General

First Makerere Workshop on Social Systems & Computation

Published

15 years ago

November 29, 2010

Summary Top researchers from Northwestern University (Chicago), University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and Makerere (Kampala) are teaming up to offer a workshop on cutting-edge methods for computational modeling of social systems, algorithm design, and machine learning. The sessions will take place between December 3rd and 10th, and there is no cost for attendance; however, registration is mandatory.

Summary Top researchers from Northwestern University (Chicago), University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and Makerere (Kampala) are teaming up to offer a workshop on cutting-edge methods for computational modeling of social systems, algorithm design, and machine learning. The sessions will take place between December 3rd and 10th, and there is no cost for attendance; however, registration is mandatory.

Attendance is limited to academic staff working at a Ugandan university; students doing research in related areas may also be given special permission to attend if space permits. Participants will have the opportunity to publish papers in official, reviewed workshop proceedings at a later date. A certificate of completion will be provided to participants who attend at least two thirds of workshop sessions.

Overview Traditionally, computer science has viewed data as coming from either an adversarial source or from nature itself, giving rise to worst-case and average-case design and analysis of optimization algorithms. In recent years with the advent of modern technologies like the Internet, it has become increasingly apparent that neither of these assumptions reflects reality. Data is neither adversarial nor average, but rather inputs to algorithms are constructed by a diverse set of self-interested agents in an economy, all aiming to maximize their own happiness. Thus the raw data is often not available to an algorithm designer, but must be solicited from the agents–that is, the designer faces an economic constraint. The primary goal of this workshop is to explore the implications of this observation. We will study the performance of algorithms in the presence of utility-maximizing agents and ask whether alternate designs might create incentives for agents to act more optimally. Simultaneously, we will look at other more traditional optimization problems such as approximation and learning and techniques to solve them, pointing out that these may often be leveraged to solve issues in the economic setting.

Related Research Areas Computer Science Theory; Artificial Intelligence; Economics; Business

Format The workshop will consist of six 3-hour lectures, plus meal/breakout sessions for informal research discussion. Spaces are strictly limited, and attendees must pre-register. We will aim to select topics and session times that are best for our participants. To register, and to indicate your preferences for topics and dates, please complete the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WWGMKZG.

List of Candidate Topics The workshop will consist of up to six of the following twelve topics.

Introduction to Game Theory
Game theory is the mathematical study of interaction among independent, self-interested agents. It has been applied to disciplines as diverse as economics, political science, biology, psychology, linguistics—and computer science. This tutorial will introduce what has become the dominant branch of game theory, called noncooperative game theory, and will specifically describe normal-form games, a canonical representation in this discipline. The tutorial will be motivated by the question: "In a strategic interaction, what joint outcomes make sense?"

Voting Theory
Voting (or "Social Choice") theory adopts a“designer perspective” to multiagent systems, asking what rules should be put in place by the authority (the “designer”) orchestrating a set of agents. Specifically, how should a central authority pool the preferences of different agents so as to best reflect the wishes of the population as a whole? (Contrast this with Game Theory, whichadopts what might be called the “agent perspective”: its focus is on making statements about how agents should or would act in a given situation.) This tutorial will describe famous voting rules, show problems with them, and explain Arrow's famous impossibility result.

Mechanism Design and Auctions
Social choice theory is nonstrategic: it takes the preferences of agents as given, and investigates ways in which they can be aggregated. But of course those preferences are usually not known. Instead, agents must be asked to declare them, which they may do dishonestly. Since as a designer you wish to find an optimal outcome with respect to the agents’ true preferences (e.g., electing a leader that truly reflects the agents’ preferences), optimizing with respect to the declared preferences will not in general achieve the objective. This tutorial will introduce Mechanism Design, the study of identifying socially desirable protocols for making decisions in such settings. It will describe the core principles behind this theory, and explain the famous "Vickrey-Clarke-Groves" mechanism, an ingenious technique for selecting globally-utility-maximizing outcomes even among selfish agents. It will also describe Auction Theory, the most famous application of mechanism design. Auctions are mechanisms that decide who should receive a scarce resource, and that impose payments upon some or all participants, based on agents' "bids".

