Insights with Ronald Katamba
Updated: Oct 3, 2022
About the company
Jaguza farm management operating platform is developed to work with you, not only displaying animal information but also supporting your working routines to record all the important livestock events that happen throughout your day, as they happen. The result is that an insemination, heat, vaccination, pregnancy check or health treatment will never again be missed, and that you can accurately record every action, in real time.
Jaguza puts the power to make better decisions, right into your pocket. With this app the farmer can see which cows in the herd have a temperature behavior and rumination requiring attention, such as cows that are sick or in heat. The farmer can be alerted on his/her phone.
Jaguza helps people with their farming problems, especially people who are socially or economically disadvantaged. We can help you with farming problems about disease, market, farming methods, information sharing, livestock monitoring and reporting. This helps poor rural communities in Uganda as well as the entire world to seek information confidently and without fear; regardless of economic status, educational level or gender in their local languages. This will help in empowering villagers improving access to farming there by increases there yields and production
About Ronald Katamba
Ronald is the Founder and CEO of Jaguza Tech and AfroSoft IT Solutions in Uganda. Ronald's vision to improve, modernize and simplify livestock management for farmers in his country has blossomed into an international business that has the potential to positively impact countless persons along the agricultural value-chain.
As a 12-year-old orphan, he reared rabbits to finance his schooling. Imagine his dismay when he awoke one morning to find that his source of revenue had died from an undetectable disease that quickly killed all of his rabbits. From that moment he purposed to find a way to prevent the spread of animal diseases for other livestock farmers while also improving productivity.
His purpose fueled an interest to study software engineering at the Makerere University in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala. While still a student, he shared his vision with other students who joined him to make it a reality.
Let's begin!
Mark: In layman's terms, can you tell us about the Jaguza livestock management technology, and how it's helping farmers?
Ronald: Jaguza is an online and offline, cloud-based livestock management system that incorporates the use of low-cost sensors, drones, livestock collars and GPS trackers to gather real-time information about location, speed, body temperature and stress levels of livestock. This information is processed using advanced algorithms using artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and machine learning to model solutions to the above three problems.
Jaguza enables users to perform a range of farm livestock record management tasks via the convenience of their smartphone or tablet whilst on the go and also from our online web-based system and offline desktop system. Jaguza uses a motion sensing device attached inside the animal’s ear to transmit its movements to a program driven by artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science. The sensor repeatedly sends real-time information, eventually allowing our farmer to tell from data alone when a cow is chewing cud, lying down, walking, drinking or eating. Such indicators are used predict whether a particular cow is ill, has become less productive, or is ready to breed alerting the farmer to changes in behavior that might otherwise be easily missed.
Jaguza relies in it being operational both online and offline and it includes access to information through short message service messages (SMS) and a USSD. application for farmers in remote areas without internet and smart phones. In addition, the platform includes a GIS system for monitoring animal disease outbreaks and includes an e-commerce platform for helping farmers access genuine online veterinary doctors and drugs and livestock equipment as well to sell their animals and their products.
The weather forecast of 21 days in advance that help farmers to plan according in. time. Jaguza is a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) business with a business model built around sensor purchase and installation fees, sensor maintenance fees, subscription fees for veterinary practitioners, buyer subscription fees and commission of animal and product sales through Jaguza’s e-commerce platform.
Mark: Jaguza has been endorsed by the likes of Apple and Microsoft. How have those global tech giants helped you with realizing your dreams?
Ronald: These global tech giants have helped us provide cloud services such as servers for hosting our applications. Also, through our company Afrosoft IT Solutions, we have been provided with hardware devices for training Internet of Things (IoT) in east Africa to all university and college schools.