By Mulengera ReportersTheme “Enhancing Policy Advocacy for Sustainable Regional Industrial Growth,” Uganda’s 2nd Regional Industrialization Conference was this week held (for the second time after last year’s) at Serena Conference Centre in Kampala where business leaders from both the government and private sector camped for two days (Tuesday-Wednesday) to reflect on the industrialization’s potential to create jobs and spearhead the economic growth and transformation of the EAC member countries. Speaking as part of a panel discussion on day 2, PSFU Board member Prof Victoria Sekitoleko dedicated part of her submission to commending fellow scholar Prof Charles Kwesiga (the Executive Director of Uganda Industrial Research Institute, UIRI) who had spoken during the preceding session. Presenting a paper tiled “Industrialization in the Age of AI & Technological Disruption,” Kwesiga had challenged fellow leaders in government to wholeheartedly embrace robotics technology and AI-enabled processes because this inevitably is now the way to go. The candidness and boldness with which Kwesiga spoke prompted Prof Sekitoleko to describe him as one fearless government MDA head with remarkable ‘guts to step where angels don’t dare.’ She praised Kwesiga for boldly and consistently being outspoken about the need for all government MDA heads and leaders to become pro-AI and pro-4th Industrial Revolution. Sekitoleko, who was here to talk about what must change for the agricultural value chain to be able to play its rightful role to facilitate industrialization in the EAC region, thanked Kwesiga for being relentless even when many in government are clearly lukewarm and seemingly disinterested in much-needed disruptions technology will keep bringing into the Ugandan way of life and how public goods are delivered to the citizenry. In his presentation, which largely dwelled on his personal experiences, life story and his struggles to impact the work culture among the staff he inherited in the early 2000s at the Nakawa-based UIRI, which he has since transformed into a regional centre of excellence for industrialization with huge manufacturing and training facilities at both Nakawa and Namanve, Prof Kwesiga demonstrated how technology and AI are here to cause more good than harm. He made reference to the hotel he was hosted at recently during one of his many international travels where he was pleased to realize that concierge services were rapidly being phased out in order for guests to self-serve themselves leveraging technology and AI. He spoke about most international hotels becoming cashless so that guests pay for their meals and the rest of the bill using visa cards. He also recalled recently virtually monitoring guests at a party at his home in Kabale, which happened recently, while he was away on international travel. He has CCTV technology at his home which enables him to physically see what is happening at his home, while thousands of miles away, while using his mobile gadget.Referring to how he went about fundraising to land the cash with which UIRI’s $10m worth tech-powered industrial training complex at Namanve was built, Prof Kwesiga challenged fellow GoU MDA heads to think harder and outside the box by participating in the raising of funding as opposed to sitting back and waiting to lament about government’s failure to adequately fund their work. In a bid to demonstrate how far he had gotten UIRI from, Prof Kwesiga recalled those days, more than 25 years ago, when he had just returned to Uganda and was deployed to contribute to the country’s industrialization journey by heading UIRI which increasingly was becoming a moribund organization. This was mid-2000s and Kwesiga found 44 employees who were just coming to office everyday to pass time without having much to hope for. That many of them gossiped and discouraged him while quietly laughing at the zeal and enthusiasm he kept demonstrating about the need to revitalize UIRI. He recalled the day power went off in the middle of the power point presentation he was making before potential UIRI development partners from GiZ, a Germany foreign development assistance organization. He recalled the German guests sarcastically telling him that clearly UIRI wasn’t a top priority to the government of Uganda, evidence being the organization’s inability to overcome basic challenges such as unreliable power supply. At the RIC Conference, Kwesiga challenged fellow MDA heads to realize that it will take clear-headedness and innovative leadership to get the government prioritize funding of technology and AI-related initiatives at their organizations. In his case, he said he would remain a relentless salesman of ideas relating to the need to mainstream AI in the delivery of public goods and services to the people of Uganda by GoU agencies. He also spoke about the problem of lack of qualified or skilled personally who can sustainably champion robotics, the operationalization of AI and technology in government service delivery programmes. Kwesiga asserted that UIRI was established to help fill such skill gaps and went ahead to demonstrate how the Industrial Research Institute