Constraint Satisfaction Problem Solving
This hands-on tutorial will teach participants about solving Constraint Satisfaction Problems using search and constraint propagation techniques. This is a representation language from artificial intelligence, used to describe problems in scheduling, circuit verification, DNA structure prediction, vehicle routing, and many other practical problems. The tutorial will consider the problem of solving Sudoku puzzles as a running example. By the end of the session, participants will have written software (in Python) capable of solving any Sudoku puzzle in less than a second.

Bayesian methods and Probabilisitic Inference
Bayesian methods are commonly used for recognising patterns and making predictions in the fields of medicine, economics, finance and engineering, powering all manner of applications from fingerprint recognition to spam filters to robotic self-driving cars. This session will show how principles of probability can be used when making inferences from large datasets, covering issues such as prior knowledge and hyperpriors, the construction of "belief networks", and nonparametric methods such as Gaussian processes. Several applications will be demonstrated.

Computer Vision

It is useful to be able to automatically answer questions about an image, such as "is this the face of person X?", "how many cars are there on this street?" or "is there anything unusual about this x-ray?". This session will look at some of the current state of the art in computer vision techniques, including methods for representing the information in an image (feature extraction), and to recognise objects in an image given such a representation. We will particularly spend some time looking at approaches which have been found to work well empirically on object recognition, such as generalised Hough transforms, boosted cascades of Haar wavelet classifiers, and visual bag-of-words methods. Locally relevant applications in crop disease diagnosis, parasite detection in blood samples and traffic monitoring will be demonstrated as illustrating examples.

Learning Causal Structure from Data
Until a few decades ago, it was thought to be impossible to learn causes and effects from purely observational data without doing experiments. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to do experiments (e.g. in some branches of genetics), or experiments may be costly or unethical (e.g. situations in climate change or medicine), so the emergence of computational methods for distinguishing causes, effects and confounding variables is likely to have wide implications. Some principles are now understood for learning the causal structure between different variables, and this session will explain the most successful current approaches, their possibilities and their limitations.

Internet Search and Monetization
The internet is one of the most fundamental and important applications of computer science. Central to its existence are search engines which enable us to find content on the web. This module focuses on the algorithms like PageRank that these search engines use to help us find webpages. It also studies how these engines make money through advertising.

Social Networks
Social networks describe the structure of interpersonal relationships and have many alarmingly predictable properties. While most people have just a few friends, most social networks have at least a few very popular people. Furthermore, most people are closely linked to every other person so that a message (or an idea or a disease) can spread rapidly throughout the network. Finally, social networks tend to be fairly clustered — i.e., if two people share a common friend it is quite likely that they are also friends. This module will discuss the typical structures of social networks, models that explain these structures, and the impact of these structures on activities in the social network such as message routing or the adoption of new technologies.

Two-Sided Matching Markets
Many markets involve two “sides'' that wish to be matched to one another. For example, a marriage market matches women to men; a job market matches workers to employers. In such settings, people on each side have strict preferences over the options on the other side of the market. Hence, a woman Julie may like David best, John second best, and Christopher third. David on the other hand may prefer Mary to Julie. In such settings, what matches might we expect to form? Can these matches be computed by a centralized algorithm, a match-maker for example, and what are the corresponding incentives of the participants? These questions are of fundamental importance as such centralized algorithms are in use in many important markets. In many countries, medical students are matched to hospitals using such algorithms, or school children to schools.

Approximation Algorithms
In the field of algorithms, many tasks turn out to be computationally difficult. That is, the time to complete the task is fundamentally large compared to the size of the problem. For example, consider the problem of finding the optimal way to visit 10 cities, visiting each exactly once. To minimize travel time, one could test all possible travel schedules, but for 10 cities there are already 3.5M of them! Unfortunately, there is not a significantly quicker way to find the optimal solution. However, one can find an approximately optimal solution quickly. That is, with just a few things to check, one can design a schedule that takes at most 50% more time than the optimal one. In this module we showcase a few general techniques for computing approximate solutions to hard problems, including the use of randomization and linear programming.

Graph Theory
A graph is a combinatorial object consisting of nodes and edges, and is a extremely valuable abstraction of many practical problems. For example, nodes might represent jobs and edges might connect pairs of jobs that can not be performed simultaneously. Alternatively, nodes might represent electronic components on a circuit board and edges the wiring that connects them. Many questions that arise in such domains can be cast as an optimization question in the corresponding graph. The number of workers required to complete all jobs in fixed time frame in the first example is at its heart a graph coloring problem. Asking whether one can lay out the circuit board so no two wires cross becomes the problem of determining which graphs have planar representations. This course defines graphs, shows how to solve a few fundamental graph problems, and applies them to practical settings.

