Maker Faire Africa comes to Kenya

The event, whose sponsors included General Electric, Google, Mozilla, and Engineering for Change, aims to promote technology development.

The projects on show were from students, independent innovators and companies, and many leveraged mobile phones: for instance, most security systems on show incorporated the use of SMS and others allowed the user to input numbers that can be automatically dialed in case a security breach reaches a certain level.

The innovators behind the projects were competing for the prize of a chance to meet the GE chief scientist at GE’s John F. Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, India.

The winner was Robert Mburu from Kenya, whose security system links cameras, televisions, alarm systems and mobile phones.

"Mburu’s idea was a cut above the rest and is in line with GE’s business initiative, eco-magination, which promotes being environmentally considerate and producing products that are environmentally friendly without compromising your bottom line,” said Deo Onyango, GE Commercial Director for East Africa.