About
TMS Ruge was born in Masindi, Uganda and grew up in Uganda, Kenya and the United States. Capitalizing on his understanding of different cultures and markets, Ruge has become a successful global social entrepreneur and respected thought leader in social media, technology, and development in Africa. In 2007, he cofounded Project Diaspora, an online platform for mobilizing, engaging and motivating members of Africa Diaspora to engage in matters important to the continent’s development. Following his passion to engage the continent, he has invested his time and money in a number of development initiatives including Uganda Medicinal Plants Grower’s ltd. (UMPG) – an indigenous farmers’ business specializing in the export of value-added medicinal plants, and Women of Kireka – a women’s jewelry making cooperative.
A technology enthusiast, Ruge writes and speaks extensively on Africa’s current renaissance driven by technology, youth and the Diaspora. He is a frequent contributor to several online publications including CNN, PopTech, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian, and the Project Diaspora blog. He is also the host of The Digital Continent Podcast, a weekly technology podcast for people who believe that Africa is full of innovation and opportunity.
Over the past four years, TMS Ruge has worked in East Africa with various grassroots organizations, businesses and communities that are using online tools and innovations in the ICT sector, to maintain a competitive edge and foster a global presence. His work includes serving as a founding board member of Hive Colab in Kampala, Uganda — a co-working space for young entrepreneurs working on web applications in Uganda, in which they are able to meet and collaborate on software applications designed to solve the most challenging problems in their communities. Through Hive Colab, TMS Ruge assisted the World Bank’s Apps for Development Competition in 2010 — mobilizing over 50 developers to participate in the competition and providing them assistance in ensuring that their apps not only performed as advertised but were also user-friendly. Ruge also serves as an advisor to OpenAction.org – an online platform that allows development organizations to richly engage their online audience.
In 2010, TMS Ruge founded the Villages in Action conference — convened in his home village of Kikuube, Uganda, and aimed to bring together as many of the village’s residents to discuss the impact of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on their lives. The interactive conference was experienced by people worldwide, via a live video stream, live blogs, a twitter hashtag and Facebook. The conference is currently scaled throughout and beyond Uganda, so as to enable more villagers’ voices to be heard in the global dialogue about development in Africa.
Previously, TMS Ruge worked as a photographer, freelance graphic and web designer in Dallas, TX. He graduated from the University of North Texas with a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Design.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello,
Hope you’re well and love your work — consider myself a likemind from over in the states.
I wanted to get in touch about a really amazing initiative Nokia is spearheading with Capgemini and infoDev at the World Bank to explore and foster the innovation eco-system in Africa! Considering your expertise in technology in Africa I thought you and your readers might be interested!
It’s called the Open Innovation Africa Summit and it’s happening the week of November 29th in Nairobi, Kenya.
The premise of the Summit is that innovations in products, services, business models and processes can lead to greater social and economic wealth creation in Africa. However, today barriers stand in the way for this potential to be realized. The Summit aims to promote the creation of new innovation services and collaboration models, which align the public and private sector stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem and embeds end-user driven co-creation and open innovation as critical elements to African innovation systems.
As part of the initiative, they’ve launched a great ideation platform to serve as a resource and space for everyone working in Innovation in Africa to connect!
The site revolves around the four main streams of interest and focus for the summit:
Ecosystem for Innovation
Emerging Market Business Models
Mobile Services Revolution
Human Capital – Education for All
You can check out the website and find more information here: http://www.innovateafrique.com and add to the conversation via @nokconv and @changeconnect with the hash tag #InnovateAfrica
I would love to know what you think and invite you and your readers to use the site as a place for exchanging ideas, insight and to add to the dialogue!
As part of the initiative, Nokia will be sponsoring the top 8 contributors to attend the event with all travel and accommodation included.
Would absolutely love any thoughts, questions or comments you might have and any help contributing to the conversation would be hugely appreciated!
Look forward to hearing your insight and input and to the contribution of your community in this amazing dialogue and work pushing forward innovation in Africa!
Many thanks in advance and all my best,
Jerri Chou
Hey,
I came across your blog on afrinnovator.com and I must say I was excited to see work from a Ugandan. I am a Ugandan in the diaspora working on moving back and right now I am in the process of brainstorming for a tech start-up. Was looking for like minded people and its sad how far behind we are compared to our Kenyan neighbors. Anyway I am going to be the change that I want to see. Hit me up if you want to exchange ideas or just connect.
Great work.
Hey, thanks for connecting. Uganda’s tech sector is actually quite vibrant and busy getting its act together. We are organizing and developing several mobile applications and have quite the collection of developers working on very interesting products. It is hard to see that visibly because we are in Nairobi’s shadow.
But we need as many players as we can pushing this sector forward. Uganda submitted the most number of apps to the World Bank’s Apps for Development competition a few months ago and got an honorable mention. A Kenyan won the grand prize, so we are coming up and our time will come in due course.
But we need everyone, include you, participating! Good to see the Diaspora looking home for a future. And tech is wide open!