The hack4ag Uganda hackthon was concluded last week in Jinj which saw three groups being awarded for coming up with the best applications. Kuangalia, an app that helps farmers verify seeds quality emerged winners. According to a senior economist at the World Bank, they were the clear cut winners, their solution was simple, solved a big problem for the farmers and they had developed a complete solution. The Farmer’s Amazon were the second runner’s up with their API that would enable different applications from different developers run on USSD.
Both Kuangalia and Farmer’s Amazon have been approached by officials from NITA-U, according to Fred Byamugisha the manager applications solutions, an aggregator like farmer’s Amazon would gladly be welcome by government.
Also sources from the world bank indicate that the hackthon will not be the end, some sources say that already four applications of the six will be adopted and funded under the the Ministry of Agriculture with funding from the World Bank. According to Maureen Agene, one of the organizers from world bank, hackers just have to continue developing their solutions so that when they are contacted, they have advanced solutions. Another source also assured the hackers that if all goes well, the funds will be available in less than four months pending approval from the Ugandan government. Hackers also might have an opportunity to go to South Korea next year and interact with Korean developers.
