How research has changed the weather forecasting narrative

from 03-07-2023 to 03-07-2023

Makerere University, Kampala - Uganda

Description

WIMEA-ICT was essential for East Africa because it provides open source software and hardware designs leading to affordable automatic weather stations compared to others on the market.

Launch of IoT-ra Lab, a beacon of hope for Uganda - Dr. Cosmas Mwikirize, the Superintendent, (Industry Value Chains, Science, Technology and Innovation Secretariat) - Office of the President.

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing

Description

I thank Dr. Julianne for a job well done. It is with great joy and pride that we note the great innovations that have come from this lab. Innovations in meteorology, food security, system devices and many others that are critical to this nation because they are solving salient problems in our society. I had the privilege of contributing to the ongoing AdEMNEA project, so this gives me nostalgia, but also prestige for this lab and college. It has distinguished itself as a beacon of hope for this nation and we know that you are just starting and will make our country proud.

If you look at the countries that have been able to transform from developing or third world economies, most of them have what is termed as an anchor industry. For example, South Korea and Malaysia have electronics as their anchor industry. There are other industries like motor vehicles and pharmaceuticals, and it is clear what they have done for India. When you look at what we are doing in our push towards making science work for our nation, we have fronted the various furnishings, namely the pathogenic economy that fronts pharmaceuticals, Kiira Motors for mobility, Nile for electronics and manufacturing, and projects like this one for technology. When you are starting out, you do not know which one is going to succeed. Also, as a nation, the more we succeed the better.

If we can get an anchor industry for this nation – and each of these has potential – it can be the seed for the transformation of the entire nation. We want to create an industry of industries. For example, if you see someone manufacturing electronics, you look at where the inputs are coming from – who is developing and creating the innovations and who is ideating them – then you have a role for the universities, the government doing the policies and the innovators developing the products. In fact, we already have products on the market. For example, we have a Ugandan designed computer. It is a USB computer called a micro fuse, a USB stick that can convert any Television with a USB port into a computer. That is a Ugandan product. It is designed here, though previously it was being printed in China and shipped here. There are many other devises for energy monitoring.

Ugandans are already doing these things. The role of government is to see how to help them to scale up. If someone has been doing 50 units per year, how can we help them make one thousand and eventually 10,000? It is a game of volumes. How do we help them sell beyond the nation? It takes support in various forms. We can give direct funding, and we are already giving lots of grants to innovators who are starting out. We are also linking our innovators to investors. We prepare them for investor readiness programs, linking them to venture capitalists who are also organizing the local investment community. These investors have a lot of money in Uganda, but all they know is investing it in London in bricks and motor. To us, that is a total wastage. The returns are so low and the jobs created are very few. The annual revenue of Microsoft is more than 200 billion. Our GDP is somewhere around 45 billion. This means one single company out there makes revenue in a year that is five times our nations GDP. Imagine if we had a software company like Microsoft in Uganda. We don’t actually need one hundred star-companies. We only need to create a few that have a high impact on the economy. That is the new strategy we are taking. It is also why we are here, because we understand that universities are a key pillar in this journey we are taking. That is where the best brains in research are.

And with this, we thank the Norwegian government for the continuous support and partnership over the years, because if it were not for you, we would not be witnessing this.

The Secretariat of Science Technology and Innovation at the Office of the President is the institution that replaced the older ministry. We have a new framework for science, technology and innovation in the nation for about two years now. Our goal is to grow the contribution of knowledge-based goods and services to the national economy. Over time, the government and development partners have done a lot on the knowledge part by promoting and supporting science and technology in education institutions. We were lacking in the second part, which is innovation. Our mandate is to ensure that we coordinate all

stakeholders. Starting with the National Development Plan 3 (NDP3), we cast away the sector development planning model and are now operating in a Programme-based model. We are your one stop center for science and technology, and we are supposed to help you coordinate all other players in government and the private sector.

One of our mantras is that innovation is not complete until we have a product on the market which translates to a sizeable number of users, who are willing to pay for it. I therefore want to encourage us to complete the loop. You have to establish necessary linkages to ensure that what you have started actually sees the light of day. When we develop things and they stay in the lab, they do not develop the economy.

