Busitema University-South African National Space Agency stakeholder engagement.

Busitema University (BU) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with South African National Space Agency (SANSA) on 22 nd July 2022 in support of a collaborative space science research. Eng. Jonathan Ward, data manager at SANSA visited BU on 29 th November 2022, to install the multi-constellation and multi-frequency global navigation satellite system (GNSS) based Scintillation Network Decision Aid (SCINDA) receiver. This development was announced by the Deputy Vice Chancellor Academic Affairs (DVC-AA) of BU (i.e. Prof. Samuel Baker Kucel) in his welcome remark during the stakeholder’s engagement held at its faculty of science and education (FSE) located at Nagongera campus in Tororo district. The stakeholder meeting on 30 th November 2022 that was attended by faculty staff, students, management and media fraternity. Prof. Kucel appeals to the campus management to ensure that the equipment is guarded from vandalism and misuse. Meanwhile, the faculty Dean of Nagongera campus Prof. David olema Kani disclosed that the faculty experts are working hard with National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) to train space science teachers to implement the lower secondary School curriculum. The Dean urged stakeholders to support the BUSSI initiative to promote space science and technology advancements. Space science is the key to the future, and Uganda should have its place in the future” said the faculty Dean (Prof. Olema). Dr. Amabayo Emirant Bertillas (Head of Physics Department) presented the road map of BU space science institute (BUSSI). He pointed that the institute has approved staff establishment and the innovative models at BUSSI will accurately predict and forecast weather and climate patterns. These will be useful in issuing warnings to communities and government for quick response to loss of life and property due to bad weather. Physics department is in touch with Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA) management to sign an MoU for partnership in building capacity in the country. Dr. Andima Geoffrey presented BUSSI project on “Tuning Space Weather Models from Research to Applications”. He explained the ideology, objectives, benefits of our model for predicting ionospheric total electron content (TEC) over Uganda. Similar technique will be applied to our real time data to improve weather and climate models and disaster mapping over Uganda.