Four main threads formed the programme of work for the Discovery Project:

1. User Engagement
2. Technical Development
3. Monitoring & Evaluation
4. Sustainability.

User Engagement

At the heart of our User Engagement was a User-Centred Design Approach (UCD) – an iterative process of gathering information, feedbacking our understanding and adjusting that understanding based on the user responses.  Having identified stakeholders and potential users we worked with representatives from the five Kenyan counties.  Through a series of interactive workshops and interviews, we formed a user-centric picture of their roles, tasks and workflows within the sand monitoring process.  Subsequently, a set of low-fidelity mock-up screens featuring EO tools representing an implementation of a particular task or workflow was presented back to the users and through semi-structured interviews, the more useful screens and products were identified.  Finally, this “short-list” of screens was re-implemented as hi-fidelity prototypes, displaying data from prototyped EO tools and re-presented to the users for their “sign-off”.

Technical

We focussed on testing how EO data could be used to support sand monitoring, both from free-to-access and commercial high-resolution data.  The results of this testing, combined with the User Engagement work on beneficial satellite products led to the creation of three interactive case studies for users to get involved with.

Follow this link – Case Studies – to read about and experiment with the interactive case studies created during Discovery

Monitoring & Evaluation

This work set the background for the project helping to understand the current position of sand monitoring within Kenya – the landscape and context for a successful sand harvesting solution. Working in conjunction with User Engagement, a series of interviews and discussions were held to support the development of the Theory of Change and Logframe to shape the engagement and the measurement of progress and success for the Operational Phase.

Sustainability

We analysed the potential market for sand monitoring tools, both for any direct and indirect competitors and looked at potential customers for the solution. From this, the project developed a value proposition, pricing model, profit and loss scenario planning and a marketing strategy for EO4SAS.  This has provided a key action plan for the future in terms of the Government of Kenya, commercial customers and donor funding.