AIFest Uganda

@AIFest_ug brought together builders, students, developers, volunteers, and judges at #MIICHub, Makerere University, for a one-day @kaggle hackathon focused on AI for smart city mobility. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁: How might we use Gemma to build tools for safer rides, trusted trips, and smarter mobility for Kampala’s boda boda ecosystem? 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: ✨ 32 attendees ✨ 11 teams submitted projects ✨ 3 winning teams ✨ 2 judges ✨ 6 volunteers ✨ 1 intense day of building 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀:   • Boda safety and incident reporting   • Rider income and expense tracking   • EV boda battery and route support   • Voice-first ride booking   • Road hazard intelligence   • Mechanic matching   • AI-powered ride coaching   • Multilingual tools for Luganda-English contexts What stood out most was how locally grounded the ideas were. The teams did not build abstract AI demos. They built around Kampala’s roads, stages, riders, passengers, fuel costs, unsafe routes, repair challenges, and daily mobility realities. Thank you to everyone who showed up, submitted, pitched, judged, volunteered, and supported the event. And special thanks to @googlegemma for backing this community hackathon and helping us bring open AI models closer to Uganda’s builders. #BuildWithGemma #AIFestUganda #Hack4Bodas

The name "𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗮" originates from the phrase "𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿" and was officially added to the 9th edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in May 2017. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the term referred to transport services operating along the Uganda–Kenya border, where carriers moved people and goods across border crossings on foot, bicycles, and later motorcycles. Over time, "𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗮" became synonymous with motorcycle taxis across Uganda and parts of East Africa. Interestingly, these motorcycles go by different names across the region:   • Uganda: Boda Boda   • Kenya: Piki Piki   • Rwanda: Moto While the names differ, they all represent one of East Africa's most important and affordable modes of transport, connecting millions of people to work, school, healthcare, and business every day. Today, in Uganda, boda bodas are no longer just a transport option. They are a national mobility system. Uganda has over 1 million riders, with an estimated 7 million Ugandans depending on their services daily. And Kampala alone is estimated to have about 𝟯𝟱𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘀. Yet for a sector this big, boda bodas remain deeply underrepresented in the rooms where the future is designed. We talk about them when there is traffic, accidents, crime, noise, or regulation. But we rarely talk about them as logistics infrastructure. As youth employment. As city intelligence. As last-mile commerce. As people who know Kampala street by street, shortcut by shortcut, pothole by pothole. ✨A boda rider knows which road floods after ten minutes of rain. ✨Which junction becomes unsafe after dark. ✨Which route saves fuel. ✨Which stage needs lighting. ✨Which passenger routes feel risky. ✨Which small repair issue can end a day’s income. That knowledge is infrastructure. It is just not yet digitized, respected, or represented enough. This is why Hack 4 Bodas mattered to me. Through Build with Gemma Uganda, as part of the AIFest Uganda community, we challenged builders to stop treating AI as abstract and start building for the Kampala we actually live in: safer rides, trusted trips, smarter city mobility, rider income tracking, EV battery support, voice-first booking, incident reporting, and local-language AI tools. 11 teams submitted. 3 winners emerged. But more importantly, for one day, boda bodas were not treated as a “problem to manage.” They became a design brief for innovation. My belief is simple: the future of AI in Uganda will not only be built in boardrooms and labs. It will also be built around stages, helmets, voice notes, fuel receipts, WhatsApp groups, and the people who move this city every single day. If AI is going to serve Uganda, it has to understand the people who move Uganda. Thank you to @googlegemma, @kaggle and @AIFest_ug for helping us bring this to life. #BuildWithGemma #AIFestUganda #Hack4Bodas