The Uganda National pitch event for Digital innovations for business resilience in the East African community was held Saturday 26th March at Makerere University.
The program, under the project Digital Skills for an Innovative East African Industry (dSkills@EA), aims to support young innovators at universities and recent graduates in the EAC to develop digital innovations for the industry and design new digital business models for business resilience.
After an intense one-week online ideathon and a physical Bootcamp; 10 teams that had been working on their innovative digital ideas, building their prototypes, receiving support from industry experts, and preparing their pitch decks were brought together.
The teams took to the stage to present their solutions, receive valuable feedback from an expert jury, and answer questions from the audience.
At the end of the day, 2 teams were selected – Early Stroke Detection and KAWU, with each receiving $1000 each from the Inter-University Council for East Africa, and the flag to represent Uganda at the Regional pitch event in May; to pitch to another jury and stand a chance to win a share of a $10,000 grant enabling them to implement their solution.
Early Stroke Detection
The Early Stroke Detection team wants to create a product that senses changes in acoustic signals in the carotid arteries which then alerts the user to see a doctor.
KAWU
The KAWU team has invented smart cards which will help parents send money to their children seamlessly. Since schools do not permit phones in school, students can use this card to get cash from an agent and access things they need while at school.