Speaker Bios

Nicole Immorlica is an assistant professor in the Economics Group of Northwestern University's EECS department in Chicago, IL, USA. She joined Northwestern in Fall 2008 after postdoctoral positions at Microsoft Research in Seattle, Washington, USA and Centruum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She received her Ph.D. from MIT in Boston, MA, USA, in 2005 under the joint supervision of Erik Demaine and David Karger. Her main research area is algorithmic game theory where she investigates economic and social implications of modern technologies including social networks, advertising auctions, and online auction design.

Kevin Leyton-Brown is an associate professor in computer science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He received a B.Sc. from McMaster University (1998), and an M.Sc. and PhD from Stanford University (2001; 2003). Much of his work is at the intersection of computer science and microeconomics, addressing computational problems in economic contexts and incentive issues in multiagent systems. He also studies the application of machine learning to the automated design and analysis of algorithms for solving hard computational problems.

John Quinn is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Makerere University. He received a BA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge (2000) and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (2007). He coordinates the Machine Learning Group at Makerere, and his research interests are in pattern recognition and computer vision particularly applied to developing world problems.

General

Students empowered to thrive through the Semester

Published

9 hours ago

February 20, 2026

Carol Kasujja Adii

A Student with visual impairment demostrating the use of assistive technology that was installed at University Disability Support Unit. Level 1, Frank Kalimuzo Central Teaching Facility, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa.

Students with disabilities at Makerere University have been requested to stop seeking for special attention and instead look for solutions and opportunities for personal growth.

This was during a mental wellness, inclusion and safeguarding session organized by the Dean of Students office and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University.

Addressing students on mental health and disability inclusion, Mr. Marvin Ggaliwango, a lecturer at the College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS), noted that if the students stop complaining, they will become empowered to take charge of their own development, build resilience and engage confidently in both academic and social environments.

“Turn your lived experiences into tools for innovation. Stop complaining and start creating solutions for yourselves. You are the one living this life, and that gives you the authority to be an expert. When you develop a solution, it doesn’t just benefit you, it helps others too, by removing barriers,” Mr. Marvin Ggaliwango, said.

He encouraged students to see themselves not as victims of circumstance, but as active participants and co-creators of the inclusive environment they wish to experience.

“Learn how to communicate effectively and humbly. If you have a problem, express yourself clearly. Do not isolate yourself or feel resentful. You are not defined by disability, you may face disadvantages, but you still have ability,” he encouraged.

Throughout the session, students listened attentively as he emphasized the importance of self-awareness and personal responsibility, urging them to understand their strengths, acknowledge their limitations and take deliberate steps toward personal growth while contributing positively to the University community.

“We must enhance and ensure that our mental health is number one. Always choose yourself first. Choose what makes you happy and protect your peace. If you are at peace with yourself, your academics will improve. There is a strong link between mental wellness and academic success,” Mr. Ggaliwango, noted.

In his speech, Mr. Musa Mwambu, the Disability Inclusion Advisor at Light for the World Uganda, called upon the students with disabilities to enhance and ensure that their mental health is prioritized.

“As students living with disabilities, sometimes you over expect, because you have a disability you should be given, listened to and when people do not listen to you, you attribute it to your disability, get it from me, even those without disabilities are not listened too. Things are not happening to you because of your disability it is because of the world we live in. Everything that happens to you can happen to others,” Mr Mwambu, noted.

“Have fun with your life. Make yourself happy and be smart. Present yourself in public confidently wherever you go. The way you carry yourself can improve your mental health and how others perceive you,” Mr. Mwambu said.

He reminded the students that gaining admission to Makerere is itself a milestone.

“There are many people without disabilities who have never stepped at Makerere University. Find something that empowers you and hold on to it. You may have a physical impairment, but if you are brilliant in class, you can lead discussions and inspire others,” he added.

