Benard Onyango
GIS Developer — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Somalia
Profile
Benard Onyango
GIS Developer
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Somalia
Experienced Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the international affairs industry. Skilled in Google Earth Engine, QGIS, ArcGIS, Python-Django,Geonode, R, JavaScript, GeoServer, PostGIS. Strong information technology professional currently pursuing a Doctorate degree focused on Web-GIS, Remote Sensing and Machine Learning from University of Nairobi. For more details on my expereince, check out my resume
Resume
Resume
Experienced Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the international affairs industry. Skilled in Google Earth Engine, QGIS, ArcGIS, Python-Django,Geonode, R, JavaScript, GeoServer, PostGIS. Strong information technology professional currently pursuing a Doctorate degree focused on Web-GIS, Remote Sensing and Machine Learning from University of Nairobi. For more details on my expereince, check out my resume.
Education
University of Nairobi
Doctor of Philosophy
PhD in Information Systems
2020 - 2023
My PhD research focuses on modelling disease risk (using Back Propagation Neural Network) as result of flooding events.
During the time of undertaking my PhD, I have been involved in a number of activities as a way of freely giving back to the University. They include: Having a 1 to 2 months online sessions (conducted on weekends) where I :
1. Teach Google Earth Engine to every fourth year students transitioning into their fifth year. I also take this opportunity to guide them on how to choose relevant topics for their final year projects.
2. Guide/ Supervise the fifth year students on their final year project research.
3. Teach fourth year students on "Python for Geo-spatial Data Analysis"
4. Teach third year students on Web Mapping ( PostGIS, GeoServer and OpenLayers)
University of Nairobi
Master's Degree
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
2017 - 2019
- Recipient of University of Nairobi Scholarship
- Gave back to the University by teaching R programming to third year Undergraduate Students
- At the request of the lecturer, i taught my fellow masters students web mapping, particularly PostGIS, GeoServer and OpenLayers
- Thesis title: Towards Performance Improving Techniques of Web GIS: An Empirical Case Study of An NSDI Prototype Portal
University of Nairobi
Bachelor's Degree
Geospatial Engineering
2011 - 2016
- Second Class Upper Honors
- Project Title: Developing A Web Based GIS Application For Residential Real Estate Transactions. Case Study: Nairobi County
Maseno School
Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE)
2006 - 2009
- Grade: A minus (A -)
- As a way of giving back to the school, I have teamed up with my former classmates to sponsor needy and bright students.
Employment
Food and Agriculture Organization,Somalia
GIS Developer
August 2019 - Present
Support the interpretation of very high-resolution satellite images for detection for charcoal production sites in Somalia.
Contribute to the development of a SWALIM Geospatial online web portal that is running on Geonode.
Carry out remote sensing data interpretation tasks, including supervised image classification, onscreen digitization, extraction of features and generation of tabular information to support SWALIM and other FAO Somalia sectors.
Contribute to the quality checking of spatial datasets produced in water and land theme activities in relation to topology, attribute completeness, field definitions, metadata, projections and related maps and layout production.
Assist in producing scripts for image processing and analysis through Google Earth Engine and other web based geospatial platforms.
Develop training material and assist in organizing and undertaking GIS and Remote Sensing capacity building.
Lunar Arch Limited, Nairobi
Database Administrator
March 2018 - July 2019
Assisted in publishing and maintaining layers in GeoServer.
Managed all the data sets in PostGIS.
Created triggers in PostGIS to automatically back up data.
Monitored the database by proactively resolving database issues and maintaining it.
Set up and controlled user profiles and access levels for each database segment to protect important data.
Performed quality checks on the data produced by my colleagues.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics
GIS Technician
December 2017 - February 2018
Main Responsibilities
I was mainly involved in the creation of Enumeration Area (EA) maps in preparation for the 2019 census.
Kenya Agricultural And Livestock Research Organization
Geographic Information Systems Specialist
February 2017 - August 2017
Main Responsibilities
Performing crop suitability analysis using QGIS and R
Creating Digital Soil Maps (DSM) using R
Creating a web mapping manual to assist colleagues understand the basic concepts of web mapping
Collaborative Crop Research Program, Kitale,
GIS Specialist
May 2016 - August 2016
This was a Collaborative Crop Research Program on Small holder farmers in Trans Nzoia County in conjunction with African Maths Initiative.
-
Collect farm data from farmers using ODK.
In charge of the project’s GIS components.
Train research team members on open source GIS software.
Provide oversight and guidance to ensure creation of high-quality maps for each of the surveyed communities.
Awards/Accomplishments
University of Nairobi Scholarship
2017 - 2019
It was such an honor to be awarded a University of Nairobi Scholarship to pursue my masters education.
University of Nairobi Innovation Day
2016
Collaborated with a group of students during my undergraduate studies to build a web application for reporting crime in Nairobi County. We were awarded for this noble idea. The source code is available on my Github
Giving Back to the Society
-
Produced tutorials on GIS, programming, Google Earth Engine, PostGIS and GeoServer on my website and YouTube channel. These tutorials have been received positively by the online community based on the viewership and comments on the tutorials.
Managed to give back to my University by teaching my Masters classmates on Web Mapping and third year undergraduate students on R programming (See Dr.Onchaga and Prof. Karanja in the referee section).
Affiliations
Graduate Member, Institution of Surveyors of Kenya (ISK), 2016 to Current.
Interests
Research
- Web Mapping
- Machine learning
- Deep Learning
- Guitar, Violin,Piano
- Photography
Referees
- Dr. Kennedy Were
Research Scientist
Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization
Telephone: +254 717 429 539
Email: kenwerez@yahoo.com
P.O. Box 14733-00800, NAIROBI.
- Zachariah Mbasu
Founder, African Maths Initiative
Supervised the work at Collaborative Crop Research Program
Telephone: +254 722 124 199
Email: zmbasu@gmail.com
P.O.Box 3429-40100, KISUMU
- Prof. Faith Karanja
Head of Department, Geospatial Engineering
University of Nairobi
Telephone: +254 720 240 987
Email: faithkaranja@uonbi.ac.ke
P.O.BOX 30197-00100, NAIROBI
- Thomas Muteti
System Administrator, Lunar Arch Limited Email:
thomas.muteti@gmail.com
