About Us
Be the change you seek in this world
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We are a nonprofit composed of scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs working toward a sustainable volcano monitoring system to protect the people threatened by the Nyiragongo and Nyimuragira volcanoes; and Lake Kivu.
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To achieve that goal, we provide equipment, maintenance assistance, technical training, and a community safety net to the Goma Volcano Observatory so that it can accomplish its core role.
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We are strong advocates for Open Science in the Virunga Volcano Province. In particular, all the data collected by the equipment we provide to the observatory will be Open Data so that they can be used by the scientific community without restrictions.
Our Story
During the eruption of 2021, Jonathan was on the phone with Josuel, but Josuel had to end the call to take an urgent call from Goma. It was his family informing him that one of the volcanoes was erupting. In the following hours, we try to find the whereabouts of friends and family. In BuildingWakanda, we had team members from Covid-19DRC that were at risk, and many of our friends and families had to evacuate the city, as did over 400,000 people in Goma. The community is still traumatized by this event. We can only imagine what it would have been if the lava flowed from inside the Goma city or if Lake Kivu had gone through a devastating limnic explosion. The lack of information and the frustration of not seeing Congolese scientists having a voice was a sign that something had to be done.
While monitoring the Virunga volcanoes is ultimately the responsibility of the government, the African diaspora, and the Congolese scientific and tech communities have the means and connections to bring a decisive contribution to this effort. Local tech businesses, startups, and universities can also give advice, sustainable technical support and that will contribute to the capacity building in the DRC across different sectors of activities.
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The Linda Project was started in the aftermath of the 2021 eruption by Jonathan Esole with key contributions and support from Jean Bele, Christian Kakoba, Karine Ndjoko, Tomisi Kikama, Mosongo Moukwa, Raïssa Malu, Vanessa Serao, Josuel Musambaghani, Princess Karemera, and Nick Litombe,