The university is certainly a key pillar in this, so we must ensure that we put in place certain linkages to ensure that what we are developing is not paralyzed. We must also develop relevant models and systems that facilitate this.
We are glad to see some of the IoT-ra lab products out there, like the weather stations being used by UNMA. We are not oblivious of the fact that science, technology and innovation require funding. However, usually, funding is not all we need. Sometimes you find that a lot of money has been spent, but there is nothing much to show for it, apart from people rotating around prototypes. Sometimes in academia, we focus on the art of ‘grant-preneurship’, which is the art of grant after grant after grant. Thankfully, we do not have any ‘grant-preneurs’ here.

I am trying to point us to self-sustainability. At some point you have to think beyond grants and start with the little you have, and more will come your way. I invite you to partner with us. We have a one-stop center which you can visit 24/7 throughout the year. We have eight value chains but you may be particularly interested in 4 of them, namely:
i) Aeronautics and space bureau
ii) Industry 4.0+ (supporting private players)
iii) Productivity acceleration
iv) Human capital development
Ø I also encourage you to comprehend your quality in the value chains pertaining to areas of focus with stakeholder engagement so that your work is addressing bottlenecks
Ø Build a support in the system that will engender the road to the market. Work closely with Dr. Catherine Mwide
Ø Apply for grants when we advertise them. Better still, if you have an idea, do not wait for the grant call. Approach us and we will work through it.
Ø Let us know of any challenges you have in the ecosystem so that we can work proactively towards addressing them.

We congratulate Dr. Julianne Sansa Otim and the team. It is my great pleasure to officially open the IoT-ra lab.

Well-done on community engagement – Norwegian Embassy Ms Ingvild Langhus, the First Secretary of Agriculture, Research and Gender equality, at the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kampala

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

I thank all the dedicated team members on the project; that include masters and PhD students and other stakeholders. Listening to the presentations, it is good to see community engagement portrayed; finding solutions to community challenges, and showing how research and academics offer solutions to challenges in communities, while making it user friendly is commendable.

I bring goodwill messages from my colleagues in NORAD who follow this project keenly, and are particularly impressed by the activity engagements and finding solutions to community challenges. This project is a good example of a long-term partnership, having started as WIMEA-ICT, then AdEMNEA; and it continues to grow.

Makerere is one of the largest partners in our research programme and I believe that some of these solutions will contribute to job creation efforts, ensuring maintenance, durability and sustainability of the program. It is also a good example of collaboration. I work in the academia and I know how challenging it is to bring different institutions together because of existing competition, even between different colleges in the same institution can be competitive against each other, but this project shows how working together is effective in realising innovative solutions, thereby bringing different people together.

The ability for education institutions to work with other stakeholders in different organisations and the public sector, namely agriculture and apiculture is another impressive aspect. There is also the cross-border cooperation. Challenges like pests, diseases and climate change cut across borders, and so should their solutions.

Seeing that a lot of what is developed here is technical and rather ‘nerdy’, it is impressive to note that you were able to bring out the research outputs in a communicable way, such that it is able to communicate to people with no IT background.

I am passionately interested in weather and climate because without them, farmers are not able to know the different seasons and their corresponding farming activities – when to plant, weed or harvest – and these are all very necessary for food security. There are different sectors but they all come together in this project.

It is about research as much as it is about communication, food security and many others. As such, so many challenges are brought together and addressed at a go. What makes this project unique is the slogan – community challenges, connectivity and continuity. The dedication you are showing as a team, and the purpose for sustainable development and innovation bring about positive changes and help us to move forward.

Therefore, I see us continuing to grow and registering results in more areas, leading to transformation, changes and innovations. Thank you very much for inviting us.

