Hackathon produces tech uplifting agricultural workers

Sep 3, 2026

On July 11, Carnegie Mellon University Africa hosted the Umuhinzi Digital Hackathon, a student-driven event dedicated to furthering research and innovation in agricultural technology, or agritech. The hackathon brought together nine Rwandan universities to co-create actionable, tech-driven solutions for the agricultural sector.

The hackathon was organized by a research team led by CMU-Africa’s George Okeyo, head of academics and associate teaching professor, in collaboration with assistant teaching professor Moise Busogi, assistant teaching professor Emmanuel Ndayishimiye, and distinguished service professor Sarath Tennakoon. The event is part of a research project titled "An Aggregated Digital Platform for Agriculture for Supporting Decision Making by Agricultural Sector Stakeholders," which is funded by the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST), Rwanda, and supported by CMU-Africa as well as the Kigali Collaborative Research Center (KCRC). Dr. Okeyo and a team of student and recent alumni volunteers, Patricia Muriira, Sally Musanga, Richard Munyemana, Triphonia Kilasara, and Brian Kipkirui, collaborated to organize this hackathon.

The following universities participated in the event:

  • CMU-Africa (host)
  • University of Rwanda
  • Adventist University of Central Africa (AUCA)
  • Institute of Applied Sciences Ruhengeri (INES-Ruhengeri)
  • Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA)
  • University of Kigali
  • Mount Kigali University
  • University of Lay Adventists of Kigali (UNILAK)
  • Kigali Independent University (ULK)

The Umuhinzi Digital Hackathon featured undergraduate and postgraduate students working across the disciplines of agriculture, engineering, technology, and business. These students tackled challenges across the agricultural value chain, from inputs and producers to distributors and consumers.

Among these students, three teams placed as winners in the hackathon. All three teams presented projects judged to have successfully engineered cutting-edge digital platforms that address critical agricultural challenges.

 

  • Group photo of students and staff wearing conference lanyards, posed on steps outside a building with a Carnegie Mellon University Africa sign.
  • Group of people wearing matching black T-shirts and lanyards pose on steps outside a Carnegie Mellon University Africa building entrance.
  • A man speaks into a microphone during a presentation in a classroom, with a projected slide and other attendees standing nearby.
  • A speaker holds a microphone and presents beside a podium and laptop, with four team members in matching T-shirts standing behind and a “College of Engineering” banner nearby.
  • Man speaking into a microphone during a university presentation, with two other participants and a banner for the College of Engineering in the background.
  • Presenter with a microphone stands beside a projected slide titled “The Credit Gap Is Real and It’s Solvable,” showing statistics on Rwandan households, mobile money reach, and live agri-aware mobile

    • Team #1: Umuhinzi Trust

    Team members: Innocent Anyaele, Martin Koome, Aimee Kevine Isange Sebageni, Francis Waithaka, and Jean D’Amour Kubwimana

    The first-place winners of the Umuhinzi Digital Hackathon were Team Umuhinzi Trust. Their solution addresses a major structural barrier in agriculture: moving Rwanda’s smallholder farmers “from invisible to investable.”

    Umuhinzi Trust is a Kinyarwanda-language Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and AI voice platform designed for feature phones. By enabling farmers to log harvest data, quantities, and sales, the platform creates verifiable digital records and leverages Unified Payments Interface-linked market listings to turn everyday farming activity into alternative credit histories. This enables financial institutions to assess risk using real data rather than demanding extreme collateral.

    The team’s commitment to financial inclusion and market transparency exemplifies the transformative power of digital agriculture.

    Team #2: Project Crop Health

    Team members: Jean D. Amour Niyokwizera, Ambika Pierrete, Byiringiro Enock, Niyonkuru Jean de Dieu, and Nishimwe Gad

    Taking second place is Team Project Crop Health, with a game-changing innovation in crop protection. Their project addresses the destructive threat of crop diseases like late blight, which can wipe out up to 40% of a smallholder farmer’s yield overnight.

    The team engineered a zero-maintenance, solar-powered Internet of Things hardware node built specifically for tropical, off-grid terrains. Using edge computing and localized risk logic via an extended Wallin forecasting system, the node tracks canopy-level microclimate parameters inside the crop in real time.

    When biological infection thresholds are reached, the system dispatches automated SMS alerts in Kinyarwanda over 2G networks. This gives farmers up to 60 hours of advance warning to take action, cutting fungicide input costs by up to 57% and protecting their livelihoods.

    Team #3: Horizons

    Team members: Lynne Chepkwony, Frank Ebeledike, Mugisha Emile Roger, and Ahadi Cyizere

    The second runner-up at the Umuhinzi Digital Hackathon was Team Horizons with their solution, Imboni: an AI-powered credit scoring platform for Rwandan farmers.

    Their project tackles a major obstacle in rural finance: traditional credit models, which misinterpret seasonal agricultural income as financial instability. Imboni is a two-sided, agri-aware credit platform that automatically translates mobile money transaction history into fair, explainable credit scores tuned specifically to farming cycles.

    Accessible via standard feature-phone USSD, the system allows farmers to request microloans on demand. An automated engine assesses risk in real time and enables disbursement of funds directly to mobile wallets, giving lenders, regulators, and farmers complete transparency.

    Congratulations to everyone who participated in the hackathon and to these teams for engineering platforms empowering Rwandans working in agriculture!