The AI research group at Makerere University specialises in the application of artificial intelligence and data science—including, for example, methods from machine learning, computer vision and predictive analytics—to problems in the developing world.

Artificial intelligence and data science is useful in this context for:

1. intelligence gathering, in order to combine different and possibly unconventional sources of data in order to create insights for decision making;
2. compensating for a lack of human experts, for example in diagnosis of disease;
3. choosing how to allocate resources or to increase efficiency of markets.

We have carried out research in areas such as the automated diagnosis of both crop and human diseases, auction design for mobile commodity markets, analysis of traffic patterns in African cities, and the use of telecoms and remote sensing data for anticipating the spread of infectious disease. More information about our research agenda is here.

The group is based within the College of Computing and Information Sciences in Makerere University, Uganda, where we have dedicated lab space for around 15 researchers. We also have active collaborations with universities and other organisations in several countries; more information about team members and collaborators is here.