Three-Day Festival Under Theme ‘Demystifying Science, Technology And Innovation For Community Development’ Ends With Calls For AI Policy And More Graduate Programmes
Kyambogo University brought the curtain down on its 5th STEAM Festival on Wednesday April 23, 2026 — concluding three days of competitive research, innovation exhibitions, panel discussions, and interdisciplinary collaboration that have cemented the university’s position as one of Uganda’s leading hubs for science, technology, and community-driven innovation.
The festival, which ran from April 21 to 23 under the theme “Demystifying Science, Technology and Innovation for Community Development,” was held concurrently with a competitive research grants dissemination conference. First launched by the Faculty of Science in 2022, the STEAM Festival has grown steadily into a multidisciplinary platform that draws students, academics, industry partners, and policymakers together around the question of how Uganda’s universities can drive real-world solutions.
The Winner: A Biodegradable Medical Textile
Of the 36 participants who exhibited and competed across the festival, one innovation stood above the rest.
The winning entry was a Wet Spinning of Bio-compatible, Biodegradable and Medical Service innovation — a textile technology project with direct applications in the medical field. The research was led by Muguluma Wahab, a Year Three student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Textile Technology at Kyambogo University.
That a third-year undergraduate student produced the festival’s winning innovation is itself a statement about what competence-based, research-oriented university education can deliver when students are given the platform and the encouragement to apply their learning to real problems.
The second runners-up were the team behind Agri-Buddy — an AI-generated agricultural platform that provides real-time market prices for agricultural products, IoT sensors for crop and livestock management, and tools for crop and livestock disease management. The innovation speaks directly to Uganda’s agro-industrialisation priorities and the growing role of digital technology in transforming the agricultural sector.
The Panel Discussion: AI And Competence-Based Education
The festival’s final panel discussion tackled one of the most consequential questions in Uganda’s higher education landscape right now: the relationship between artificial intelligence and competence-based education and training.
Panellists argued that AI has a natural and powerful role to play in a competence-based system — specifically in its ability to adapt learning to individual student needs, focusing on mastery of competencies rather than the memorisation of content that has historically dominated Uganda’s examination-heavy education model.
The discussion was timely. Uganda’s universities are under a regulatory deadline from NCHE to transition all programmes to competence-based curricula by the 2027-2028 academic year — and the question of how AI tools can support that transition, rather than undermine it, is one that institutions need to begin answering now.
Closing Remarks: Calls For AI Policy And More Graduate Programmes
Peter Obanda, Dean of the School of Management and Entrepreneurship at Kyambogo University, used his closing remarks to challenge the university community to fundamentally rethink its teaching approach.
“The theme has emphasised us to rethink our teaching approach in redefining skills for the mind which are adaptable and innovative,” he said. He commended partnerships and sponsors for helping bridge the gap between theoretical concepts and practical workplace realities — a connection he described as essential in competence-based learning.
His closing line captured the nuanced position that serious educators are taking on AI: “AI cannot replace our thinking, but it helps to streamline our output.”
Vice Chancellor Prof. Eli Katunguka used his closing address to raise several institutional challenges that the festival had brought into sharp relief.
On graduate programmes, he was direct: “There is need to create more graduate programmes to advance the kind of research the university conducts — because to get a research grant, you need to have a graduate student on the project.”
On the purpose of research, he set a high bar: “Good research should end up in the creation of products. This should be a serious concern.”
On the competence-based curriculum, he acknowledged a challenge that several education stakeholders have raised: “CBC has been introduced at a time when teachers have not been adequately trained, and therefore this is a challenge that needs to be addressed as soon as possible for its positive effectiveness.”
And on AI specifically, he made a call that positions Kyambogo as one of the first Ugandan universities to formally acknowledge the need for institutional AI governance: “As a university, there should be an AI policy. This will bridge the gap.”
What The Festival Represents
Now in its fifth edition, the Kyambogo STEAM Festival has become something more than an annual showcase. It is a deliberate institutional statement about what kind of university Kyambogo intends to be — one that takes innovation seriously, that creates space for students to test ideas against real-world problems, and that understands the relationship between academic research and community development as central rather than peripheral to its mission.
For the 36 students and teams who exhibited this year, the festival was an opportunity to demonstrate that Uganda’s next generation of scientists, engineers, technologists, and entrepreneurs is already at work — in laboratories, workshops, and classrooms — building the solutions the country needs.
Muguluma Wahab’s biodegradable medical textile innovation, developed in his third year of undergraduate study, is perhaps the clearest proof of that.
