Robert Mwatua

Robert Mwatua is the young innovator behind FarmGuard, an AI-powered agricultural intelligence platform built to help Kenyan farmers protect their crops. He is a first-year Bachelor of Science in Computer Technology student at Multimedia University of Kenya in Nairobi, where he represented the university among its student innovators at the national STRI4Society Week exhibitions.

FarmGuard lets a farmer upload or scan a photo of a crop and quickly identify diseases and pests, then suggests ways to manage them. The app also brings together farming guidance, weather updates and market information in one place. Mwatua designed it with rural growers in mind, which is why it supports offline use, devices shared by several people, SMS and USSD access, and community networking among farmers. His next step is to add local languages such as Kikuyu so that more farmers can use the tool comfortably.

In May 2026 FarmGuard won the award in the Youth, STEM and Innovation Culture category at the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation (STRI4Society) Week, held at KICC in Nairobi. The prize was presented at a closing ceremony led by Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and Principal Secretary Prof. Shaukat Abdulrazak, after he had pitched the project to a range of stakeholders. He has since encouraged fellow students to take part in hackathons, capture-the-flag contests and similar events, and to put forward ideas that tackle real problems.