Linet Kwamboka is the Founder and CEO of DataScience LTD, a company that uses data to discover intelligent insights about people, products, and services.
Linet Kwamboka Education
Linet holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Nairobi, and is self-taught in geographic information systems (GIS), data analysis, and mining.
Career
Linet has been on the forefront of coordinating the Kenya Open Data Initiative and the Open Government Partnership for the Government of Kenya and the World Bank. She has also been a Software Engineer with Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University.
Kwamboka began DataScience in 2013, five years after graduating from the University of Nairobi with a degree in computer science and a desire to make it easier to use data for business intelligence, decision-making and resource allocation. In between, she worked as a software engineer at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the World Bank, where she received a spot award.
DataScience is one of 33 small and medium-sized businesses in Kenya’s IT and IT-enabled services (ITES) sector that work with the Netherlands Trust Fund III programme. Backed by the Dutch Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI), the NTF III Kenya project is designed to boost the export capacity of the country’s technology industry by connecting services providers in Kenya with their target customers in foreign markets. Kenya’s information and communications technology industry is growing rapidly; the Kenyan ICT Authority forecasts that by 2017, the sector will earn US$2 billion a year and that it will have created 500 new ICT companies and more than 50,000 jobs.
Kwamboka, 27, aims to be a part of that growth. She attributes DataScience’s initial success to her ability to form networks and build a client base.
Once DataScience got out of the starting gate, it was the company’s work quality that kept clients coming back. “Most of the people in my network want to be known for having a good track record,” Kwamboka said. “I am always pushing myself and my teams to deliver the best.”
Linet Kwamboka
While DataScience now has just nine employees, Kwamboka dreams of one day enjoying the same recognition as the company’s biggest competitors, multinationals such as IBM. “I hope to be recognized on those lists as companies that are known for quality and competence,” she said.
Her involvement in the Kenya Open Data Initiative – one of the most significant steps the country has taken to improve governance and implement new provisions on access to information – suggests that Kwamboka is already on her way to realizing her dream. She is project coordinator of the Kenyan government initiative, which aims to make vital data available to the public through a single online portal.
Linet Kwamboka Awards
She has been recognized as an unsung hero by the American Embassy in Kenya for her efforts to encourage more women to work in technology and computer science.
Linet has been recognised as a top 3 global open data champion by the ODI Bloomberg Awards.
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