IoT-ra lab research to solve societal challenges in Sub-sahara Africa - Dr. Julianne Sansa Otim, Senior Lecturer & Team Lead, IoT-ra Lab

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

We have been around since 2013, under the name - WIMEA-ICT. By the nature of that project, we were a multi-disciplinary team of researchers ranging from research advisors, PhD, Masters and Bachelors student interns. We started with that model and are continuing with it because most of our projects are multi-disciplinary in nature. The challenges we tackle are related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For one to have interesting and meaningful solutions, there is a need to employ different skill sets. We decided at the end of the WIMEA-ICT project, to rebrand ourselves to what we are doing now. The common thread between the research studies we have undertaken since 2013 to-date is Internet of Things (IoT), so decided to be called Internet of Things Research and Applications lab (abbreviated as IoT-ra lab) . We reached out to our stakeholders and invited them today to let them know who we are and our plans.
We are doing research in IoT that targets community problems in the sub-sahara region. We have three pillars namely community, connectivity and continuity, to ensure that our work is sustainable. The lab has 17 active senior researchers that are divided in various disciplines like agriculture, meteorology, entomology etc. We also have four active PhD students attached to this lab, five masters’ students that are funded, and more that are self-funded, and nine bachelors student interns.
The bachelors student interns are a unique resource, mostly not attached to research labs but we have found them to be very helpful. They are hungry for knowledge and available at the same time; so we make good use of them. It is as good for them as it is for the lab because they get to apply what they are learning to real problems in the community. Our first IoT was a weather station, but to get the weather information to the last person, we did a dissemination system which is available via mobile phone. We had previously sub-rented a USSD code (*255*85#) but since we handed over the application to the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA), they took up this solution and paid for on a new USSD (*201#). It is currently being funded by UNMA. We are very grateful to NORAD and the Norwegian Embassy for the support. We have also received funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund, UKAid and Makerere Research and Innovation Fund here in Uganda and we are grateful. We are ready to move forward.
Relevance of IoTs to Uganda
According to the Digital Transformation roadmap for Uganda 2023-2028, that was recently launched by the Ministry of ICT, one of the key pillars mentioned in it is infrastructure development, and more specifically, the last mile connectivity. In IoT, we are talking about automating ordinary physical objects so that they can directly send data to the Internet. Examples of ordinary objects in the case of IoT-ra lab include weather stations, beehives, wellness checkers, robotic arm and the like, which are applicable in agriculture, climate action and health.
So, why should the ordinary Ugandan be interested? What is in it for them? All of us want our lives to be simplified as much as possible. We would like to be able to monitor different processes in our homes while we are away at our work places, and vice versa. That means that we have to automate those objects so that they can send data. The IoT-ra lab is here for that purpose. We intend to automate those ordinary physical objects, put intelligence in them so that they can capture the important data, which could be images, text or audio depending on what we need, and then transmit it so that the user can remotely make the necessary decisions. This may need some thinking through, researching, designing and so on to determine various aspects. Is it the soil temperatures, moisture levels, oxygen, nutrients and so on that need to be monitored? Sensors can be deployed for the purpose and an end-to-end IoT designed to complete the cycle of transmitting the recorded data, interpreting it and taking the necessary action on the information received. Whatever requires monitoring, that was previously being done by human beings can be automated. We are, therefore, open to the general public. If anyone feels that they have processes that they would like to monitor remotely, we will support them as a lab to realise that and improve the efficiency of those processes.
Where does Uganda/Africa stand
In terms of the status of Uganda as far as IoT is concerned in relation to East Africa, Africa or even the world is a worthy question to think about. Whenever the global map was displayed showing the connectivity in the different countries, all the areas that had connectivity on the map would be lit, apart from Africa, which is why it came to be known as the Dark Continent, because one would hardly see any light on the African continent. As far as the Internet goes, we can now say that Africa is a lit continent by and large. However, as far as IoT is concerned, we can clearly say that it is dark. One might think it is a foreign, developed country concept, but the data generated is used to build many other things. If that data is biased to the western world, then we continue to be disadvantaged. If we are generating the data and availing it in databases, they are available for the broader development of other technologies as well. This now positions Uganda or Africa in a better place to say that this is how the relevant data shows in Africa. Then they can compare elsewhere as further advancements are being done.
That said, IoT in Africa is still largely dark. Literally everything in the western world is connected – from the time someone wakes up, they may not have to think about anything, but be able to make decisions based on the data that they get. Things relating to transportation, weather and how the people should be dressed up for it, catastrophic events and even investments. So, people are empowered, and that is why the new wave is better. It is the availability of this data that makes companies like Google and Facebook rich, because the more you have this data, the more you can manipulate it to your advantage. Therefore, if we are not putting the IoTs in place to help us generate that data that we have control over, then overall, we are disadvantaged. So, it is important that we pay attention and begin to generate data that can further advance us.

