Case Study: Local Ocean Conservation protects Kenya’s sea turtles with data-driven insights from Microsoft Power BI

Kenyan organization saves sea turtles using AI

Local Ocean Conservation is a small Kenyan NGO that protects nesting sea turtles but struggled with fragmented, offline records, costly invasive metal tagging, and limited data on beach suitability. To modernize data capture and enable AI-based, noninvasive identification, the group partnered with Microsoft Power BI (alongside Microsoft Azure and Power Apps) to find a supported cloud platform and build mobile tools.

Working with Microsoft Power BI, LOC consolidated disparate records into a single Azure cloud database, deployed a Power Apps mobile app to map 78.8 km of coastline, and created visualizations for analysis. The work showed only 10% of mapped coastline is suitable for nesting (50% naturally unsuitable), supported monitoring of more than 900 nests and 73,000 hatchlings, and improved data sharing and decision-making—laying the groundwork for AI image recognition that can reduce reliance on costly tagging.

Local Ocean Conservation

Justin Beswick

Chief Executive Officer