Ten Ugandans are among the forty-five innovators that will be showcasing their projects at Africa Innovation Summit 2018 that will take place at Kigali Convention Center from June 6th – 8th.
Having Rwandan President, Paul Kagame and former President of Cape Verde, Pedro Pires as its patrons, AIS is an Africa-wide and homegrown initiative aimed at harnessing the innovation potential of the continent.
Information on its website says that it “aims to mobilize the people and, especially those with the ‘power to act’, including investors, the people with the ideas, the policy makers, the researchers and academics, the business community, the youth, as well as innovators and thinkers into a coalition for collective action to promote and build an enabling environment for innovation in Africa.”
To achieve its targets, AIS organizes exhibitions, hackathons, regular summits in order to promote dialogue and knowledge exchange among various stakeholders.
The nominated Ugandans who will exhibit alongside their counterparts from South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda, Cape Verde, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Liberia, among other African countries are:
Pidson Abaho
A graduate of Mechanical engineering from Makerere University, Abaho developed PedatTap, a retrofitable, adaptable, affordable and hands-free foot-operated water dispensing system that can be connected to any tap system and water drums anywhere.
It has been designed to reduce the growth and frequency of potent and infectious diseases like colds, flu, Ebola from existing taps at water points in public spaces, according to AIS website, and its current prototype is estimated to cost USD 40.
Jackline Kemigisha
A self-proclaimed feminist journalist who says she is interested in making sure the woman’s story is told, Kemigisha has developed Online Policy Tracker, an online solution dedicated to monitoring the Ugandan Parliament through live tweeting plenary sittings, breaking down the technical language and making it easy to consume by young people.
The website includes a bills tracker, showing the stages of different bills and a loan tracker showing Government borrowing. All this information can be accessed by everyone
James Makumbi
Makumbi is an entrepreneur and innovator; and after observing that tents, the most commonly used structures for humanitarian services — are poor at heat exchange when fully enclosed, with his team, they have introduced Epitents that have passive cooling effect, making them over ten degrees cooler than existing tents whilst also cutting down on humidity inside by over ninety percent.
Jane Nalubega
She is an entrepreneur and her product Uganics makes malaria protection safe and accessible to everyone without needing to incur any behavioral changes. Malaria is one the most life-threatening diseases in Uganda.
Philippa Nagu Makobore
A graduate of electrical engineering from University of Alberta in Canada and currently pursuing an MSE in Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA, Nagu’s project is called The Electronically Controlled Gravity Feed Infusion Set (ECGF), and it is a therapeutic medical device innovation that provides a solution that is appropriate and affordable for the low resource context to safely and accurately administer intravenous fluids and drugs to patients that require them.
Ruth Nabembezi
Nabembezi is a member of tech strong fellowships, she has exhibited in huge world events, won multiple awards, including The Queen’s Young Leaders award 2017.
And her innovation, Ask Without Shame provides emergency sex education via mobile technology through an android app, WhatsApp, Hotline and SMS. Medical experts and counsellors are available 24/7 to assist users with the right information regarding sexuality. It is a free and confidential service.
Stephen Kalyesubula
He is a graduate of computer engineering from Makerere University, and his company Labtech Limited has developed a hardware and mobile application-based solution called UriSAF for effective diagnosis and monitoring of urine changes for expecting mothers in low resource hospital settings. UriSAF is a simple sensor based diagnostic tool, so health facilities are better able to carry out several timely tests without patients having to wait in long queues.
Penny Mbabazi
A social worker, human rights professional and holder of a Masters of Laws in International Human Rights Law from Brunel University, London (UK), Mbabazi has invited The Community Innovation Programme, which is about tapping into the imaginative and creative mind of women and youth to come up with innovative projects to address the problem of poverty, youth unemployment and food security in their community.
Atuhaire Sarah Baryaija
A holder of a Masters of Gender Analysis in Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Statistics and Economics, Baryaija using her project, Akaboxi, provides rural communities with a more secure way of keeping their savings in “boxes” to be managed and monitored through an easy to use Digital Financial Inclusion System – a technology system that is easy to use.
The system provides a credit scoring model that enables members in the saving box group to accurately and efficiently assess the credit risk for individual members in each; boxi’, through the capture of necessary demographic information.
Biddemu Bazil Mwotta
A former guild president of Makerere University, Mwotta, in 2016 established AgroDuuka Uganda Limited to offer fairer agricultural trade transactions between the buyers and farmers.
The solution is a robust GSM supported agricultural produce supply chain management software that is directly connecting smallholder rural farmers to buyers in the market at a low cost via SMS, before and after harvest.
To date, AgroDuuka is being used by over 20 000 farmers enabling them get the right value for their farm produce.
