MADE IN KENYA: Sho Shin Innovations Hub develops technology for fish farmers

Sho Shin Innovations Hub is one such venture, developing technology targeting fish farmers.

At her farm in Kisii, Mary Onsongo has been rearing fish the last few years, after the county government encouraged local farmers to embrace aquaculture. However, she suffered major losses with her first batch of fingerlings.

"I started with 1,200 fingerlings. Every morning I would wake up to find 2 or 3 fingerlings dead. I didn’t know what was happening and I kept informing the county agricultural officers," Mary says.

To address this, Sho Shin, a venture founded and run by young Kenyan techies developed water testing technology, e-samaki, to help the farmers understand how to properly rear fish.

"We do agri-tech which is focused on the farmers, climate tech which is focused on ensuring organisations are compliant in ESG reporting, and also aquatic; marine life in fish ponds and rivers. And also smart cities, one of the things that are part of the SDGs, so we bring in technology that tackle the smart city perspective," says Winnie Ongori, a director at Sho Shin.

The technology helps monitor pond conditions and feeding regime.

"Our technology is app and USSD based, that caters for farmers who have smartphones and those with feature phones. There is a gadget we give the farmer to test the different parameters; temperature, alkalinity… this farmer dips the sensor in water, it will read all the parameters; salinity, temperature, alkalinity… and send it to the farmer either through a notification on the app or an SMS to the phone," Winnie explains. 

e-Samaki has also incorporated AI  to ensure that the data collected on behalf of farmers is well analysed and recommendations made on what they need to do with their ponds.

Farmers like Mary who have since embraced this technology say their fish no longer die in the ponds, and the yields have increased. 

"We started using the technology when we realised the water in the pond was changing. Since then we have managed to change that and the water is now habitable for the fish," she adds.

Thomas Okoyo, a farmer in Kisii says the technology has helped as farm officers constantly visit to train them and even give them feeds.  "e-samaki helps us determine the cleanliness of water," he says. 

Besides the e-Samaki technology, Sho Shin has also developed other technologies like agritech and climate tech targeting crop farmers and climate change.

Winnie says they look forward to innovating more, to be the go to hub for every day challenges. 

"One of the things we’ve deployed to the farmers are soil sensors. These help the farmers measure their soil, know the acidity and moisture level, and know exactly what they need to treat. We have deployed an AI scanner, a farmer scans an infected plant, our AI will check that, interpret and recommend what to do," she says. 

"We need to scale this up, so I am calling on all stakeholders, let’s come together and build an infrastructure that will help the future generations improve their livelihoods and help organisations make strategic decisions," adds Winnie.