Deogratius Kiggude

Deogratius Kiggudde is a distinguished professional with a wide humanitarian and development program management background, starting off in civil construction residential households and roads in Uganda, and then moving into the open data and infrastructure ecosystem where he interacted with multiple digital public goods, and infrastructure projects across Africa. Before joining Carnegie Mellon University Africa, Kiggudde served as the senior program manager for technology and implementation at the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) in the Eastern and Southern Africa Hub. In this role,Kiggudde was crucial in planning, strategizing, coordinating, and overseeing the implementation of both remote and field open data projects and programs, ensuring open data is acquired, integrated, and used most effectively and efficiently across multiple humanitarian and development organizations, governments, and communities across Africa. His involvement with HOT began in 2015, where he initially contributed as a data collector and team leader for the Mapping Financial Inclusion project. Deogratius holds a bachelor of science degree in quantity surveying, a postgraduate diploma in monitoring and evaluation and a PMI project management professional certificate. His professional journey is underscored by his enthusiasm for open data infrastructure, agriculture, construction, and the integration of open technology in these domains.

Throughout his career, Kiggudde has gained extensive experience in managing projects across Africa in the humanitarian and development sectors with partners that include the World Bank, USAID, UNHCR, and UNDP particularly emphasizing community digital capacitation and skills growth. Over the years, Kiggudde has led and been involved in various community digital capacitation initiatives that focused on enhancing digital literacy and building technical skills within communities across Africa including countries like Zambia, Kenya, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, thereby empowering youth and fostering sustainable development through the use of open data. In addition to his professional work, Kiggudde is also an entrepreneur and a vibrant farmer, bringing a unique perspective and a wealth of practical knowledge to his roles.