that he leads has deliberately been contributing in that direction through its Namanve and Nakawa premises. He regrettably reflected on the fact that Uganda doesn’t have the relevant curriculum yet its leaders claim to be committed to the ideals of the 4th Industrial Revolution and it’s related ventures like AI. Referencing on the young man he recalled getting into contact with at his bank, an engineer serving as a teller, Prof Kwesiga demonstrated how AI and technology advancements require young people to be flexible and adaptive to be able to survive in today’s rapidly changing world. He explained how adapting to new technological capabilities had enabled the UIRI he leads to save a lot of money that used to be expended on flying in HPLC engineers from Cairo, Egypt to come and effect routine and mandatory servicing of their state-of-art training equipment at Namanve. That these days they use teleconferencing technology to get the same UIRI machines’ servicing tasks performed on UIRI’s machines, which has saved the Institute a lot of money. He also illustrated how knowledge transfer has been enabled and thereby strengthening the skills and confidence of Uganda’s young software and megatronics engineers at UIRI. Some of the beneficiaries have gone on to win international competitions and subsequently landing international jobs for themselves. He told a story of a young Kyambogo graduate who leveraged the training opportunities at UIRI and is currently gainfully employed under Rolls Royce. Kwesiga also spoke about UIRI’s limited capacity to retain those it has trained because of inability to pay them better than what can be earned from international employment. An industrial engineer himself, Kwesiga had started his presentation by making it clear that Uganda was a unique situation because it’s a country full of people who are deeply knowledgeable but not practical and of people who talk a lot even on subjects or topics they are totally ignorant about. He narrated his story how he started out as a young industrial engineer as early as August 1982 in Cleveland Ohio in the US. He lived and worked there for 26 years. In that period, he taught at the University and also rose to become a corporate executive. Referencing on his own personal struggles as he sought for patient capital to start a farming enterprise in the Western Ugandan district of Ntungamo, Kwesiga also spoke about expensive capital being an impediment to sustainable industrialization in the region. He went through a lot to land the funding he needed for his farming activities in Ntungamo until when he met then Stanbic Bank official Patrick Mweheire whose dad he had gone to school with at Ntare. He recalled how another Kampala bank, which had ignored him all along making it clear they don’t fund farming, all of a sudden came to him begging. He reluctantly took up their loan facility and repaid it all back in just three years, which resulted into a win-win situation for all parties involved. The promptness with which he repaid the loan surprised many at the bank and changed their view towards agricultural loans. He said this experience taught him and top bank executives one lesson-namely that farming and agriculture had much more potential than had previously been thought to be the case. Prof Kwesiga also recalled being President Museveni’s pioneer advisor on AGOA and how he smelt a rat months into the job and signalled his boss there was nothing Uganda stood to benefit from that American opportunity that aimed at mitigating tariff barriers on African exports seeking to reach US market. He was concerned that there was no quantity and quality products in Uganda that could sustainably be gainfully exported to the US. In 2004, Museveni reluctantly agreed to let him go and that’s how Kwesiga ended up heading UIRI, then a very small organization confined in its premises at Nakawa. It’s where the President insisted he goes and makes a contribution to nation-building from. He told leaders at the Industrial conference how he found 44 staffers who were pretending to be very busy working yet in actual sense nothing was going on. There was a lot of cynicism and staffers always whispered this wasn’t America where Kwesiga was coming from. That nothing would ever work. They believed it was a matter of time before his enthusiasm burns out. Yet all this cynicism never prevented Prof Kwesiga from moving mountains to the extent that within 6 years of taking charge, UIRI had grown into a region centre of excellence for industrialization to the extent that former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyata handed him an award of excellence in recognition of his transformative leadership. In the same presentation, Kwesiga also explained what UIRI exactly does and its mandate. He also took his audience through the journey to establish UIRI’s Technology Development Centre, which is now a huge complex standing tall at the Kampala Industrial Park based at Namanve on the outskirts of Kampala City. He spoke of the marvel that has been created there and asked his audience to visit and see for themselves. In place at Namanve, are dozens of