Kampala: Three Ugandan Inventors have been named among eight finalists in first Global Competition for Social-Driven Hardware where the winner is to walk home with Shs1.8 billion approximately ($500,000).
The completion is organised by American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) a non-profitable global engineering community established in 1980s with a motive of developing solutions to real world challenges, recognizing and rewarding of hardware designs with a social purpose.
Julius Mugaga based in Kampala is presenting Lumenda an affordable and portable device for rapid and accurate diagnosis of neonatal bacterial meningitis in low-resource settings.
Manon Lavaud who came up with Musana Cart that provides the tools and support to street vendors to achieve a clean, sustainable, and dependable work environment. A solar panel is incorporated in the canopy of the cart to provide vendors with light after sundown. It also replaces charcoal for cooking with a more efficient, eco-friendly alternative fuel.
Grace Nakibaala from Entebbe came up with Pedal Tap a no-touch, cost-effective, water-dispensing system actuated by a foot-pedal. It can be connected to any tap system and is designed to reduce the spread and frequency of infectious diseases in public spaces.
The finalists will compete against Ishmael Hezekiah from Nairobi, Samuel Castro basing in Nairobi, Kenya and Netherlands, Anastasia Kaschenko from Kenya, George Chege from Kenya, and Austin Ng’andu of Zambia.
This year’s competitions will feature a range of device, prototypes for clean fuel, safe drinking water, infectious disease mitigation and neonatal meningitis diagnosis, among others that will clix into a transformational economic, environmental, and social impact in underserved communities around the world.
During the competition, the finalists will pitch their product prototypes to a panel of judges that include successful entrepreneurs, academics, and founders of venture-funded startup companies.
The pitches according to Charla K. Wise the president of ASME, will outline the engineering design attributes of the prototypes and also include a discussion of plans for manufacturing, implementation, marketing, and financing.
“ASME celebrates new ideas and innovations that are aimed at pushing collective knowledge frontier outward and solving problems to improve on the lives of all people.” He noted.
