BRIAN KARIUKI KAMENJU
KENYA, 19
Project: LINDA
Basic Human Needs: Safety
Growing up with terror attacks and frequent internal violence in Kenya, Brian felt those in charge were failing society. In 2015, there was a terrorist attack at Garissa University that killed 148 innocent lives. There were rumors that an attack might happen but no trusted source to spread the message. Brian realized that having a trusted non-partisan, anonymous security and emergency information sharing system would help spread information easily and privately thus increasing awareness, action and potentially save lives. In 2017 Brian developed LINDA, a peer to peer decentralized security and emergency mobile service that was accepted and incubated at Watson Institute in 2018. LINDA allows anonymous peer to peer information sharing among citizens and security agencies as well as citizens to other citizens. It also provides an environment where users can speak truth to power without fear of a central authority muting their voices, and spread and receive emergency alerts faster. LINDA aims to be a leading example and standard where peer to peer anonymous security alerts will help make a more peaceful world by allowing people to expose law breakers and criminals without fear. Over the next 5 years Brian hopes LINDA will be available for adoption by other users around the world as well as governments. LINDA’s biggest achievement so far is working with Zcash, a privacy focused peer to peer network and hopes to collaborate with more people who believe their mission.
‘The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.’ - Albert Einstein