KNBS, @iLab Africa, launch Data and Visualization portal

The development of the portal has been funded the World Bank and built by Strathmore University’s Masters students in about 4 months through Tableau Software.

“The funding is as a result of a long serving relationship between World Bank and KNBS. This is a very timely project as information will allow counties to make more informed decisions in planning.We are also responding to county governors who need this data to make important decision,” said Philip Jespersen, Senior Social Development Specialist, World Bank.

The initiative implements the concept of Open Data whose prime objective is to get the right information to the people who need or want it, in a form that allows them to use it. This launch will provide a plat­form for KNBS and Strathmore University to show­case a Data Visualization Application developed by a team from Strath­more Uni­ver­sity to all invited stake­hold­ers and the media.

“We have data dated as early as before the independence, though accurate the data can’t be understood easily. Our data was digitized way back through scanning but still can’t be visualized properly but with the new platform we will be able to make statistics available to Wanjiku. Visualization makes data easy to understand for all and drives evidence based decision making,” said Dr Cleophas Kioo, ICT Director, KNBS.

Phase one of the project officially commenced on October 21, 2014 on signing MoU between Strathmore University and KNBS. This phase is scheduled to end on February 27, 2015.

The key activities for phase one were Data Discovery, Extraction, Conversion, Compilation and upload on KNBS Data Dissemination Portal, Development of Data Visualisation Applications. These activities were assigned to a team of attaches and interns from Strathmore University. The execution of this activities was done in consultation with a technical team and subject matter expert from KNBS and with guidance from the inter-disciplinary and steering committees. Today’s launch was Phase One’s final product, the KNBS Data Visualization platform.

Capacity building for KNBS has been attained through workshops organised by @iLabAfrica Strathmore University Knowledge transfer has been achieved through interactions between the Strathmore team and KNBS technical tem.

Plans are also underway to kick-start Phase two of this inter- institutional collaboration. The new KNBS Data Visualization portal is here.

Ndiritu Murithi, CEO, Ecocapp Capital and former assistant minister-industrialization, who was also the chief guest, said that as a nation it is time e must base the decisions that we make based on data.