The ResilientAfrica Network (RAN), School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences (CHS), Makerere University is hosting the IGNITE Innovator Series.

The series are an interactive session bringing together a community of resilience role models, innovators, agriculturalists, environmental experts, students, faculty, social scientists, policy makers, engineers, behavioral scientists, public health specialists and anthropologists to foster development of creative approaches and practices to address communities’ most pressing challenges.

Theme: “Creating an Enabling Ecosystem for Resilience Innovations”

One Professor hinted that our innovations were not ‘resilient’ therefore questions like; what is a resilient innovation? What kind of dimensions/sectors of our society does resilience address? Why are some the current solutions failing? Could this be the pivot of the innovation bubble? ….will all be answered.

The  speakers will give an acumen into how a resilient ecosystem functions; what it means to be resilient as an individual or community; define what resilient innovations are; how they are integrated into society; what opportunities are available for innovators?

The improved clarity of such questions and tools will allow and improve livelihoods, stabilize household incomes, strengthen food security measures, prepare communities for any shocks caused by stresses from climate variability, detection of any possible outbreaks, create sustainable farming methods with smarter response systems among others.

Also, on the same evening, Makerere University, School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences (CHS), (RAN) shall introduce some of the innovations under the RAN lab and share some of their success factors.

Speakers at the event include;

Dr Roy William Mayega, Deputy Chief of Party RAN

Michael Niyitegeka, Accreditation Consultant-Uganda, ICDL Africa

Dr Dorothy Okello, Lab Director of Eastern Africa Resilience Innovation Lab

Dr Galukande Moses, Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery, Department of Surgery/ Health Professionals Education Specialist.

The innovation bubble has been growing steadily for the last 5years and impressive solutions like Mobile Money, SMS banking, low cost food preservation methods, resistant hybrid crops, water harvesting and management methods among others have emerged. Some of which worked (in our communities) and others have failed horribly.

You can follow and participate in the  live video, text, photo and social media reporting below through twitter hash tags  #RANignite and whatsapp to 0784300556.

Plus live reporting through videos, photos, audio and text below.

The post Watch the live coverage of RAN IGNITE Innovator Series this Friday 13th Feb 2015 first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

Makerere imagine cup winners

The East and Central Africa Regional challenge was held in Nairobi on 9th May 2011 and CIT, which emerged top, will now represent the region at the Cup’s world stage in July 2011 in New York.

In recognition of CIT’s consistently excellent performance in the Imagine Cup, Microsoft has approved the establishment of a Microsoft Innovations Center at the Makerere University’s College of Computing and Information Sciences. The Center is scheduled to be launched in July 2011. The Innovations Center will accord CIT students as well as students from the entire University a conducive working environment to work on more innovations.

The team which composed of Joseph Lutalo and Joshua Kaizzi was mentored by Joseph Kaizzi, an alumnus of CIT-Makerere University and former champion at the same competition 2years ago. The team competed in the software design category and their winning project CRIMEX is a desktop, mobile and web-based system that focuses on crime pattern analysis in developing countries.

Kenyan students from Strathmore University, Kenya came in second and third with their projects dubbed “The Greenhouse Project” and a game focused on “universal education and gender equality”.

Here is a detail of their submission:

IMAGINE CUP 2011

Name of Team: Quest0

Country: Uganda

Category: Software Design

Name of Contestants: JOSEPH LUTAALOJOSHUA KAIZZIJOSEPH KAIZZI (MENTOR)

Name of Project: CRIMEXSummary

Notes of Project:

Project overviewCRIMEX is a desktop, mobile and web based system that focuses on crime pattern analysis in developing countries. For business to thrive in a given area, it is important that the crime rate is low. Law enforcement and crime investigation units in East Africa are under-staffed with little or no experienced crime analysts.

The crime departments resort to manual data analysis from field reports, and witness testimonies to predict patterns. CRIMEX provides a unique solution for law enforcers; ranging from crime pattern recognition to facial recognition capabilities and biometric analysis. CRIMEX can also be linked to international crime databases where need be. CRIMEX is in line with the 8th MDG i.e. a global partnership; particularly addressing the special needs of least developed countries. The rule of law in society is a key necessity in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals

Source: Makerere University

The post Makerere University students scoop top spot at Microsoft Imagine Cup 2011 first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.