8th May 2024.
The NSSF Hi-Innovator pitching competition was held in Kampala, on the 6th of May 2024. A total of 17 start-up enterprises from across the country pitched their businesses and eight (8) of them were selected to receive an award of $20,000 to scale up their businesses.
Magezi Energy and Engineering Services (MEES) Ltd., owned by Atuheirwe Annitah and her brother, Clever Tugume, is one of the enterprises that successfully pitched in the competition and received the award. MEES was developed and supported by the Agribusiness Incubation Hub (AIH) at Bishop Stuart University (BSU) in 2019. AIH was established to enhance the development of entrepreneurial skills for innovative employment opportunities for young graduates. Supported by the MasterCard Foundation, through the Regional Universities’ Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), AIH focussed on nurturing innovative enterprises to ensure their potential to succeed in an open and competitive market environment, among other things.
As a Law student then, Annitah worked with Clever who had just graduated as an Engineer from Makerere University, to develop an innovative business that would provide clean cooking energy for the rural communities in western Uganda. MEES produces briquettes from agricultural wastes, cooking stoves and chicken brooders that utilise the briquettes. The unique feature that these briquettes provide is the ability to repel mosquitoes as they burn. This is as a result of including lemon grass and rosemary herbs among the agricultural wastes.
Located in Rwampara district, the Enterprise has supplied well over 2,000 households in western Uganda, with these products, and currently employs eleven (11) youths.
Annitah studied Bachelor of Laws (LLB) at BSU and graduated in March 2020. She completed a Diploma at the Law Development Centre (LDC), Kampala in 2023. She is currently a Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Law, BSU.