Dr. Rodney Rugyema, representing the Dean of Students. Powerful campaign themed “Safeguarding Starts With Me”, Organized by the Office of the Dean of Students in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program and the College of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS), 13th October 2025, Yusuf Lule Central Teaching Facility Auditorium, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Dr. Rodney Rugyema.***

During the session, Dr. Rodney Rugyema, the Acting Principal Warden, welcomed the students back from the long holiday. He assured them that the University is committed to their safety and well-being while on campus.

Dr. Rugyema emphasized that the University has systems in place to protect students, both physically and psychologically and encouraged them to report any concerns promptly.

“When you are at the University, you are not on your own, we are always here for you. For us to engage you on mental wellness and inclusion, we want you to be in the right state of mind, whole and complete,” Dr Rugyema, said.

He added: “We are here to empower you and we are calling upon you not be a risk for yourself and always be able to detect risks that are likely to affect your mental health and works towards avoiding them and reporting them to ensure that the University manages them before they escalate into real harm whose impact is more serious than you can think,”

During the session, Ms. Diane Nabikolo Osiru highlighted the University’s broader commitment to safeguarding.

Safeguarding at Makerere University refers to measures put in place to promote safety and wellness of all students, staffs and other stakeholders.

“At Makerere University, safety is not a luxury for few. but it is a right for every student. As the semesters begins, we are urging you to learn how to identify signs of harm or abuses and report them to the appropriate safeguarding contact points,” Ms Nabikolo, said.

For support in case of any harm or abuse, International and Refugee Students, can access support through the Advancement and International Office, while Students with Disabilities, can utilize the Disability Support Center. Those with personal and emotional challenges, can visit the Counselling and Guidance Centre.

In his speech, Dr Joab Agaba, a Lecturer in the College of Computing and Information Sciences, guided students how to report risks and incidences to the MakSafeSpace, the e-reporting platform complimenting the other University traditional reporting channels.

Mr. Henry Nsubuga, the Manager of the Counselling and Guidance Center, shared practical strategies for coping with stress effectively including time management, setting realistic goals, seeking support from peers or counsellors.

Students speak out

Shanitah Nahamya, 2^nd year student of the Bachelor of Adult and Community Education

“I have learned how to respectfully and appropriately engage with students with disabilities. In the past, I often felt pity when I encountered them, but now I understand that what they need is not pity, it is respect, support, and equal opportunity.”

Guo Dorothy Geri, 1^st year student of the Bachelor of Commerce

“I have learnt how to use inclusive language. Before offering help to a student with a disability, I will first ask them, because not all the time do they need our help. You might think someone wants to be helped to cross the road, yet they are waiting for someone.”

Valentines Doris Aduka, 1^stYear student of the Bachelor of Biomedical Science

“I have been calling students with disabilities special names, thinking it was kind. But I have learned that they do not want to be treated differently or labeled in a special way. What they value most is being treated like everyone else, with respect, dignity, and fairness.”

General

Strengthening Global Partnerships to Advance Research, Innovation, and Graduate Training: Makerere University Hosts Delegation from the University of Warwick

Published

2 days ago

February 19, 2026

Caroline Kainomugisha

A group photo of the meeting attendees, with Prof. Daniel Branch and Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe at the centre. Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe and University Management engagement with a delegation from the University of Warwick (UK) led by Prof. Daniel Branch, 13th February 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa.

Makerere University continues to deepen its global engagement agenda through strategic partnerships that enhance research, innovation, and graduate training. On Friday, 13^th February, 2025, during a recent engagement with a delegation from the University of Warwick (UK), university leaders, researchers, and administrators explored potential collaborations to address pressing development challenges and strengthen institutional capacity.

Expanding Collaboration in Research and Innovation

Welcoming the delegation, Prof. Fred Masagazi-Masaazi, Chairperson of the Makerere University Research and Innovations Fund (Mak-RIF) Grants Management Committee, emphasized the growing dialogue between Makerere University and the University of Warwick. He noted that ongoing discussions are focused on resource mobilization to support research and innovation, as well as building sustainable academic exchanges for both staff and students.

Dr. Roy Mayega, Mak-RIF Coordinator, together with Mrs. Phoebe Lutaaya Kamya, Deputy Coordinator, and members of the Mak-RIF team, highlighted the Fund’s role in catalyzing collaborative research and strengthening partnerships that translate research into societal impact.

