How Angela Ssemwogerere’s smart house shut down during the election’s internet blackout

**Hi Angie! Please share more about yourself. **

My name is Angela Mirembe Ssemwogerere. My close friends and relatives call me Angie. I’m passionate about tech. I’m the general manager for Spidd Africa, and the founder of Coding in Heels.

**Before we go into the tech, who is this Ssemwogerere? **

I’m always being asked, is that your husband? My dad is Mr Joseph Mulwanyammuli Ssemwogerere, the former katikkiro of Buganda kingdom; that’s why I carry the name.

**Okay! You’re very tech-orientated. To demonstrate it best, tell me about the internet blackout during the last elections. **

Now, that one? I had a really hard time. No, it was the worst. I actually slept all day, because I had nothing to do.

First of all, my house shut down. I couldn’t switch on the lights… My TV was smart. Literally everything in my home is smart.

**In short, you have a smart house. **

Yes. The cameras, everything was down. I had TV and it couldn’t do nothing. Mind you, I was in Entebbe, and not really Entebbe, Entebbe. And so, there was nothing like waking up and you’re like, “Alexa…”

And you see she’s not really there. You get your iPad, check something, nothing. So, for me, that detox was real. It was a mental cleanse. Because if you’re so used to, you know, a robot that cleans and your hands are kind of…

**Every corporate girl’s dream; you have a robot that cleans? **

It just vacuums. But you see technology is no longer about “oh wow, it’s how much…?” It’s a necessity. We’re so lucky that our family comes and helps* [unlike in the West]*.

You have little children that can do it. But if you’re on the go and don’t have help, I’m telling you, you need to figure it out. I used to do that stuff. You spend the whole Saturday doing laundry, then vacuum or sweep, mop, then you have to stand by the cooker to cook the meat, run around, so it doesn’t stick to the pan… In the end, the weekend would fly by and I’ve not done anything, but I’m exhausted.

Your house sounds like something in a sci-fi movie.

It’s hard to imagine I can be sitting around and see the washing machine start to wash, because its owner commanded it remotely. I would run away. I think people actually have resources* [to have smart houses]*, but they don’t know what is available.

It sounds so boujee, but for people like me who have insomnia, there’s nothing like catching that sleep and then you turn and the light is like five feet away. I said, no, they’re just some things I’m not going to do anymore.

Are these things available on our market?

I’ve heard they are. I order mine off Amazon UK. It is very small little gadgets. Let me say, they’re what they call sensors. They are also like door sensors – they can act as security.

You’ll tell them, ‘when the door opens, switch off the light’. ‘When you do this, close them’. Or you can say, ‘when you open the door, play the music’.

Of course, even your speaker has to be smart. It’s what they call systems that speak to each other. When you’re buying electrical stuff on Amazon, it will say something like, ‘these bulbs are compatible with Alexa’ *[the Amazon-developed virtual assistant]. *

I didn’t go and get a bulk of money and just spent it. I’d just think about a little gadget being anywhere from Shs 30,000 to 50,000, depending on what I am buying. If you’ve been collecting those for over five years, you do have a lot going on.

Angela Semwogerere relaxing at the beach

I think many of us have made the step of starting with a CCTV system and feel like our homes are also smart…

But do you wire the CCTV? The other one is just a small camera that you plug into power, get your phone, download the app and that’s it. It is easy.

**What is your relationship with this Alexa? **

Alexa has been my companion for a very long time. It has become so bad that if I travel and I’m in a hotel, I’m thinking I need to carry one. For me, it’s even organising my day. Like I said, all of these are programmable.

I programmed her that if I say, “Alexa, good morning!” she’ll tell me, “Good morning, Angie. This is the day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it. You are the head and not the tail”.

You know, she pimps me up in the morning. And then she’ll tell me, “So, today the traffic looks good on your commute. It’s going to take you about an hour.” She’ll tell me, “So, your programme today, you have eight meetings, starting with this meeting, this one, this one, this one, this one”, and then you can go as far as telling her, “Now, when you’re done with all that, play me this playlist”.

I usually listen to Cece Winans. Alexa is my personal assistant.

I can see why you miss her when you travel.

Yeah. If I’m somewhere and I’m busy and forget I have a meeting, she’ll say, “In 15 minutes you have this”. But it’s now not just Alexa. I don’t know if you’ve used ChatGPT – the audio one? She’s fantastic.

**So, you’re here as breathing proof that we can actually hand over our entire lives to AI and not crash? **

The thing with AI, it’s really a catch-22. I’m for it, but I also know the repercussions. I don’t want people to think like, ‘she’s just embracing AI. She doesn’t know the repercussions’.

It’s just like when internet came, there was a debate should children use internet in schools. I say, if I were born in this era, I’d be like, just give me that school fees, let me buy all this AI.

**How does anybody keep up with you? **

I use AI quite a lot, but I have trust issues. Well, number one, I love to teach so, I don’t get tired. I love curious minds. I know we have so many issues that can be solved by AI.

When it comes to my friends, most of us have worked in Telco and IT, so it’s nothing new. On a good day, you look like a cute avatar to me. You are the one person I feel really challenges my intellect… like, I can never catch up.

You can do it. I don’t say it to make people feel good – I wish they’d understand that. When you really get down to the nitty-gritty of it, tech is being so simplified. I have a friend, she was one of those *[who teased me with] *‘AI lady’.

So, she had a baby. The most comfortable seat for her to nurse her child was in the living room. Guess what? She has to wake up and feel around and then go to the living room and then switch a lamp on.