We are dedicated to research and application - Dr. Mary Nsabagwa Dr. Mary Nsabagwa,one of the senior researchers in the IoT-ra lab and a Lecturer in Makerere University

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

We are interested in solving community problems that deserve IoT technology intervention.
We are guided by three pillars, namely: community challenges, connectivity and continuity
Community solutions
These are solutions to problems we hope to identify in the communities, and will be guided by SDGs. For example, we have already embarked on some projects that are in relation to health. We monitor patients with asthma, who always struggle with the environments in which they stay. One of the things we are doing is to design a wearable to assist in notifying them about the status of their environment.
We have also implemented projects under the agricultural sector concerning food security, which were funded by the Research and Innovations Fund (RIF) at Makerere University. We have also worked with other stakeholders to improve the quality of education. We do not only provide solutions. We also carry out training in this lab. We started out with very few interns. I started out as a student myself, alongside several of my colleagues. Several of our students who started here on bachelors programmes are now pursuing PhDs in USA, Canada and all over the world. We are happy to say that we are contributing to that in several aspects. We do not intend to limit it to bachelors and the above. Our plan is to go to the grassroots, and as such, introduce several courses for primary school and secondary students as well. If we do not inspire them at that level, we cannot expect them to join us with the right mind.
Our biggest contribution under the WIMEA-ICT project has been in line with climate action. Therefore, whatever is listed here is summed up in the goal IoT Innovation, and it is listed among the SDGs.
Gender is one of the things covered therein, and we try to provide equal opportunities for both women and men. We, therefore, identify the problems related with the above and provide IoT related solutions.
Connectivity
When talking about the IoTs, connectivity is important. If you want to monitor your system at home, or a smart city, connectivity is key. Thus, IoTra has partnered with RENU, who have taken us from ground level, up to where we are right now. We are glad that they are still with us. We are going to deploy many systems outside Kampala where connectivity is a challenge, so having them on board as a partner gives us confidence. It is crucial that these systems are connected seamlessly and cheaply. We are designing robust network solutions, contributing to infrastructure, influencing policy and looking into new protocols.
Continuity
This is about sustainability. Most of our activities are funded, but we do not want to stop at the grants. We need to grow this seed and nurture it, as opposed to letting it collapse when the project ends. Our objective is to work on commercialisation of our innovations in order to make them sustainable at the end of the project. One of the things we have started doing is copyrighting, to make sure our products are giving us returns and not being plagiarised by others. We also intend to intensify project proposal writing and grants so that some of the projects that are not fully taken up can keep moving. We got a small fund to support the weather dissemination at the end of the WIMEA-ICT project which went a long way in helping us record the success such as extending the weather information dissemination system to Ghana and Nigeria.
Having started out as four academic institutions, we are strengthening collaborations and spreading out to the different schools within the college; such as Meteorology and Electrical Engineering, and Veterinary Medicine in 2021. We have reached out to Infectious Disease Institute at Makerere, the Africa Centre of Excellence in IoT at the University of Rwanda, and so many others. We are growing and whoever is present today is considered family. We continue to work on capacity building, where we train people to design and build these systems even at the end of the project, so that they can still continue working when handed over to other stakeholders outside the IoT-ra lab.
If anyone has a problem, it can be solved by our tools. For example, the weather information that we are disseminating is solved by the tools that we set up in the field. It helps to generate data which is used to forecast, thereby avoiding the risks associated with climate change. As far as health is concerned, there are categories of people who need to wear some devices in order to monitor their condition every now and then. Also, these systems we are developing need to talk to each other. If I collect data, I need to send it somewhere, and this is what we call connectivity. How do I pick this data that I have collected from the most remote areas (which are the areas we are targeting)? If I have set up a health system, and I expect a doctor to monitor my data, he may be travelling to Amsterdam, but they should be able to tell the condition that their patient is in. The connection between the worn device (or any other physical device) and the other end is what we term as connectivity. Once the data reaches the other end, a lot can be done with it. We do not want projects to die once funding is over, so we want to put strategies in place to ensure that they are supported to exist even after the life of the project.

