Makerere University students win Orange Innovations Award 2014

Orange Telecom has announced winners of 2014 Orange Community Innovations Awards, after a three days exhibition at Serena Hotel in Kampala.

An App developed by students from Makerere university emerged victorious of the competition,

Makerere university students developed a Kfree application, a health solution that targets to prevent breast cancer by aiding early detection.

Kfree is composed of a mobile app and a small piece of hardware that utilizes light to and takes a spectrums of the breast tissue, which when matched against pre-stored normal spectrums is able to reasonably tell the risk of breast cancer.

Kfree was developed by three Makerere University Students who included;

• Joshua Sentamu,
• David Tusubira
• Derric Mutabi,

The app was selected from 26 finalists in the categories of Health, Education and Agriculture.

The Gold winners got a cash reward of 5million shillings, and 12 months paid up internship at Orange Uganda.

Other winners of Irange Innovation Awards 2014 included:

1st Runner Up (Silver): Kwik Study – This This education app uses flash cards to simplify studying for nursery and primary schools. The app quizzes students while enabling their teachers assess their academic progress in real time.

According to the developers, “it intelligently processes flash cards and modifies the repetition pattern based on how well integrated the answer is in your long term memory…” 

Second Runner up (Bronze): Kawunyemu

Kawunyemu  was developed by Walugembe, a student from Nkumba University. His App helps one track the concentration level of alcohol in their body, helping drivers avoid driving under the influence of alcohol.

For the first time, at least two of the apps in the final round run on Windows Phone operating system.

The successful developers will be given an opportunity to develop their apps and convert them into money-making ventures.

“As Orange, our objective is to help these students build sustainable businesses. That’s why we’ve given them one year internship and mentorship while letting them register private companies. These apps are owned by them,” said Harriette Kasirye, Head of CSR & Corporate Philanthropy at Orange Uganda.

The Guest of Honor at the Awards for the third time, Uganda’s Prime Minister, Amama Mbabazi commended Orange and university student developers for the high standards set to spur innovation in the country.

“Government is fully encouraging innovations so as to unlock the full potential of our economy,” said the Prime Minister, before adding, “Innovations change the face of the world forever.”

One of the partners, Huawei also exhibited strong support for the competition, rewarding all participants with smartphones. A total of 65 handsets were handed out.

Every year, Orange Uganda organizes the “Community Innovations Awards”, a competition which recognizes the most impressive ideas in mobile app developments aimed at allowing young developers in Uganda to suggest an innovative application that could be used in agriculture, health, or education.

Last week, Orange launched five apps, developed from last year’s edition of the awards, that have already been deployed on Android’s Play Store.