ISHAKA — Kampala International University Western Campus (KIU-WC) has organized a 3-day Research Dissemination and Innovation Conference (KRIC 2019) tagged – Multi-Sectoral Collaboration Towards the Prevention and Management of Non-Communicable Diseases.
The conference targets staff and students in higher education institutions as well as the entire public.
The event already underway will run till Friday September 13 2019, at New Biomedical Block, 3rd Floor, KIU Western Campus in Ishaka-Bushenyi, Uganda.
The key note speakers for the event include Prof. Andre Renzaho of Western Sydney University, Australia, Dr. Gerald Mutungi; Commissioner Non-Communicable Diseases Uganda, and Prof. Fred Wabwire Mangen of the College of Health Health Sciences, Makerere University.
Also, gracing the occasion are delegates from the Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation, Uganda, among other notable personalities to mention but a few.
The Kampala International University Research Dissemination and Innovation Conference (KRIC) is slated to become an annual event aimed at growing and strengthening a research and innovation culture among all students and staff at KIU Western Campus and other universities.
Over time, students have been involved in scientific research and innovation on various local and international platforms.
However, only a few students have been able to share their innovations on these platforms owing to lack of enough publicity and access to the media.
So far, two outstanding innovations have been shared extensively with the science community, the Petograph App; an application and software that can be used by health practitioners to improve diagnosis, management and follow up of pregnant mothers with pre-eclampsia (Tsamiya, 2016) and the HDA App; an offline application that helps patients to verify drugs, medical personnel and health centres.
Aside the huge strides made by these two innovators, a number of other students have not been given the opportunity to share their research or innovations.
Thus, being the reason for the KRIC initiative, as it will go a long way to showcase our home-grown innovations locally and internationally.
More so, Africa has previously been challenged by infectious diseases; however, the continent is now currently facing a new challenge of non-communicable diseases. In Uganda for example, according to the 2018 WHO report on non-communicable diseases, a death rate of 33% was accounted for due to the prevalence of non-communicable diseases. Consequently, there is an urgent need for Africa to start addressing this challenge and develop interventions towards these diseases that are suitable for resource limited settings.
The KRIC-2019, seek to avail a multidisciplinary platform for knowledge dissemination on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to around 20,000 students in various universities within and outside Uganda.
Through this conference, the university hopes to contribute towards fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goal 3, which aims at ensuring healthy lives and promoting well being of all ages.
It is believed that when research findings are shared with the scientific community, the industry, policy makers and the community at large, there are higher chances of developing new interventions towards a number of challenging diseases. As over 2,000 students from universities across the country, policy makers, pharmaceutical companies, industries, research organisations, funding agencies and the community, are expected to participate in the conference.
The conference is also packed with Pre, Main, and Post Conference activities that will challenge the thinking of all participants as well as enable them explore the heights. Side attractions like KRIC Run, Hub of Science Tour, Game Drive, among others, have been enshrined in the programme to make the event rewarding and memorable.