From Internet of Things to Intelligence of things (AI) Dr. Marco Zennaro is a Research Scientist at ICTP based in Italy.

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

In the 1960s, we had a situation with many people working on one computer. In the 1980s, there was one computer per person, with people acquiring them personally. Moving on to the 2000s, we had laptops and nowadays, we have many more devices per person. That is precisely the vision of the Internet of Things – having many devices in the environment per person. The idea of having devices serving and measuring things is not new. The first telemetry system started more than 100 years ago in Chicago, where people used a telephone line to send information from power plants. When you search the Internet, there are pictures of older people talking about the Internet toaster in the 1990s, and that was a way to activate the toaster using the web. The first webcam in 1991 was used to tell how much coffee was in the coffee pot. Therefore, this idea of sending data from devices on the Internet is not new. It is about 30 years old.
Why is the Internet of Things so relevant at Makerere university now? There are a number of drivers – things that are happening right now – that make it a big phenomenon:
1. We have small, inexpensive, low power computers. A kit of IoT devices that previously cost 500 dollars now costs 10 or 15 dollars. Additionally, these small devices have the same computational power as the main frames in the 1960s.
2. We have small, inexpensive low-power sensors. They are now available for a fraction of a dollar.
3. Nowadays, we have protocols that allow for long range connectivity. We had a pilot in Makerere where we deployed gateways that can reach tens of kilometers. That was unthinkable a few years ago.
4. We now have cloud computing and storage, so one does not need a big investment to get started with IoT.
5. We also have standard IoT protocols. Devices can be got from China, USA and all over the place, and make them work together.
The latest CISCO statistics indicate that we will have 500 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2030. We have about four billion people connected to the Internet today, meaning we are talking about having 100 times more devices connected to the internet. As much as this is a prediction, it is the direction we are taking. As we speak, the Internet is not made up of people, but of things. That is a reality that it is not ‘becoming’; it is already happening. The devices are not evenly distributed around the world. Statistics show more devices in the northern hemisphere than elsewhere.
Examples of where this IoT can be used include:
1. Weather stations – up to a few years ago, only a half of the weather stations in Africa could transmit data properly. Some researchers, however, put the same kind of stations on seals in the Antarctic. So, while the research is going far in developing small devices, there are still many people lacking data. Hence, there are still opportunities there.
2. SDGs – A good number of them can be tackled by IoT namely, SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) where IoT can play a key role in optimising agriculture. Another key area is SDG3 (Good Health and Well-being). We just witnessed a health crisis with the COVID-19 Pandemic, and IoT can be used to measure health conditions in remote areas.
There is a paper that was published about 20 years ago, that I think is still very valid, and would love for us to look at. It is on the use of ICT in developing countries (“The Case for Technology in Developing Regions, E. Brewer et al., IEEE Pervasive Computing, 2005”). It is about analyzing technologies that have been successful in different countries using the World Bank database. From the findings, there are 4 requirements for these technologies to be successful, as seen below:
Requirement
Policy Issue to tackle
Applicable to IoT-ra Lab
a) Autonomous Connectivity – we need to have technologies that don’t rely on existing infrastructure otherwise we would not be able to deploy them in remote areas.

Ø Need to constantly keep an eye on who owns the data and who benefits from it.

Yes.

There is still a lot to be done here, and it is a big research field that students can help in.
b) Low cost equipment

Ø Risk of E-waste
No.
c) Power resilience

Ø Risk of “install and forget”
Yes.

Big opportunity for research
d) Appropriate User Interface


Yes.

Not high on the agenda, but applicable with communities.


Future of IoT
Tiny Machine Learning, which is about Embedded Systems on a small gadget (below 1mw, below 1 dollar and no internet), and applying Machine Learning on the devices.
Advantages
By having ML on the device, analyzing the data in the field on the edge since 0.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced everyday by IoT, but only 1% of unstructured data is analyzed or used at all. There is a big wastage that needs to be fixed. The Tiny ML will help us move from Internet of Things to Intelligence of Things. This involves devices that are really intelligent, that can analyze the data in the field. Its advantages include bandwidth efficiency, low latency, energy optimisation, reliability and privacy.

