Linet Kwamboka (born c. 1988), is a Kenyan

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and

businesswoman A businessperson, also referred to as a businessman or businesswoman, is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial ...

, who is the founder and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of DataScience Limited, an IT research company.

Early life

She was born in

Nyamira County Nyamira County is a county in the former Nyanza Province of Kenya. Formally a district, Nyamira was hived off Kisii District in 1989, and it shares a common boundary with what was known as Nyamira District. The main cash crops grown are banan ...

, in the western part of Kenya, circa 1988 to Evelyne Kerubo and Aloys Nyang'au. She is their last born daughter in a family of 8 children. After attending Nyamira Primary School & St. Mathews Academy for Primary School, Butere Girls High School for High School, she was admitted to the

University of Nairobi The University of Nairobi (uonbi or UoN; ) is a college, collegiate research university based in Nairobi and is the largest List of universities and colleges in Kenya, university in Kenya. Although its history as an educational institution dat ...

, graduating in 2010, with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. She has self-taught expertise in

geographic information systems A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

(GIS),

data mining Data mining is the process of extracting and finding patterns in massive data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and ...

and analysis.

Career

After university, for the next six years, she led Kenya's Open Data Initiative, nudging the government to make more information open and publicly available. She has worked with the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

on the Open Government Partnership for the

Government of Kenya The Government of the Republic of Kenya (GoK) is the Central government, national government of the Kenya, Republic of Kenya located in East Africa. It is composed of Counties of Kenya, 47 Counties, each county with its own semi-autonomous gove ...

. She also worked as a software engineer with

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

and

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. In 2013, at the age of 25 years, Kwamboka founded DataScience Limited. The company, with 9 employees in 2015, is involved in data analytics and open-source policy issues. In 2017, Linet Kwamboka was one of the ten first recipients of the "Mozilla Tech Policy Fellowship". The fellowship, awarded and supported by the

Mozilla Foundation The Mozilla Foundation is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the Open-source software, open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...

, aims "''to give people with expertise in government and Internet policy the support and structure they need to continue their work in making the Internet healthy''". In 2020, she joined the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development data as The Africa Program Manager. She is currently the Senior Program Manager for Data4Now at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Linet is currently the Senior Program Manager for Data4Now at the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data where she is responsible for leading projects on timely data and working with country partners to ensure they have the tools, skills and technical assistance they need to obtain and make use of data that supports decision making.

Other considerations

In August 2018, Linet Kwamboka was named as one of the "100 Most Influential People In Digital Government". The list was compiled by ''Apolitical'', a

London, United Kingdom London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

-based non-government global network, which assists public servants find the ideas, people and partners they need to solve the challenges of governing.

References

External links

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Welcoming 11 New Partners in the Quest for Internet Health
As of 19 March 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kwamboka, Linet Living people 1988 births University of Nairobi alumni 21st-century Kenyan businesswomen 21st-century Kenyan businesspeople People from Nyamira County Kenyan women business executives Kenyan chief executives Alumni of Butere Girls High School