Mr. Simon Kizito, Deputy University Secretary, outlined key areas identified for collaboration, including joint research and innovation initiatives, benchmarking visits across disciplines such as law, science, and ICT, and student exchanges designed to strengthen applied research skills. He also pointed to opportunities for training Makerere staff in specialized areas such as tropical diseases and innovation ecosystems, drawing lessons from Warwick’s strong linkages with industry partners located within its campus.

Makerere’s Strategic Priorities and Global Role

In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor underscored the longstanding relationship between Makerere University and the University of Warwick, dating back to the early 1980s, initially through staff training and more recently through collaborative research.

He highlighted Makerere’s historic contribution to leadership development across Africa and beyond, and the University’s continued growth following faculty rebuilding efforts in the 1980s, which have strengthened its research capacity. Today, Makerere has over 1,300 academic staff, more than 1,000 of whom hold PhDs, positioning the institution to play a leading role in knowledge production.

The Vice Chancellor also outlined major thematic areas where partnerships are critical:

Climate change and food security: Researchers at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) are developing drought-resistant and high-yield seed varieties to address changing weather patterns and food insecurity.
Public health and infectious diseases: Uganda faces frequent outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola and Marburg, and Makerere has built strong capacity in outbreak response and tropical medicine. The University’s medical school and the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) continue to play a pivotal role in research and treatment.
Peace and conflict studies: Through initiatives such as the Rotary Peace Centre, Makerere contributes to training global leaders in conflict resolution.
Climate-sensitive macroeconomic modelling: Makerere recently hosted a conference in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to advocate for climate-responsive macroeconomic modelling and to plan for the establishment of a Centre of Excellence in this field.
Innovation and technology: The University’s innovation ecosystem has produced notable outputs, including Africa’s first electric vehicle and ongoing work to expand incubation facilities to enable students to graduate with viable enterprises.

Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe gifting Prof. Daniel Branch a souvenir. Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe and University Management engagement with a delegation from the University of Warwick (UK) led by Prof. Daniel Branch, 13th February 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe gifting Prof. Daniel Branch a souvenir.***

The Vice Chancellor emphasized that addressing youth unemployment remains a central priority, noting that innovation, entrepreneurship, and graduate training are essential to building stable societies.

He further stressed the importance of expanding graduate education. Africa currently produces a small proportion of global research output, and increasing PhD and Master’s training supported by international partnerships remains critical to accelerating knowledge production and development outcomes.

Internationalization and Shared Learning

Speaking on behalf of the University of Warwick, Professor Daniel Branch, Deputy Vice Chancellor, reflected on Warwick’s own institutional journey, noting that its growth has been driven by a strong focus on internationalization, innovation, and research. He expressed Warwick’s commitment to building productive partnerships with African universities, including Makerere, to advance joint research, training, and innovation.

Professor Branch also highlighted the importance of university-industry linkages, citing examples such as collaborations with major manufacturing firms that provide practical training opportunities and inform curriculum development.

Professor Daniel Branch making his remarks during the meeting. Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe and University Management engagement with a delegation from the University of Warwick (UK) led by Prof. Daniel Branch, 13th February 2026, Main Building, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Professor Daniel Branch making his remarks during the meeting.***

Showcasing Research and Innovation at CEDAT

A second session of the engagement was held at the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT), where academic leaders and researchers presented ongoing work across multiple disciplines.

Presentations included:

Development of a solar water pump through reverse engineering (Dr. Edmund Tumusiime)
Crane Cloud, a locally developed cloud-computing platform (team from the College of Computing and Information Sciences)
Profiling gaseous emissions associated with burnt bricks (Dr. Nathan)
Integration of centralized grid and decentralized renewable off-grid systems: a techno-economic analysis (Dr. Abubaker Waswa)
Innovation and digitalization pathways for affordable housing in Sub-Saharan Africa (Prof. Stephen Mukiibi)

The session was attended by CEDAT leadership, including the Principal, Prof. Moses Musinguzi, as well as deans and heads of department from engineering, built environment, and industrial and fine arts. The day’s activities were concluded with a tour of Makerere University’s Innovation Hub.

The engagement reaffirmed Makerere University’s commitment to building strong, mutually beneficial partnerships that accelerate research, strengthen graduate training, and drive innovation. As global challenges such as climate change, public health threats, and youth unemployment intensify, collaboration among universities remains essential to developing scalable, evidence-based solutions.