IoT-ra Lab to facilitate research in IoTs - Prof. Tony Oyana, Principal CoCIS.

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

If you want to be a good scientist, you have to learn to tell your own story. Most people fear to write dissertations, which is not really rocket science. Writing a dissertation is the art of telling your own story. I am privileged to be a part of this lab’s story which we have been telling for quite some time now.
Having been a scientist for 28 years, I have a few tips to share with young and upcoming scientists, on how to become a responsible and respectable scientist. The common products for such a lab would include;
· Ethics and honesty - Sometimes the competition is so stiff that people make up stuff. If something isn’t working, say it.
· Follow scientific evidence. Define your research niche and be a visionary. I congratulate the IoT-ra lab for clearly articulating your research niche.
· Train the next generation of scientists. We need more scientists in this lab. There is still much to be researched on.
· Celebrate your achievements with your colleagues here. Make the lab your second home.
In my second capacity as the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academic Affairs, I am happy to say that this lab has facilitated and will continue to facilitate research in IoT among different departments in Makerere University. When it was still running, the Improving Weather Information Management in East Africa by application of ICT tools (WIMEA-ICT) contributed significantly to Uganda, Tanzania and South Sudan. From it has come IoT-ra Lab, a project that is offering opportunity to pursue wonderful research, especially in understanding how bees increase their productivity.
Dr. Julianne Sansa Otim (the lab team-lead) and your entire team, thank you for the amazing work done in this area of research. To our friends and partners, the Norwegian Agency for Development Corporation, the extraordinary work in this lab would not have been possible if you did not put in this sacrifice. When you go back to Norway, thank them for us.
Finally, I thank all participants who have turned up for this invitation. I thank you for the opportunity and I welcome you to our college of about 3,000 students, 10% of whom are top notch. Thank you for coming, enjoy your stay.

Use IoTs to remotely monitor high-quality food management systems Peter Huisman, the Managing Director, Urban Greens Uganda

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

I have been in Uganda for 12 years now and I initially came here to co-found and set up a solar business in which we also use IoT to monitor our solar system in Uganda and western Kenya. In the last two years, I have been focusing on urban food production. Uganda is largely a green environment with a fair rainfall pattern. However, when we focus on the rapid population growth and the impact it has on food production, we see that fisherman, for instance, are struggling to cash in on fish, especially with Kampala being twice as big as it is today in less than a decade. There is, therefore, more and more use of chemicals in our food production, and people start to worry about how healthy the vegetables they are consuming are. We also see that there is technology out there that can help us to address some of these challenges. We are developing a solar pattern for an aquaponics system. Aquaponics allows us to grow vegetables and breed fish in a closed, soilless system. We have fish in tanks, which we feed, while the waste of the fish is used to grow plants as water is circulated through the system.
This technology has been rolled out by the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO) for a couple of years, but one of the issues we have seen so far is that there is really no commercially viable business forum for that. This is where IoT comes in. IoT allows us to remotely monitor the food production system, and through that monitoring, we can make the technology available to the local people. We can manage the system, track their performance and intervene in case of any problems. We can create a network for all the growers that can produce healthy, clean and high-quality food in their own backyard. One therefore needs a solar system that grows about 15kg of high-quality tilapia and 100kgs of vegetables because the systems are big enough to feed a family and generate some income for households.
Impact
We are still at a very early stage where we are working on ponds that are equipped with IoT where we track things like the power required to run those systems, water flow, water level, and as such we get to solve all the problems in the system.
IoT is basically a critical part of what we do as a business. It enables our business model. We need academia and research institutions like this one, because that is ultimately where talent and new ideas come from. We also need business people to help us develop our technology and bring it to the next level. It is great to hear Prof. Marco talk about things like timely ML. We have limited capacity to develop this by ourselves; hence the need to develop it in partnership with institutions like Makerere. We see that there are wonderful ideas being developed here, and are wondering how we can get the students that are working on these projects to commercialise them? How do we get from a wonderful idea to a commercial product? If we talk about incentives and facilities for companies like ours; how do we access the research facilities, or equipment and components? It is very hard in Uganda to get access to even the smallest electronic components, storage components or other simple things that can enable businesses. It would be good to make such components available to researchers and companies like ours. Things like tax incentives, RD components, electronics, or even access to finance. For example, when we started out, we worked for two years before we could register any clients. Access to finance would have gone a long way in boosting us in those early stages. So, if we can make all of this work, we can agree that the future is bright. We can grow fish on land and high-quality produce for everyone to ensure a healthy population.

