Kelvin had just landed his first job after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Water Resources Engineering (Environmental Biosystems Engineering) from the University of Nairobi in 2014.
He was working as a projects manager for Africaqua. But after just a year and a half in the job that entailed setting water projects in rural and urban areas, he quit.
He went on to set up his own company, Mobi-Water – a real-time smart water monitoring, management, and billing platform.
“I always dreamt of being a water engineer. Water is in my heart being an Aquarius as I am born in January.”
"“I always dreamt of being a water engineer. Water is in my heart being an Aquarius as I am born in January.”"
Working at Africaqua, he would be involved in the setting up of water projects which would either constantly break down or fail.
This piqued the Nairobi School alumnus’ interest to think of how to come up with a low-cost, easily available, and robust enough system to stand harsh conditions. This is how Mobi-Water was born.
Four years down the line, the company has over 400 organisations as its clients including hospitals and shopping malls.
The Mobi-Water system is used primarily in tracking water availability in homes, managing consumption, and allowing property and utility managers to remotely bill water usage.
“All our solutions are smart and are remotely available on mobile apps, SMS, and dashboard. The hardware is designed from scratch locally.” The 31-year-old describes himself as a problem-solver.
“Right now I am seated at our offices along Thika Road but I can track water availability in schools in Kakamega without having to go outside and say this school urgently needs water by evening.”
The system is currently being used in Kenya, Tanzania, and Madagascar with a pilot in Sierra Leone.
-Collins Omulo
