KMC: The Birth of the Automotive Industry in Uganda by Sandy Stevens Tickodri-Togboa

Prof. Sandy Stevens Tickodri-Togboa, Executive Chairman of Kiira Motors Corporation (KMC), discusses the birth of the automotive sector in Uganda.

“Until very recently, you would not say that there was an automotive sector in Uganda. We have been engaged in essentially importing vehicles, mostly used, that are on average about 16 years old from the time of registration. That automotive industry had mostly been focused on maintaining, importing, repairing, etc. The idea of developing an automotive sector in Uganda can be traced to what we did at Makerere University in 2007. I led a team of young people to participate in an international consortium of 31 universities that was then led by MIT. After doing rounds of elimination, Makerere University ended up being the only African University to take part. The agenda was to see if we could use the same technologies that had been used to go to space and the moon to solve Earth problems. We assembled around that theme and the first vehicle that we set out to build was known as Vision 200. The intention was to build it for the Indian market and make sure that it was affordable. The price was to be about $5,000; although, by the time we finished it was higher. The rest of the universities had the capacity to take this Vision 200 to their countries and show what they had done, but I did not have the money to do that in Uganda. Given that we were able to participate effectively in that Vision 200 program, I instructed my teaching assistant at the time (now my CEO) that instead of raising money and bringing that to show to Uganda, we would set up teams and see if we could design our own vehicle and then build it. We did that for about two years through PowerPoint presentations and we went around to communities and told them about our experience building the Vision 200 in Torino. The first vehicle we wanted to produce was to help young people at the university campus to get around. Along the way, the President heard what we were doing. We gave him a presentation and he decided to support our activities”, says Prof. Sandy Stevens Tickodri-Togboa.

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