IoT-ra lab to benefit researchers According to Dr. Isaac Mugume, Director Forecasting, UNMA, Uganda

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

Regarding the key things that we can see happening at the flagship program:
· The smart beehive that was developed under AdEMNEA project
· The Automatic Weather Station developed under the WIMEA-ICT project – AWSs are very costly, at about 70 million shillings. Our part as weather people is to collect data, and we have already seen that the lab will help us achieve the dream.
Considering the environment that we are in as IoT-ra lab researchers, the ICT policy ensures that we have as much information resources for development as we need. The connectivity sensors will help us achieve this. IoT-ra puts in place an improved mechanism for accessing information. The Ministry of Science, Technology and innovation promotes science and IoT-ra fits very well and has already positioned itself into what Makerere aspires to do.

Connectivity paramount for IoTs - Claire Nakakeeto, RENU

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

The time has never been right for Uganda to embrace IoTs like it is now. Let us look at a scenario where you are a farmer who doesn’t know whether their soil is fertile, whether it will rain in the next month or not, or if your soil even has water. You are just an ordinary farmer somewhere deep down in a rural area, with a big piece of land. You wake up one morning and start planting. Back then, you would tell the seasons, but now the seasons are unpredictable. With IoT technology, you are able to find out whether your soil is fertile, whether it has enough water or not, and even the possibility of rain or the lack of it. One of the uses of technology is the ability to predict some things in a field like agriculture. In health, there may be different body changes with different conditions such as diabetes, autism, etc. with IoT; the medical practitioners are able to monitor their temperatures, pressure and so on. This is done remotely, from a device worn by the patient that sends notifications to the caretaker or doctor in case of fluctuations in vital signs.
Connectivity has been highlighted as a major aspect in IoT. In IoT, we want to go beyond just having a sensor pick the soil PH and stop at that. We want to collect the data, send it to the cloud, analyze it and find out what is going on in the garden and get solutions to any identified problems. None of this can happen without connectivity. IoT connectivity refers to different technologies through which IoT devices can send data either to the cloud for analysis.
There are three considerations for IoT connectivity:
1. Coverage – how can the devices be distributed?
2. Data rates – how much data and how frequent?
3. Energy efficiency – power consumption is key
We will not have a technology that can cover all these considerations. We can have at most 2 out of the 3, meaning that one has to consider which one to trade off over the other 2.

Key IoT Connectivity Technologies
Ø Short Range (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee)
Ø Traditional Cellular (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G)
Ø Low Power WAN (Siglox, LoRa, NB-IoT, LTE-M)
Extending IoT Connectivity to Rural Areas
For rural areas, energy consumption is the first consideration because of lack of power, followed by cellular coverage. Hence, a LPWAN would work best because of batteries that run for a long time. LPWAN has different technologies, but one of the trusted ones in LPWAN is LoRa-WAN:
i. Long range
ii. Low power consumption
iii. Operates free radio frequency
iv. Sensor positioning

