Josephine Mbandi †

Josephine was an embedded system engineer and a co-founder of AfriSTEM Connection, a company working to increase Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and sustainability awareness for underserved communities in Africa using emerging technologies. She worked on designs to develop, produce, test and maintain microprocessor-based computer hardware system with software that is designed to perform a dedicated function, either as an independent system or as a part of a large system. She enjoyed bringing to life sustainable and effective IoT devices, linking them to easy access for end users and seeing the data inferenced from them help shape policy. She was passionate about building a community of technology abled learners and working on solutions to solve societal challenges. She enjoyed tinkering with electronics and training young science enthusiasts in developing digital solutions. Coming from a small community in an Arid and Semi-Arid Area (ASAL), she worked on projects that help resolve soil health, air quality monitoring, water management and solar power harvesting.