Innovation! MUST Students Create Farming App, Deliver Foodstuffs Door to Door in Mbarara – Campus Bee
Two graduates from Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) Ronald Tushabe and Sankara Byaruhanga who recently graduated with Bachelor of Computer Engineering and Bachelor of Information Technology respectively, have come out to answer the question of “what next’’ which has been asked by many graduates after completing their studies and they realize that they are jobless. They have reacted to this by starting an innovation centre branded as Empower Youth in Technology (EYIT) which mentors young people by incubating their ideas to turn them into businesses so as to curb unemployment among youths.
Beneficiaries of this arrangement are University students from MUST, Bishop Stuart University (BSU) and Makerere University Business School (MUBS)-Mbarara campus, especially ICT students who receive Innovation and Entrepreneurship oriented guidance before developing their final year research projects.
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Their recent impactful success is attributed to the acquired funding from Fund for Internet Research & Education (FIRE) and the Internet Numbers Registry for Africa (AFRINIC). The support facilitated the running of a project aimed at stimulating the innovation culture among young people in the region and beyond, out of which a total of at least 5 teams of young people came up with innovations, with 2 being piloted in relevant sectors while the rest are past prototyping stage.
“The fact is that our hands were really tied. We had struggled to for example provide reliable internet to regular zealous innovators that had a shelter at our innovation center. When God blessed with the mercy of FIRE and AFRINIC, we told ourselves, ‘Let’s perform’ and from that day, our common phrase has been, ‘Zero Wastage of our Limited Resources’ and trust me, we are performing,” Byaruhanga explained.
Alongside imparting tech innovation skills, EYIT also has continuously exposed young innovators to the ‘Seen It All’ one on one sessions with experienced innovators and those with remarkable business background to guide their decisions towards achieving innovative ventures. Innovators have also been helped to develop with users’ mind as consultative visits to target users are often facilitated.
As #COVID19 continues to bite, with government prevention measures suggesting a Stay Home, Stay Safe situation, access to food has since been business unusual especially to urban dwellers. Considering this, EYIT reached out to farmers who are a major contributor to food production, and sighted their major challenges among which is limited linkage to market especially during such a period.
To tackle this, EYIT has so far created a database of 4,803 farmers in Mbarara district to create a Mobile and web-based application known as Lets Farm App. This helps small holder farmers in Uganda to access extension services, quality inputs, low interest agricultural loans and market information and farm records management.
According to Sankara, 80% of the 4,803 farmers are in Banana / Matooke Production. Even when they have such a high-demanded product, they are facing hardships to bring it to the consumers. This is also to enable consumers receive fresh matooke from farm to one’s door-step to areas in and around Mbarara town, on days of Monday, Wednesday & Saturday with free delivery.
To order, one goes to http://www.yitug.org/LetsFarmApp/contact , sends their contact, name and location to the Lets Farm App team. The team then creates an account for the requesting user to enable him/her login into the system as a buyer to order online, or using a phone call.
For more information, find them on 0781557245 or 0705909760.