In the typical set up, the end nodes (IoT devices) send different information to the LoRa gateways which in turn send it to the network server and finally it is sent from the server to any other application
There are different IoT cloud platforms that exist but the 2 that are commonly used are the Things Network and Chirp Stack which are open source software.
NREN Contribution
Initially when the NREN was introduced, we were looking at internet connectivity. This has since ceased to be a need since we have a network across the country and across Kalangala Island. So we had to get another service we could offer the member institutions and the country at large and that is how we zeroed in on LoRa WAN. It was started in 2020 when Dr. Marco came and did a workshop. Our first involvement was in 2021 with the Celestini project. We had 6 awards, supported by NSRC and The Marconi Society. Our contribution was to lay a network for their projects which were all IoT related. Our role was to deploy gateways for them and provide a cloud through which they could analyze their data.
Currently, we have over four outdoor gateways; in ………., Mukono, Nkozi and another around Kampala. This distribution is mainly based on the demand. So, the projects that we are currently supporting are distributed in those areas. Our gateways are currently are supported under …….. So far we have 7 IoT devices that are functioning. The others are test lenses.
We are currently using Chirp Stack cloud platform on top of which we have ThingsBoard integration which help users to visualize their raw data that a layman would not make sense of. The cloud platform and integration are subject to change with demand.
RENU 2024 projections
· At least 2 gateways per region countrywide
· LoRa WAN Antenna design – student project
· Expanding students projects – monetization.
We are looking forward to working with the IoT-ra lab and our main focus will be extending IoT connectivity and providing the cloud so that as researchers you will be focusing on deploying your IoT devices, analysing your data and getting solutions without worrying about connectivity.

IoTs lead to efficiency, cost management – lessons from Portugal Prof Joao C. Ferreira, Dept. of Information Science and Technology, University Institute, Lisbon, Portugal

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

My experience in Portugal was with IoT labs several years ago. It was in collaboration with different companies. We did several projects with companies and municipalities. The start is not always easy because you need money, but after setting up some connections and getting experience, it got easier. We participated in a European project that gave us some money. Through some local companies, we were able to set up a prototype. We work in the energy sector, so we try to monitor energy consumption. We worked with garbage collection companies and local companies to develop trash bins, and we were able to know when to collect when to collect the rubbish because collection of garbage is quite expensive per kilometer. We managed to get data were able to provide services to the locals.
Another area we were working was transportation. We were monitoring fuel consumption of trucks and the space available. We can save a lot of money with IoT information that we get from…so consumption, space and number of kilometers are all important information to understand how you can save money.
We also worked in the agricultural sector, specifically sensing water management that helps us to save on water and money. With cameras, we can detect problems in the drop and use devices to correct them. The last sector is the health sector. It is not easy here, because it needs a lot of testing. We are working on solutions for home care. If the patient is not at hospital, you can remotely monitor things like beat rate, temperature, oxygen and so on, and try to provide remote services. It takes a lot more to promote these services, and the solutions are complex to implement. We are running four projects with European countries in IoT. We have 7 PhD students which is an opportunity for collaboration if available.

Stakeholder engagement - CoCIS, UNMA, RENU, UNADO, Norwegian Embassy, Urban Greens, PhD & Masters Students, etc

from 25-08-2023 to 25-08-2023

College of Computing & Information Sciences, Makerere University - Kampala Uganda

Description

UNMA Official - WIMEA has shown us that we can do everything from here, and as a beneficiary of this technology, we appreciate the work done. In this regard, we are asking if we can collaborate and do more together. My ED also says he welcomes collaboration in the technology as far as weather and climate is concerned. The institute is therefore open if there is any chance.
Journalist from Radio One - I am a science, technology and innovation scientist, at Radio One, and I host a show on the same. Mine is an encouragement to the project on visibility. There is a lot going on here that people do not know about. I have been on radio for one year now, downscaling science, technology and innovation in Uganda and it is exciting. I encourage the college to consider seeking out relevant media, who understand the language. The presidential advisory committee on exports and industrialization is organizing a Uganda-South Africa business Investment Summit, 5th-6th September. South Africans want to see what Uganda can export, and one of the exports on the list is technology partnerships. I work with the committee directly, and I will be here for anyone who would want to tag along. I invite you to invest in any of our sister stations, namely; Radio One in Central, Cruise FM in Mbarara, Urban FM in Jinja, Elgon FM in Mbale and we are broadcasting in their languages.
Masters student
I am a student of Master of Science in …… I have been privileged to go through the different developments and learn about the WIMEA-ICT innovations; hence I applaud the team for the strides in weather monitoring. My question is whether the IoT-ra lab will go on to implement the monitoring network which is poor but crucial. We are using traditional evaporation pans whose network is very poor.