Research Seminar: Eric Umuhoza

May 05, 2025

1:00 p.m. CAT

A203

Building with What We Have: Software Engineering and Data Science for Africa’s Development Challenges

Faculty, postdocs, and research staff are particularly encouraged to attend; students are also welcome.

Speaker: Eric Umuhoza, assistant teaching professor at CMU-Africa

Abstract: This seminar highlights ongoing research that applies software engineering and data science to develop practical, context-aware solutions to development challenges in Africa. Rather than focusing on only fundamental or theoretical innovations, this work emphasizes deep problem understanding and solution design that is tailored to the realities on the ground—where infrastructure, social behavior, and economic conditions often differ significantly from other global contexts.

In transport systems, we explore efforts to understand urban and rural mobility patterns, implement reliable public transport digital payment systems that automate fraud and fare evasion detection, and democratize road traffic crash (RTC) reporting to include broader community participation. In agriculture, we present data-driven innovations in pig farming that prioritize practical record keeping, disease control, and farmer engagement to facilitate knowledge exchange and locally relevant best practices.

The core message is simple—but, in my opinion, powerful: we do not need to wait for the next breakthrough in AI or data science to solve many of the challenges our societies face. We already have sufficient knowledge, data, and (hopefully) technical capacity to create solutions that matter, so long as we design them with our specific context in mind.

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