The UG-GMES 2019 Innovation Challenge has his winner... Mr. Eli Kpobi, a 27 year-old student of the University of Ghana.

The competition was open to applicants including app developers, animators, graphic designers, comic creators, operating in Ghana Nigeria Liberia Sierra Leone Gambia. Mr Kpobi has a background in Marine Sciences and the Innovation Challenge set a stage for personal developments in electronics.

Interviewed by the Project team he said: "Usually our researches are limited by the unavailability of sensory devices since they are mostly expensive. So, the idea was to deliver a cheap sensory system for ease it by their communities". 

Hence he developed an open-source hardware with Raspberry Pi and his device is now able to measure the temperature, salinity data, routinely take photographs of shoreline and waves, and send all data to a remote server through the internet. 

On his side, the Coordinator of the GMES and Africa financed Project Professor George Wiafe believes there is need to ensure private companies, small businesses and startups, be in the best position to develop technology for effectively archiving processing analyzing and transmitting satellite derived information. 

“We know that private sector is the engine of growth. So our question was how do we engage with them in a way they continue the business that this project has initiated? This is one of the reasons driving the launch of the Innovation Challenge, to support startup companies and to go to further working with the private sector. if they move into this earth observation services, the private sector will see the benefit. Our question was: How can we bring more business to them". 

GMES, and Africa, is a continental Earth Observation program co-founded by the African Union Commission and the European Commission. 

More

• The Innovation Challenge (GMES and Afric apost of 15 May 2019)
• The GMES and Africa Programme
• The UG's GMES and Africa Project
• Watch the movie (YouTube, 00:02:35)