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.
It is my great pleasure to have people loving their homesteads.But this love can only be achieved if only we offer our helping hand!
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