On the 26^th of April 2017 CREEC joined the rest of the world in celebrating the World Intellectual Property day at the Uganda Registration Services Bureau innovators expo. The innovation expo’s theme was ‘’Innovations improving lives and specifically for Uganda. This was a way to highlight innovations as viable options of creating jobs in Uganda and the role Intellectual property plays in creating, protecting and exploiting innovations.

 The CREEC solar technicians during the design process of the solar dryer

CREEC represented in the environment category show casing different renewable energy technologies like hydro power, solar and bioenergy. One of the highlights in CREEC’s presentation were the solar dryer and solar cooker that are currently being fabricated at the Centre under the presidential initiative fund. The purpose of this project was to make two prototypes of a solar dryer and a solar cooker using locally available material like wood, plastic and wire mesh. This was done so that for instance farmers in Uganda would be in position to duplicate the solar dryer technology at a cheap cost rather than relying on dryers imported from abroad that are often very costly. Some of the other material that included testing equipment to help people understand the different steps and procedures that CREEC uses when carrying out tests and also a variety of cooking fuels like fecal sludge pellets, pellets from eucalyptus leaves, coffee husks and saw dust. The Registrar General of the Uganda Registration Services Bureau commended CREEC for her position in quality control with the two testing laboratories at the centre that test both solar pv products and cookstoves for efficiency. He took a particular interest in CREEC’s field laboratories where rural communities are able to borrow solar lamps for a fee almost equivalent to the average amount that they would use to buy paraffin for their ’’tadoobas’’. These are some of the initiatives that are enabling CREEC achieve its mission of increasing access to modern types of energy.