Noise mapping and ambient sound recordings of the urban environment in Uganda
Scientific Data (Nature), 2026
Embedded AI · Edge ML · Signal Processing
Joel Tibabwetiza
Muhanguzi
Building intelligent systems at the intersection
of constrained hardware and real-world sensing.
📍 Kampala, Uganda · Makerere University · Sunbird AI
about.json
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{
"name": "Joel T. Muhanguzi",
"role": "Embedded & ML Engineer",
"affiliation": [
"Sunbird AI",
"Makerere University"
],
"focus": "Edge AI & Urban Sensing",
"phd": "In Progress (CS)",
"status": "open_to_collab"
}
$
Research Interests
What I Work On
Urban Noise & Bioacoustics
Deploying edge ML models for urban noise classification and wildlife bioacoustic sensing in constrained environments.
Environmental Sensing
Air quality monitoring and biodiversity conservation through solar-powered IoT nodes and on-device inference.
Efficient Edge AI
Model quantization, pruning, and TinyML optimization for deployment on memory- and power-constrained hardware.
African Language NLP
Low-resource multilingual NLP for African languages — translation pipelines, LLM fine-tuning, and dataset curation.
Citizen Feedback Systems
AI-driven voice feedback devices for assessing public service quality in local government and public institutions.
IoT Hardware Design
PCB design, solar energy harvesting circuits, and firmware development for long-running remote sensing deployments.
Professional Experience
Work History
📍 Kampala, Uganda
- Developed edge ML models and firmware for noise pollution sensing and environmental classification.
- Curated and published open, geo-tagged urban noise datasets for ML applications.
- Engineered autonomous solar-powered IoT hardware platforms for extended field deployments.
📍 Kampala, Uganda · College of Computing & Information Sciences
- Instructs Embedded Systems I & II covering microcontroller interfacing, RTOS, and communication protocols.
- Supervises final-year software engineering student capstone research and embedded implementations.
📍 Nyeri, Kenya · Center for Data Science & Artificial Intelligence
- Optimized edge OS image builds for low-power operation on continuous bioacoustic sensor nodes.
- Trained, quantized, and deployed bird species classification models at the Dedan Kimathi Wildlife Conservancy.
📍 Kampala, Uganda
- Deployed edge computer vision models for vehicle classification and vehicular emission estimation.
- Integrated mobile sensing hardware for urban air pollution tracking.
📍 Makerere University, Kampala
- Developed desktop client software for remote internet-enabled laboratory hardware.
- Organized national robotics competitions and mentored undergraduate engineering students.
Scholarly Work
Publications
Sunflower: A New Approach to Expanding Coverage of African Languages in Large Language Models
Proceedings of the AI for African Languages Conference 2025 · PMLR 314:1–20
Optimisation of a Raspberry Pi-based Bioacoustic Sensor for Data Collection
DLI 2025 Research Track · PMLR 302:1–9
Acoustic Environmental Sensing on the Edge
NeurIPS 2024 Workshop
An Urban Noise Classification Model for Edge Devices
Black in AI Workshop 2023
Development of an Open Source Desktop Application Client Software for Running Internet Enabled Laboratories
IST-Africa Conference (IST-Africa), pp. 1–6. IEEE
Academic Background
Education
PhD in Computer Science
Edge-Optimized Multi-Modal Machine Learning for Urban Sensing
Makerere University, Kampala
In Progress
MSc in Computer Science
AI & Data Science
Makerere University, Kampala
2022 – 2024
BSc in Computer Engineering
Hardware & Embedded Systems
Makerere University, Kampala
2015 – 2020
Technical Expertise
Skills & Tooling
Languages
AI & Edge ML
Protocols & Comms
Hardware & Systems
Cloud & DevOps
Research & MLOps
Academia
Teaching
Embedded Systems I
1st Year · Recess Semester · Computer Science
Foundations of embedded hardware, bare-metal C programming, microcontroller registers, timers, and basic peripheral interfacing.
Embedded Systems II
3rd Year · Semester 2 · Software Engineering
Advanced embedded programming, hardware-software co-design, bus architectures, RTOS task management, and edge sensor pipelines.
Capstones & Project Mentorship
Undergraduate Supervision · Software Engineering
Mentoring final-year engineering candidates through system architecture, edge prototyping, testing, and thesis defense.
Get in Touch
Let's Connect
Open to research collaborations, visiting fellowships, industrial consulting, and conversations around edge AI and environmental telemetry.