Three students from Mountains of the Moon University (MMU) have brought international acclaim to Uganda after winning Second Prize at the Huawei ICT Competition 2025–2026 Global Final held in Shenzhen, China.
The AgriChain team, comprising Bachelor of Computer Science students Aaron Masendi, Elvis Oko and Wasswa Atibu from the university’s Faculty of Science, Technology and Innovation (FOSTI), impressed judges with an innovation-focused solution that stood out among entries from some of the world’s most competitive universities.
MMU emerged as the second-best team globally in the Innovation Track and the highest-ranked team from Africa. Teams from Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa followed behind in the continental rankings.
The team’s success was achieved under the mentorship of MMU instructor Alinaitwe Mukonyenzi, who guided the students through the national, regional and global stages of the competition.
“Aaron, Elvis, and Wasswa put in extraordinary effort. They did not just prepare, they believed, they pushed boundaries, and they showed the world what MMU students are made of,” Mukonyenzi said.
Uganda’s accelerating digital transformation, top-tier tech students from Uganda Martyrs University and Mountains of the Moon University delivered a commanding performance at the global finals of the 2025-2026 Huawei ICT Competition held at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, China from 1st -5th June 2026.
Operating under the global theme “Connection, Glory, Future,” the prestigious event placed Uganda’s brightest minds against the absolute best young tech talent in the world, solidifying the nation’s standing as an emerging powerhouse in the sub-Saharan technology sector.
This year’s Huawei ICT Competition marked the 10th edition of the annual competitions and the largest of its kind since its inception, drawing an unprecedented 220,000 students and educators from more than 2,000 universities across 100 countries.
Following a series of preliminary, national and regional elimination rounds out of the 1600 applicants from various institutions of higher learning across the country, Uganda successfully secured two spots among the 131 elite teams that advanced to the global finals in China.
Representing the Pearl of Africa, Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi and Mountains of the Moon University, Fort Portal students competed directly in the highly specialized Computing Track and Innovation Track securing the third prize and second prize respectively. The finalists faced an intensive 8-hour live laboratory examination that pushed their capabilities to the limit across Huawei’s cutting-edge technologies.
Beyond standard technical proficiency, the Ugandan contingent drew immense praise for focusing their technological projects on localized, high-impact socio-economic solutions. Leveraging AI modeling and big data analytics via Huawei Cloud frameworks, the teams presented architectures designed to solve critical domestic issues. The Computing team focused on areas of Advanced Cloud Infrastructure configuration, Open-source operating systems like openEuler and Next-generation computing architectures securing the third prize in the competition.
The AgriChain Team from the Innovation track presented an AI agricultural solution. In a major bid to modernize Uganda’s agricultural sector and advance the nation’s Vision 2040 $500 billion GDP target, a groundbreaking technological ecosystem has been unveiled to eliminate systemic market inefficiencies and empower the 68% of the workforce engaged in farming.
While Uganda boasts 80% arable land, local farmers have long been locked out of their own markets due to a lack of price visibility and verifiable output, forcing them to sell to middle-men for a fraction of market value, endure up to 45% post-harvest losses, and borrow at predatory interest rates.
To resolve this, a new integrated platform deploys three advanced modules powered by Huawei technologies via the Transparent Agri-Marketplace to establish transparent bidding and smart-contract-driven trade records, AI Predictive Field Analyst to detect crop disease with over 97% accuracy and forecast yields with 95% confidence offline and the Future Harvest Contracts feature which tokenizes these verified forecasts into tradable smart contracts that serve as bankable collateral, unlocking formal credit. By transforming an informal, vulnerable sector into a formalized, data-driven enterprise, this initiative provides Ugandan farmers with the structural economic resilience, financial inclusion, and price visibility required to thrive.
Uganda’s impressive showing at the global level highlights the compounding success of the local Huawei ICT Academy initiative. Through strategic partnerships with local universities, the academy continues to bridge the gap between academic theory and practical industry requirements.
Huawei Uganda remains deeply committed to nurturing this local talent with the continued support from the Government of Uganda. Special appreciation to the Government of Uganda, Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, Ministry of Education and Sports and the Embassy of The People’s Republic of China in Uganda and academia partners for cultivating digital talent, and providing the foundational infrastructure required to drive Uganda’s National Development Plan forward into a digitally inclusive future.
The Huawei ICT Competition is a competitive ICT talent exchange event developed by Huawei for college and university students globally. It aims to promote the healthy development of the ICT talent ecosystem and support the integration of industry and education.
Since its launch in 2015, the competition has been gaining significant momentum, with more countries and students joining each year. Globally, it has been recognized as a key partner flagship program by UNESCO’s Global
