UGANDA ICT INNOVATIONS

Uganda Communications Communications commission along with acia, annually organise pitching competitions that are under a given theme. This year's theme was " IF YOU WERE A LEADER IN YOUR COMMUNITY, HOW WOULD YOU USE ICT TO FIGHT POVERTY?" 
So, most schools gave in their applications and awaited the day for regional pitching. It is normally organised that schools in a certain region, say Kampala, compete with themselves and then one of them is nominated for national pitching with other schools from other regions. At the end of it all, participants are awarded and are often dined with at one of nice hotels in the country.
This was the first time we applied for such competitions. And our idea was to make a detailed of a certain slum which poverty had dominated. Through that, we aimed at catching decision makers in the society to make the slums resilient to their problems.


But other schools had quite different ideas owing to the fact that they came from different communities. Nevertheless, we were confident with our idea. We felt success in our blood. We hoped we were to win.
However, owing the difference in ideas, I observed for the first time a creative mind of Ugandans. I saw people, students with great ideas_ a high level of innovation. Being the first school to pitch, we honored a chance to observe what others' ideas were. A group of students from Mengo secondary school invented a bio metric device to monitor teachers' attention to them on daily basis. That was not so much a surprise because we had heard of such a device before and as a matter of fact, these had strayed from what theme required. Then a student who amazed me though he too had deviated from the theme was the one who came from Taibah international school. This student alone engineered an application known as shizz. It works similarly as wataapp except that it has some more advantages. Even though he had moved astray, I appreciated his creative mind.

Then there were students who to get rid of the garbage that is all over about the urban streets, came up with an idea which they called I CORM. With this, one takes a snap of the garbage in an area and sends to who are responsible for cleaning the city. This image comes along with the location of the garbage area.
Yet, the innovations were not done, people still had ideas, there were students who innovated a device that lessens the speed of a vehicle once the driver was detected to be unnormal while driving. This device, like they explained, could figure out the status in which the driver was and adjust the speed of the car accordingly. Still on the issue of controlling accidents, Kako, a school which actually won the regional pitching invented a device in form of a traffic light that would, in its way, control accidents. It was an amazing level of creativity that though they were not in line the year's theme, they won. It is actually more of physics that I cannot really explain how it perfectly works. For Kako, we came in the second position with our mapping and so we could not go for national pitching. However, it was still fun that we enjoyed as we exchanged our expressed ideas in ICT.
There withal, there was a school that found ways of eliminating this common misery faced by youths with out jobs. That school came up with what they called " JOB MART SCHEME". In their way, one just had to get connected to the employer. It was actually an online programme. Why I think these guys did not get it is that they presented two things at ago yet the rules were such that one school had to present one idea. But these ones went a head and even showcased their E-Bus. In their presentation, they said the only way one could reach the the employer was through an E-Bus thereby having two ideas at once.
With such, I tended to realise the kind of a smart mind Ugandans have and put my hands together in gratitude.

 From the left, Wasswa, me, Wokulira and Okello after the pitching ceremony.

Our whole team outside UCreganlugoloobi@gmail.comC.

THE PITCHING OF IDEAS AT UGANDA COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION IN THE CATEGORY OF YOUNG ICT INNOVATION

UCC ACIA AWARDS 2016

In the fact I enjoyed though it was my first time to be at the UCC headquarters in Bugolobi, Oooh guys came with very good ideas. First there was two categories which included; The Primary and The Secondary Categories in the session of the primary, there was Green Hill in the fact which presented a very good idea called TEREKE, which was a machine you use to keep money. And there was another school which with just the functions of ICT also in the same category of the Primary category. And Green Hill won in that category.
And the second category was for the Senior Secondary Schools Category and we St.Denis SS Ssebugwawo we were the first to present in that category and we presented our Map Katoogo. and the second time was for this guy who innovated an application called SHIZZ. though it was like whatsapp buth it had other special functions which is used to message texts, and share apps.
The third school I remember was Kawempe Moslems which came up with an idea called Wire Less Transportation of Electricity it was cool.
And here came the time to announce the winner and the schools which followed and the winner was a school found in Masaka which has been the second time to appear in the ACIA AWARDS.
And we managed to be the second in these competitions and imagine it was our very first time to be in the ACIA AWARDS. Thanks to Lugorobi Regan, and Nzikulu Angella who were our presenters and Kasozi Chrezesto our technician plus all the other mappers you deed a great job let us not stop here but to continue we will earn that we are yarning for. I am Waswa Abraham the editor of the group with Kirunda Sula the mobilizer of the crew.
These were same of the participants as wokulirira was pitching to the public to the schools.

And on our way back we took same pictures of our crew.

I was in the middle here with my team.

