Julius Mugaga, Manon Lavaud, and Grace Nakibaala have been listed among the regional finalists in the 2018 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Innovation Showcase (ASME IShow) – a global competition for hardware led ventures. The trio joins five other social-minded inventors, Four (4) from Kenya, and one (1) from Zambia. The 8 finalists will present their innovative design prototypes in Nairobi on May 10th with the social voting for Kenya Fan Favorite opening May 2nd.
This year’s finalists will showcase prototypes for clean fuel, safe drinking water, infectious disease mitigation and neonatal meningitis diagnosis.
Up to USD$500,000 (roughly 1,845,700,000 UGX) Seed Grant, Access to Industry Experts, 3D Printers will be rewarded to the 9 winners, 3 from different competitions – IShow Kenya, IShow India, and IShow USA. In addition, will join the ISHOW Community Engagement with over 2500 fellow hardware entrepreneurs.
Uganda’s very own Matibabu; a group of graduates from Makerere University participated in last years IShow Kenya emerging winners with their innovative solution MATIBABU; a Non-invasive diagnostic kit used to detect Malaria. Their device uses a custom-made portable device called a matiscope, which is connected to a smartphone, to do a rapid diagnostic test. All the user does, places their finger into the matiscope, and the application uses a red light to penetrate the skin and detect the red blood cells.
Julius Mugaga
Invented ‘Lumenda’ an affordable and portable device for rapid and accurate diagnosis of neonatal bacterial meningitis in low-resource settings. It is designed to save the lives of thousands of neonates each year who are not treated properly due to the high cost of diagnosis.
Manon Lavaud
Invented Musana Cart which 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
Grace has invented PedalTap; 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. Her innovation was last year in March named among the winners of the first Africa Innovation Challenge at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in South Africa.
For those unaware, ASME is a non-profit organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing, career enrichment, and skills development across all engineering disciplines, toward a goal of helping the global engineering community develop solutions to benefit lives and livelihoods.
Notably, IShow India winners; Sanskriti Dawle, Vinayak Nandalike, and Balaji Teegala
Brün CG, were named on April 5th. IShow Kenya, and IShow USA winners will be named on May 10th, and June 21st respectively.