Through partnerships such as the one Makerere University and the University of Warwick hope to activate through a Memorandum of Understanding in the near future, Makerere continues to position itself as a leading research-intensive university dedicated to transforming society through knowledge, innovation, and global cooperation.

Caroline Kainomugisha is the Communications Officer, Advancement Office, Makerere University.

General

Mastercard Foundation Scholars embrace and honour their rich cultural diversity

Published

2 days ago

February 18, 2026

Bernard Buteera

The Karamojong traditional dance at the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University Annual Cultural Dinner on 13th February 2026. Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University annual cultural dinner to reconnect the Scholars community, share key Program updates, and create an inclusive space to strengthen belonging and engagement, 13th February 2026, Kampala Uganda, East Africa.

On the evening of Friday, 13^th February 2026, the Scholars of Mastercard Foundation embraced the new semester with enthusiasm and celebration, showcasing their rich cultural diversity at the annual cultural dinner. This event not only fostered a sense of community but also highlighted the importance of cultural exchange and understanding among the scholars. The purpose of the cultural dinner is to foster unity in diversity within the Scholars community and to enable young people to appreciate and respect each other’s cultural differences.

Ladies showcasing the gomesi, Baganda women traditional wear. Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University annual cultural dinner to reconnect the Scholars community, share key Program updates, and create an inclusive space to strengthen belonging and engagement, 13th February 2026, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Ladies showcasing the gomesi, Baganda women traditional wear.***

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars community at Makerere Univer s ity is a vibrant tapestry of countries, cultures, and backgrounds. In recognition of this richness, the Program team has proposed organising an annual cultural dinner to kick off each new semester. This event aims to achieve several important objectives:

Promote mutual understanding and cross-cultural appreciation among Scholars.
Celebrate and highlight the unique cultural identities within our community.
Encourage confidence and creativity through a dynamic talent showcase.
Foster a sense of unity and excitement as we embark on the new academic semester together.

Ms. Grace Namata Sennoga, the Principal Welfare Officer and convener of the event addressing Scholars. Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University annual cultural dinner to reconnect the Scholars community, share key Program updates, and create an inclusive space to strengthen belonging and engagement, 13th February 2026, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Ms. Grace Namata Sennoga, the Principal Welfare Officer and convener of the event addressing Scholars.***

During the event, the Scholars proudly showcased their diverse cultures through a vibrant display of traditional attire, engaging dances, delectable dishes, and meaningful expressions in their native languages. The event showcased a rich tapestry of cultures, including the Baganda from Central Uganda; the Banyankore, Bakiga, Batooro, and Banyoro from Western Uganda; the Acholi from the North; the Karamojong from the Northeast; and the Basoga and Bagisu from the Eastern region, among many other indigenous tribes in Uganda. Additionally, attendees enjoyed cultural performances from South Sudan, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, celebrating the unique heritage of each community.

Some of the Program Staff who joined Scholars in showcasing their cultural attire. Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University annual cultural dinner to reconnect the Scholars community, share key Program updates, and create an inclusive space to strengthen belonging and engagement, 13th February 2026, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Some of the Program Staff who joined Scholars in showcasing their cultural attire.***

The event also featured a vibrant showcase of cultural attire, accompanied by traditional songs and dances. Attendees enjoyed cultural dress modelling, engaging performances, art displays, and interactive quizzes, culminating in exciting prizes awarded to outstanding performers. This diverse array of activities contributed to a rich celebration of creativity and cultural exchange.

Ladies showcasing the Mwenda, Western Uganda women cultural wear. Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere University annual cultural dinner to reconnect the Scholars community, share key Program updates, and create an inclusive space to strengthen belonging and engagement, 13th February 2026, Kampala Uganda, East Africa. — ***Ladies showcasing the Mwenda, Western Uganda women cultural wear.***

The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere Univer s ity is committed to fostering holistic development, community building, and leadership among Scholars. At the start of each semester, the Program Team hosts a cultural dinner to reconnect the Scholars community, share key Program updates, and create an inclusive space to strengthen belonging and engagement. The cultural dinner is a critical platform for raising awareness of the need to appreciate and respect cultural diversity.

Bernard Buteera is the Principal Communications Officer for the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program at Makerere Univer s ity.

More Photos from the Dinner