MY UNBELIEVABLE ADVENTURES

Tuesday, 26 April 2016

MY UNBELIEVABLE ADVENTURES

Hello my esteemed reader. It is been a while now ever since I last wrote a blog. Now I have a lot of things to explain my absence and the delay to write blogs. 
It was really a pleasure to be nominated or chosen to be part of the ICT  mappers. It was one big luck that I was yet to explore my geography skill of mapping using an ICT idea. It happened that I found myself with a team of twelve students to map with. It was simple. These were digital maps. So we used digital devices. These were actually smart phones, GPS units and computers. So the teacher introduced us to how to use these devices and with no time we had owned the skill. The next step that followed after this is actually the threshold for today's blog. The story begins.
In our neighborhood, there is a place known as Katoogo. A place known for its poverty. A slum it is. It was the place we drew all our focus to since it was in line with our theme "COMMUNITY MAPPING FOR URBAN RESILIENCE AND SAFETY". Actually, most of us had not grasped the finer and clearer image of what our theme was actually about. Now we sloped down to Katoogo with a great eager to know what lay in the wetlands. No. In the slums.
We did not take long before our boots stepped on the muddy grounds of the slum. We paused amazed at the first glance when our eyes caught the entire place with funny houses confined in the same place with out any discernible plan. One house looked very much similar like the other and if one did not known the place, one would actually lose one's way to a certain destination in the slum. However, there in between the houses existed corridors and these are what had been turned into play grounds for the children.The poor children run about the corridors all chasing one ball. All of them were drenched with sweat which they dried with their dirty patched clothes. Their legs were brown- the color of mud. What was so similar about them was their unfitting pants. The torn pants were sagging down and so they always had to hitch them up.
Oh what a plight they lived in! But they were happy and unbothered about their misery.
At that time, we started our work straight away. We took pictures of most scenes, and taking data on every thing there that was worth to record. One of the most pitiful conditions of the place was sanitation. It was so poor. There poor latrines_in fact, some latrines had an abnormal structure as they were instead flats. They were so high in the sky.
There withal, garbage was every where. It compiled up and made a huge heep that was the mother of the stench that infested Katoogo. 
In addition, this place had no proper drainage, steams of water passed through everywhere and the whole ground was soft and sticky. A lot, more weird things happened in Katoogo but people still lived there. Where were the poor people to go once they left Katoogo? That was a question that everyone called in question_it was a question of concern. 
A students of coarse, we did not intrude into any business that we had no partnership in. Our work was to collect data and present it as one detailed map. Of what importance was this. It was for pitching out our idea to the UCC( Uganda Communications Commission). Even then, were to compete with other schools that had other ideas of ICT and were to use them to help solve problems in their society. But we had hope that once we showcased our project, it would be of help to slums in urban centers.

ACIA COMPETITIONS 2016

A day came sooner than we had planned for it. We had thought it would find us done with creating a digital map of Katoogo slum. But unfortunately there was still unfinished bit of the wetland, Katoogo that we had not put on our map. However, that would not stop us from going for the competitions. It was the D-day!
I rose up before dawn and my boots crunched on the gravel of st. Denis path ways. A few students were there already. All smartly dressed in their full school uniforms. quickly I looked for the laptop which we had to go with. I had met our teacher on the way, just a few yards away from school and he had told me to look through the presentation which we had worked on for the past three weeks, to make sure I was conversant with the editions he had made the previous night.
No sooner had I gone any further than Tr. Martin- the ICT teacher we had to move along with- came driving in a small nursery van. Being for nursery kids was not that that was embarrassing but instead its dirtiness. The van was brown, the color of mud. And all mappers including myself twitched our lips into a smile that was more jeerful than impressive. But that was just a funny bit of it. In actual sense, none of us could have any substitute means of transport. So we had to bear with it.
Tr. Martin can really drive. He branched from a certain junction and moved past other vehicles with accustomed ease. Then he sloped downwards as we could see another slum there down. At that time, all mappers were impressed because that could have been the next slum they would have had to map as it was their theme "COMMUNITY MAPPING FOR SLUM RESILIENCE".
I liked the way Tr. Martin drove, with no time, we had reached UCC ( Uganda Communications Commission) which was our venue of the day. A few schools were there already. And students had taken up their seats_ their coign of vantage.
We were talked to and we had fantastic break which a cup of coffee and somewhat snacks. It was fine! At least I liked that. I had last had such a break fast when I was in an E-learning conference. Now it had been so long ever since.
We were the first secondary school to present. No pitch our idea. It was even easier than I had expected it. It was just a matter of confronting the judges and say out your idea. At the end of the five minutes in which you had to do this, you had to be questioned and required to answer accordingly. Many schools presented after us and the end of the day, we had emerged the second.  We were congratulated and awarded for our selfless performance. We had fun there after. We took pictures of ourselves and toured the entire institute. It was full of lurk. At the end, we got into our van at dusk and drove back home.