From Beans to Billion-Shilling Dreams: Makerere Students Brew a New Coffee Economy

October 16, 2025 muduuli martin

Inside the 2025 Uganda Entrepreneurship Congress & Youth Expo at Makerere University

By Urban Gazette Business Desk,Kampala.

The aroma of freshly brewed coffee drifts through Makerere University’s Freedom Square — but it’s more than caffeine in the air. It’s ambition.

As Uganda’s premier university opens the 2025 Uganda Entrepreneurship Congress & Youth Expo, the campus buzzes with prototypes, pitch decks, and promises of startups that could redefine the country’s most valuable export: coffee.

Innovation Meets the Coffee Cup

At stalls lined with solar-powered roasters, biodegradable coffee pods, and fintech tools for farmers, students are proving that the next industrial revolution may well begin in a lecture hall.

“We’re not just selling coffee — we’re branding Uganda,” says Shamim Nambozo, a third-year entrepreneurship student displaying her “Mount Elgon Gold” cold-brew venture.

Her team’s model connects smallholder growers directly to cafés through a mobile platform — cutting middlemen, boosting farmer income, and creating traceable, export-ready brands.

Turning Youth into Industrial Catalysts

This year’s Congress, themed “Brewing Prosperity: Youth Entrepreneurship in Uganda’s Coffee Value Chain,” is more than an academic showcase. It’s a living laboratory linking over 600 students with investors, agribusiness experts, and policymakers.

PACEID Chairperson Odrek Rwabwogo, officiating the opening, called on the young innovators to “own every stage of Uganda’s coffee journey — from soil to supermarket.”

Keynote speaker Moses Nyabila of aBi Development Ltd urged universities to treat entrepreneurship as a national export, not an extracurricular activity:

“When youth innovate around coffee, they’re not only creating products; they’re securing Uganda’s place in global trade.”

The Makerere Model

Makerere’s College of Business and Management Sciences (CoBAMS) has quietly built a pipeline that turns classroom assignments into start-ups. Each year, students develop business models around local value chains; the best are refined, funded, and incubated on campus.

Vice Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe believes this hands-on approach is transforming how young Ugandans perceive work:

“Our graduates must leave with two degrees — one in knowledge and one in enterprise.”

Already, several past Expo participants have registered companies exporting roasted coffee to Kenya, Rwanda, and the UAE.

Policy, Profit, and Purpose

Beyond exhibitions, plenary sessions dig into how policy can empower youth-led agribusiness. Financing, land access, digital marketing, and sustainability dominate the discussions.

Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo delivered a case presentation from the Acholi region, showing how organized youth cooperatives are turning once-abandoned coffee gardens into profit centers.

A Vision Brewing Beyond Campus

Day Two will host investor pitch contests and coffee-cupping demonstrations where baristas and agronomists judge student blends. The best teams will receive seed funding and mentorship from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Exports & Industrial Development.

Organizers hope the Congress will yield tangible outcomes — new businesses, refined policies, and partnerships that root Uganda’s coffee growth firmly in youthful innovation.