforts to foster democracy, peace, and technological innovation. The award was presented by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
This section adapts selected passages from Juliana Rotich by Wikipedia contributors. It is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected passages; pronunciation guides, lists and reference markers omitted; punctuation and paragraph breaks adjusted. Photographs have separate licences.
