The data revolution is here and East Africa isn’t getting left out. Thanks to Pollicy, KAS Uganda and Defend Defenders, the first data festival in Uganda was held on 6 and 7 March 2019. DataFest Kampala brought together data scientists, technologists, designers, government, civil society, business and marketing to connect and explore opportunities for collaboration. The theme of the event was the use of data in decision-making for both the public and private sectors. Key topics that were explored included data quality, data privacy, data management, data sharing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, business intelligence (BI), data visualization and lots more.
The festival kicked off with opening remarks from Neema Iyer, Executive Director of Pollicy, and Donnas Ojok, Program Officer at KAS Uganda who both emphasized the importance of data for the present and future of citizen-focused service delivery by governments. Neema highlighted the need for collaboration as the key to achieving a common purpose and success.
The keynote address of the event was delivered by Michael Katagaya under the theme “changing the way data users see data”. Michael highlighted some opportunities in data usage such as citizens using it to engage in government decisions, governments using it to understand programs and private companies using data to understand markets. Michael also talked about laws lagging behind as technology advances as the key challenge in data usage.
The event dived deeper into data usage with day one’s lightning talks session where Tina Mutabazi from Open Street Map, Patrick from Innovation for Poverty Action and Wilbrod Ntwiha shared their experiences on how they use data in their daily operations. Tina urged everyone to share data for sustainability and use it in making decisions. Patrick emphasized relying on data to ensure money spent on programs is used correctly and urged people to ensure that the data they collect is being used for a higher social purpose. Wilbrod broke down business intelligence and how it can be used to make better decisions. He emphasized the need for a good data strategy for a successful BI system.
Data access and usage were the major focus of this session and speakers mostly emphasized the availability of data in Uganda. Bernard Sabiti pointed out that a lot of data exists in Uganda and its usage is going to be crucial if everyone is to be out of poverty by 2030.
With each presentation, the speakers dived deeper into data. Day one’s afternoon session was dominated by panels on topics machine learning, democratizing research and data innovation. Daphne Nakabugo from DefendDefenders emphasized data visualization as the key to presenting the essence of data to the world. Rachel Proeke from Restless Development emphasized relying on young people in leading research processes as a way to build conversations for action. Celina Lee from Zindi discussed how machine learning is being used to improve transportation, detect crop diseases in agriculture and solve other day to day business problems.
The second day of the event kicked off with a lightning talks session featuring Paul Green from Makerere Data Science and AI Lab, Frank Barigye from Uganda Revenue Authority and Bernard Wanyama from Syntech Associates. Paul talked about AI which he defined as a study of teaching machines to obtain knowledge which they can use to fulfill tasks. He explained how AI has been used in disease detection, agriculture, and other sectors. Paul emphasized the key difference between AI and Machine learning as machine learning simply being a way to achieve AI. He urged young people to rely greatly on the internet as a source of knowledge. Frank emphasized the role of data sharing as key in easing doing business and identified the existence of organizational silos as a challenge towards data sharing. Frank advised MDA’s to adopt integrated systems to support workflow and ease interactions through automation as a way to promote data sharing and called for government sensitization on online service platforms as a viable solution to data sharing challenges. Bernard emphasized data privacy which he considered an individual right that needs to be protected and highlighted the rights of government superseding the right of the people as the major challenge in Africa and in Uganda.
Practical hands-on sessions dominated the second day of the festival with workshops on data cleaning and manipulation in R by Shelmith Kiruiki from Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, designing data collection tools with Kobo Toolbox by Daphne Nakabugo from DefendDefenders, communicating data analysis results through infographics in Infogram by Wairimu Macharia from Fringe Graph, practical approaches of machine learning in solving real-world problems by Kabwama Leonard Alvin from Cognitive AI, and John Ombagi from iLab Africa demonstrated how easy it is to hack a Wi-Fi network.
Other notable topics that were discussed included the internet of things, Uganda’s data privacy bill, and data quality. For it to be of quality, Mahadia Tunga from dLab Tanzania emphasized that it has to be consistent without the existence of any conflicts between data values. Mahadia also highlighted the social values of open data being transparency, participation, and accountability.
The two-day event was packed with knowledgeable discussions and hands-on sessions on data usage. Every section of the data cycle from how data is acquired to how it is utilized was handled extensively. Data users from different sectors came together and shared their experiences which provided others an opportunity to learn. Numerous solutions to challenges were discussed which if put into action will greatly improve efficiency and effectiveness in operations.
Written by Arthur Kakande, Communication Lead at Pollicy
