From June 16th to June 19th, Paris was hosting VivaTech 2021, a global technology event that brought together the best innovation actors aiming to ignite positive change in business and for society. From the past events, VivaTech has proven to be a global catalyst for digital transformation and startup growth.

Thanks to the support from Ag-partners Rwanda, four students from the African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT) under the supervision of Dr Jimmy Nsenga have been able to attend this year’s edition. The students are Eric Nizeyimana a PHD student and 3 second cohort Masters students namely Samson Ooko, Marvin Ogore and Rosemary Nalwanga. The main foundation of their different research works is to develop smart applications with AI running on tiny embedded devices, a cutting-edge technology and research field known as edge AI or TinyML.

Samson whose thesis is based on edge AI application for prediction of respiratory diseases got a unique opportunity to interact and share ideas with leading company CEOs working on the application of AI in healthcare for diagnostics and drug design. The move to non invasive early diagnosis was emphasised with the participants appreciating the efforts of Samson and ACEIoT towards making this a reality in Africa. Rosemary working on environmental conservation using a precision farming system participated in sessions that emphasised the need for such solutions and got a chance to share challenges and opportunities that can further be explored especially in relation to connectivity problems in rural Saharan Africa and the environmental degradation nightmare. Last but not least, Eric who is doing research on monitoring air pollution using blockchain, AI and edge computing attended the session which was oriented on IoT and learned how IoT serves a transformation in making solutions to real world problems. Marvin got to understand unique solutions on Cloud & Data Management using deeptech & AI Tech for the Environment. The technology can be used to Accelerate the Ecological Transformation through data & people and leverage the technology not only in weather monitoring but also in disease detection use cases such as cholera outbreaks.

VivaTech 2021 Entrance