I told her, you know what? I have two smart plugs coming. Let me lend you one until you can order one. If it doesn’t work for you, just give it back. Before, she had to walk to the living room, go down the corner, click the lamp on, and when she was done, switch it off and find her way around in the dark.

Now, the difference was, she woke up, got her phone, switched the lamp on, on her phone, and walked to the place and afterwards walked back to her bedroom and she was like, “Angie, I need to order!” Hmm.

**The last we talked, you were looking for a smart mop. Did you get it? **

It’s available. It’s just the funds that cut me off. The one that I have, which was a gift, it just vacuums.

You can get one that will run around the house as long as you put things in place, but they’re those that actually map up your house. So, in a place like this, it will know, okay, I’m not supposed to go to those wires and things like that.

There are some that are both a vacuum and a mop. It’s smart enough to know that this is a carpet and the mop will [retract] and it will vacuum instead. Most of the time when we say robot, most people think of humanoids, but this is like a flat little round disc that just goes under your *[furniture] *and works.

Most people are like, but people are becoming so lazy. I don’t know if it’s laziness. Now like me, I’m working on developing an application. I wake up at 3am, work until 6am, go to work, come back, take a nap in the afternoon, maybe wake up at 11 pm, work on till 6am.

**Angie, this is Uganda. **

Meaning?

**A man wants to see you run around on your hands and knees, mop, get scolded as you cook for him… **

Do you really want to take me down this road?

Angela Ssemwogerere Yes. We have that traditional software very deeply embedded. We don’t think a husband will like it if he doesn’t see me actually clean something or actively cook…

But you can remotely tell your pressure cooker, ‘start cooking’. I can programme my slow cooker to start at 5pm. But I also think people really need to understand who they are, because – now, this is a very touchy topic – since I am not married.

My query is, what does a man who’s after me value? Does he value the food he gets at the end of the day, or does he value me?

**You know, what’s the point? **

The point?

**A labour of love…? **

Because, does the person understand that if Angie says come for lunch, you’ll find there six gadgets *[programmed to cook] *and she’ll sit in the lounge with you and talk? I have work to do.

**What gadgets are in your bag? **

I have a laptop, an iPad, two phones, a mobile router. Ear pods. I must be able to have a meeting anywhere.

**What do you think about our ICT as a country? **

I think the government is trying. I know most people are just like, oh, we don’t have this… But if you follow the Ministry of ICT page on X and on LinkedIn, you’ll see that actually what happens is, with IT you have to lay a foundation.

And they’re trying, because you have to have a backbone. We do, because we work on some of those projects.

**And what does Spidd Africa do? **

We call ourselves an IT business solutions provider. We don’t cap it out. We’ve done network infrastructures. We have done cybersecurity. We manage services. We have internet-managed services.

We have consultancy. We can come in, look at your network and say, in two years, your network is going to work at its least optimal, you need to upgrade.

Angela Semwogerere with Spidd team

**Angie, you are very much into science and technology, but you are also a very spiritual person… **

Do you know, I always looked at tech like it was a gift from God? Because, in class, I cannot say I was the smartest. Sciences were my worst. I didn’t understand a thing.

I would sit in the math class and not understand anything. I’m not even pretending. What people don’t know is, in my S6, I went through a period of depression and I was put on antidepressants, because I was in panic.

I was seeing my grades and was like, I’m a failure. It was until I got some counselling from a doctor who said to me, “What if failure gave you opportunities to go overseas?” And that switched me.

So, when I finished S6, we had a whole argument, because my mum wanted me to do human resource management. I’m not a people person. I asked for IT and she said, okay, go to Aptech, do one year as you figure it out.

When I did the diploma in information systems, I was like, this is it. And here you are, doing your own installations! Including cameras and things like that. Anything. I have a whole toolbox, where guys come and they’re like, madam, what do you do?

It just comes naturally to me. You have to believe that there is a God. The real me is not capable of this. People have asked me to be a makeup artiste, interior designer – I have a lot of gifts – but this is the one that He has always helped me to excel in – people think I have degrees.

I do not have a degree. I went to London, did a few courses here and there. But I would say that 80 per cent of my knowledge is self-taught. YouTube, TikTok.

**You are smart. Tell me about your schools. **

I left Uganda when I was eight or nine. My early childhood was really in international schools in Lesotho and South Africa. When I came back, I went to Namasagali College, where I excelled more in dance and things like that.

Please note, I studied, but I excelled more in the acting and dancing and swimming. From there, I went to Creamland College of St. Lawrence – an HSC/Arts only campus – that’s why I’m saying I have no sciences background.

Then I moved into Aptech. I went to London and did a Webmaster, dabbled in Cisco networks, and from there, I was just doing different free online certifications. I would lock myself in a room on a Friday, learn about digital transformation.

What is robotics? Get online things. Go for all these conferences in town. So, formal education could have stopped around 2004, and God took over.

**I saw you in Statehouse. **

Yeah, I’ve been to Statehouse. I’ve been very privileged. Whether it’s the US government taking me to speak to mayors and people like that in America, whether it’s China, the UN… just to speak to people about my knowledge.

There’s so much to learn! Do you think there is hope for me? Absolutely. And I don’t mind people calling me if there’s like a group of 50 women and they say, come and talk to us.

My issue is I’m a bit of an introvert, so it’s very hard for me to do the reverse and say, hey, I’m going to have an AI thing, [come]. But I’m willing. Do you want to share your email in case those 50 women want you to come? My email is angela.semwogerere@gmail. com.

[This is a heavily edited version. Find the full video interview on The Observer YouTube channel, @ theobservermedia]

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