By Collins Oduor and CTW Team

The 2023 USIU-Africa Innovation and Hackathon event, sponsored by Blipearth Inc., was a huge success, attracting over 100 students from different universities in Kenya. Blipearth Inc. is a leading technology company that focuses on sustainable solutions for environmental challenges.

The event was officially opened by Prof. Munyae Mulinge, DVC Academic and Student Affairs, followed by remarks from the Dean of the School of Science and Technology, Prof. Valarie Adema, who emphasized the objectives of the hackathon, which included enabling students to understand what the technology industry has to offer, guiding them on how to hack technical solutions and creativity, and connecting them with key technological experts and innovation judges.

The 2023 USIU Innovation and Hackathon event brought teams of students, developers, and innovators from different Universities to compete in creating innovative solutions to real- world problems. Participants were given a set amount of time to present their projects to a panel of judges who were to evaluate and select the top two winners based on their creativity, feasibility, and impact. There were four categories that the participants could pitch their ideas, namely Health, climate change, emerging trends in ICT and Agriculture.

The winners of the various categories were as follows:

• Innovation in Agricultural Sector/Smart faming Technologies: In this category, three universities contested for the 2023 USIU-Africa innovation and Hackathon event; USIU-Africa, Umma University, and Machakos University. USIU-Africa emerged as the winner in this category, while Umma University were the runners-up, and Machakos University took the third position.
• Innovation in Health Informatics / Digital Health Technologies: Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) was first in this category, while USIU-Africa and the University of Nairobi emerged second, with a project called Afrimedique presented by Moses Ochieng and Lucy Maina.
• Innovation in Climatic Change Technologies: Only Umma University and the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) competed in this category, with TUK winning in the category with their project dubbed The Avengers while Umma were second with their project, Nairobits.
• General Creative Technologies /Emerging trends in ICT: Winners from this category included USIU-Africa, Kenyatta University and KCA University, with USIU-Africa taking the top three positions. Robert Ochiel and Prince Mumo emerged winners with their project name called QPID Technologies. The second position was taken by Team ENSERS presented by Brackly Murunga. The third position was taken by Team Vision.

On the second day, the students competed in the Blipearth app hackathon, and USIU-Africa emerged as the winner, followed by Kiriri Women’s University of Science and Technology and JKUAT. The event was aimed at encouraging creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork among participants, as well as promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the various fields.

The USIU-Africa Innovation Day and Hackathon is an annual event organized by the School of Science and Technology since 2019 with participants from different universities in Kenya.