Fish Alive#

An efficient and affordable aquarium filtration system which helps maintain good water quality for fish and boost the quality of fish products for consumers.

In Uganda, environmentalists have blamed the declining fish stock in Lake Victoria and increasing water levels on the increased pollution of the lake by different industries that spray and erode wastes directly into the lake. 89.4% of people who live around the lake are ignorant about how much opportunities they are wasting due to polluting the lake. In Uganda, aquaculture is considered one of the most important sources of animal protein production for meeting the increasing nutritional demand for protein. Uganda is one of the biggest exporters of fish in Africa producing up to 15,000 tons of fish from aquaculture, including production from small-scale fish farmers, emerging commercial fish farmers, and stocked community water reservoirs and minor lakes. There are an estimated 20,000 ponds throughout the country, with an average surface area of 500 square meters per fishpond. All these pond owners have one common sad song, “the fish is not good, and we don’t get returns to our investment”. Truth is, fish is on high demand with all its benefits of reducing the risk of heart disease, lowering blood pressure, among others and the industry is very attractive which justifies the fact that this number of ponds will double by 2028 and all these farmers will be looking for effective systems to yield profitable fish farming business. According to the research we conducted in Kalangala, Entebbe, Jinja, and Busia districts, we found out that fish farmers are employing poor fish farming methods without knowledge which causes their major setbacks in the business. We identified a lot of toxins, odors, and discoloration in the water contained in their ponds including nitrates and ammonia. We sensitized these farmers that without effective fish pond filtration systems, their fish farms will quickly become dirty, cloudy, and polluted and hence leading to death of fish and also poor quality fish. We further educated them about the benefits of proper filtration in fish ponds and how it helps break down fish waste, leftover food, and toxins like ammonia and nitrite by providing a place for beneficial bacteria to grow. However, 98.1% of the farmers we interviewed are small scale farmers who are not in position to afford expensive filtration systems available on market.

We built Fish Alive# as an affordable, scalable and effective fish pond filtration system which uses simple artificial intelligence technology, embedded system controlled water pump and volcanic rocks to provide a sustaining solution to small scale fish farmers in Africa.  The abundance of volcanic rocks and my team’s expertise in mechanical engineering, artificial intelligent systems and embedded systems programming enable us produce the most affordable solution on the market. Fish Alive# is flexible and very easy to maintain by the farmers hence supporting community sustainability.

During our prototyping research, 81 farmers made preorders for Fish Alive# because of the value we proposed to them; oxygenating the water, detecting ammonia levels, and filtering it to give the fish a better environment to live in. The system consist of an MQ series sensor added to detect the ammonia level in the water, an artificial intelligent system acts performs the monitoring of the farm even when the farmer is not available. A water pipe is placed in the volcanic rocks which do the filtering of the water. This pump can be used for 30 minutes every three hours if the person doesn’t have a proper power supply but it is recommended to stay on for the whole day just like humans use oxygen for the whole day. After sometime when it's time for the water to be changed, it is used to water crops because of its high nutrient value.

I am targeting small scale farmers who rear fish in Africa and the final consumers of fish in the world. They're currently being under-served in a way where the fish are dying and they are wasting a lot of water changing the water in the ponds. As for the people they are getting poisoned fish which affects their health especially for pregnant mothers. Fish farming is one of the largest economic activities in Africa and if the most pressing needs of the small scale fish farmers is improved, they will realize significant increase in returns from their investment and hence improve their standards of living. Fish Alive# is advocating for healthier fish for better standards of living for not only the farmers, but also the consumers.

We as team Fish Alive# have over 5 years’ experience in sustainable fish farming. I went to MST Junior School which is built on the foundation of agricultural and experiential learning. I got so much passionate about fish farming and together with one of my current teammates we started a fish pond during our primary school vacation after learning practical skills in the business. We used to use the one acre unlimited for learning and then I discovered they were using an oxygen pump where they always had to refill the water. So during covid I was at the farm when we didn’t have power for two days. So the fish could not get oxygen because the pump wasn’t working. So after 2 years of research I came up with an idea to just use a pump that can access multiple sources of power and to use volcanic rocks to filter the water. The water later gets oxygen as it is flowing back into the pond. This valuable experience has been coupled by my team's expertise in embedded systems programming, mechanical engineering and writing machine learning algorithms using python to make our team well prepared to cause lasting impact in our community. We have mentorship of Dr Naluyima who has excelled in fishing farming and is owns 91 fish ponds in Uganda.

We are working with the Entebbe Animal Care Centre and One acre unlimited on solving this problem and developing it.

What makes Fish Alive# innovative is that I am using simple artificial intelligence technology and materials to solve a problem people are ignorant about worldwide. It is also solving a number of problems at once such as poisoned fish, sudden death of fish, dirty water in ponds and poisoning of people.

We intend to conduct more research aimed at improving our solution as we develop a minimum viable product to be piloted in areas of Kalangala, Jinja and Busia districts in Uganda. We shall be aiming to deliver functional systems pre-ordered by farmers during our prototyping research in those communities. This will accelerate their business and boost revenue generated from fish farming while delivering healthier and quality fish to the ever increasing consumers

Artificial intelligence is an emerging technology which simplifies the work of humans by acting like humans on behalf of humans. We are training a model which will be incorporated onto our system to allow independent monitoring of the fish farm by the system without human intervention hence cutting more administrative costs by the farmers.

We plan to directly serve 200 farmers in 2023

We lack startup capital and capacity building in form of business and technical training required for our team to achieve our next milestone.

We lack startup capital and capacity building in form of business and technical training required for our team to achieve our next milestone.

One acre farm,Entebbe, I am carrying out research from there.

Makerere Innovation Society, supporting with computer science, innovation and entrepreneurship training