On Friday 4th May, WAZIHUB, an Internet of Things (IoT) Innovation program was launched in Kampala, Uganda, as a collaborative problem solving and innovative approach to foster creation of IoT products and services.
The launch which took place at Hive Colab, one of the consortium partners in Uganda is
a collaborative problem solving and innovation approach to enable win-win outcomes
for EU and African partners while tackling key societal problems and challenges by
applying IoT and Big Data in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The launch was officiated by the Minister for ICT, Hon. Frank Tumwebaze who
expressed his gratitude and appreciation for the WAZIHUB program and promised
support for hubs in Uganda to help play their role in innovation in the country. He also
promised to continue his best to enhance talents in ICT innovation.
The WAZIHUB launched with the main objective to support startups in IoT Products and
services with 30 percent female lead and 50 percent first market replication, expand the
IoT regional ecosystem inclusive of hubs, countries and partners to 20 African
countries, 40 tech hubs and 200 Industry, SME and Government. WAZIHUB also aims
at reaching stakeholders through awareness and communication and lastly to build
capacity through training,support and mentorship.
Saturday 5th May, saw the launch of the WAZIHUB accelerator program which aims at
providing IoT startups and entrepreneurs with technical and business capacity building
through training bootcamps, seminars, growth hacking resources and workshops.
WAZIHUB’s “Out-of-the-Box” IoT development kit includes SDKs, IoT Gateway and Big
Data Platform. The kit offers all the features to develop IoT sensor application.
From this training, the first Cohort of entrepreneurs will be selected as beneficiaries of
the project, and will be supported with practical training on how to build IoT solutions
and with resources and funding connections to build successful businesses around IoT
and Big Data. They will also get help with building their prototype and deploying their
products rapidly.
This project is implemented by 14 partners all over Africa and EU, including Sonatel,
Create-Net, UPPA, Innotec21, Orange, UGB, WITU ,iLab Africa, Kumasi Hive, Maker
Space Foundation, Buni Hive, Hive Colab among others. In Uganda, WAZIHUB is
implemented by both Hive Colab and WITU HUB.