state-of-the-art technology transfer and skills training workshops which have been used to skill and churn out thousands of young people, on behalf of the GoU. There are training and skilling programs for both University graduates and unemployed and not formally educated young men and women who get enrolled to undergo months of training and they leave with vocational skills which they leveraged to become self employed and be able to sustain themselves while contributing to development and economic transformation of their country. In order to illustrate the extent to which some of Uganda’s political leaders are yet to adequately appreciate technology and need to integrate AI in service delivery processes, Prof Kwesiga told a story of a government minister who one time visited and instead of appreciating what is o n ground at Namanve, began pushing selfish agendas. After being taken around to see the 4th Industrial Revolution-related projects, the robotics, the AI and technology-powered workshops in place, the minister asked for training for young men and women to go and operate his laundry-making factory upcountry. The minister tried dissing what UIRI was doing and proposed to interest and bring in two South Africans who he claimed would help the UIRI Namanve complex to become technologically more aligned. It later emerged the minister didn’t understand how technologically-advanced UIRI’s industrial complex at Namanve was. The Namanve complex was established at a cost of $10m, none of which was from the GoU coffers. It was a grant from the Chinese government whose officials saw, listened to Prof Kwesiga’s vision, backed by the President, and bought in. Back to the inadequately knowledgeable government official: The minister was surprised when the South Africans he instigated came in and upon inspection, they realized Uganda was very far in terms of integrating technology in its industrialization agenda and all this was courtesy of the great work that was being done at UIRI’s Namanve complex. Saying there was nothing for them to guide UIRI to improve upon, the South Africans reported back to the minister how they had never seen something like this in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa.In fact, they suggested to encourage delegations from other African countries to begin making benchmarking trips to Uganda and learn from the UIRI story. Through these very South Africans, UIRI has since signed a MoU to go into electric transformers’ manufacturing business at it’s Namanve Industrial complex. Kwesiga also tickled people at this year’s regional industrialization conference to begin thinking about how AI and robotics technology can be leveraged to improve traffic management in Kampala and other Ugandan cities so that the Uganda Police Force can stop burdening its officers and men with having to spend the whole day sweating and standing in the sun purporting to be directing vehicles and motorists on how to manoeuvre through busy traffic lights junctions. He demonstrated how adequate integration of technology into traffic management can free up additional human resource for the Police Force while at the same time improving the overall public transport management in Uganda. Kwesiga also used his diabetic condition to demonstrate how AI can improve management of complex health conditions for Ugandans. He personally wears a sensor which technology has enabled him to link to his mobile phone to enable him instantly verify and accurately tell his sugar glucose levels. He demonstrated how his phone alerts him to that reality each time he needs insulin application. He said this technology has helped to make his diabetic condition more manageable than would have been the case. He added that his insulin-sensor is of a type that isn’t locally available in Uganda, implying that this is one area Uganda must deliberately leverage AI and adequately invest in the technological revolution to make life more bearable for the country’s citizens. He also praised young AI engineers at his Namanve complex who innovated and came up with a technology that enabled his insulin-sensor to be successfully connected to his phone to enable him detect any glucose level changes in his body in real time. He said without those young innovators doing what they did (enabling effective connectivity of his insulin-sensor to his phone), he would have to fly back to Istanbul Turkey to have his dilemma solved.Prof Kwesiga also spoke about the irrigation technology those same young innovators had successfully unveiled to support agricultural productivity in the country. He also revealed that proto-type for Uganda’s locally-innovated insulin-sensor was being developed and will soon be readily available at UIRI for deployment and mass usage.Fascinated by Kwesiga’s presentation, Prof Victoria Sekitoleko asserted that people like the UIRI boss ought to be at the country’s apex decision-making table more than anyone else because they appreciate the value of adapting to the 4th Industrial Revolution and what our country needs to do and how in order to avoid being left behind. 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