In one of Africa’s oldest refugee settlements, a locally built digital platform is challenging how information flows in humanitarian settings and who gets to build the solutions.
This week, CAMPUS Digital Hub completed live testing of ConnectRefugee, a multilingual, offline-first mobile communication app designed and built inside Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda by refugees themselves. The platform aims to end misinformation, a daily crisis affecting more than 200,000 residents.
“Today we put ConnectRefugee in the hands of real people,” said Munguzo Kapera, founder of CAMPUS Digital Hub and innovator behind the platform. “They opened it. They used it. They told us what worked and what did not. They asked questions we did not expect. They pointed at screens that confused them. They showed us exactly where we failed and where we succeeded. That feedback is everything.”
The test marked a critical milestone for what is believed to be the first mobile information platform ever built from inside Nakivale, a settlement established in 1958 that has hosted millions of refugees over nearly seven decades.
A daily information crisis hiding in plain sight
Misinformation in Nakivale is not theoretical. It shapes daily life.
A message about food distribution moves from phone to phone. By the time it reaches the fifth person, the time, location and details have changed. Some residents walk three kilometres to the wrong zone. Others arrive early and find nothing. The correct information often posted on a noticeboard or shared verbally, arrives too late.
This pattern repeats itself across healthcare appointments, school enrolments, job training programmes and emergency alerts.
“This happens every single day,” the CAMPUS Digital Hub team notes. “Information moves fast in refugee communities. But truth moves slowly. And in that gap, people suffer real consequences.”
Residents waste time, energy and money verifying rumours. Families miss services. Stress and anxiety increase. For a population already living with constrained resources, misinformation compounds vulnerability.
Built inside the settlement, not exported into it
ConnectRefugee takes a different approach from many humanitarian technology projects. It was not designed remotely, piloted briefly and handed over. It was built inside Nakivale, by people who experience the problem daily.
“We are not building tech for awards or attention,” the Campus Digital Hub team said. “We are responding to some of the challenges people here face every single day. Missed appointments. Wrong locations. Rumours that spread faster than truth. Hours wasted walking just to confirm if something is real.”
The app creates a single verified digital space where NGOs and community organisations post announcements directly to residents’ phones. Users receive notifications and can view details even without internet access including time, location and instructions in their language of choice.
“No middlemen. No telephone game. No confusion. Just truth,” the team says.
Designed for reality, not ideal conditions
ConnectRefugee’s technical design reflects the constraints of refugee settlements rather than ignoring them.
The app:
- Supports five languages — English, French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda and Arabic, reflecting Nakivale’s population from DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia and beyond.
- Works offline, storing critical information locally.
- Runs on older Android devices (Android 5.0+).
- Uses less than 50MB of data per month.
- Functions reliably on unstable networks.
- Requires no technical training.
This design philosophy often overlooked in global tech development, is central to its effectiveness.
“Technology for refugee communities cannot be built the same way technology is built for people with fast internet, stable electricity and new smartphones,” Kapera said. “It has to meet people where they are.”
Early results show tangible impact
The testing phase currently involves more than 100 active users in Nakivale. Early metrics suggest meaningful gains:
- 94% report receiving more accurate information.
- Users save an average of 2.3 hours per week previously spent verifying announcements.
- 87% prefer the app to word-of-mouth communication.
- Zero technical failures reported on older devices.
“Today proved the idea works,” Kapera said. “It also showed us exactly what needs to change before we launch.”
The team has returned to development to refine features before a full public rollout.
“Built in Nakivale. Tested in Nakivale. Shaped by Nakivale. Made in Nakivale.”
Refugee-led innovation gains global recognition
ConnectRefugee operates under CAMPUS Digital Hub, a refugee-led initiative focused on digital skills and applied problem-solving.
“I started CAMPUS Digital Hub in Nakivale to help refugees and underserved communities learn digital skills and build real solutions using technology,” Kapera said. “We don’t just teach; we work on problems that matter.”
In 2024, the initiative gained international attention, placing twice among the top 15 teams at the Moonshot Awards for both the Moonshot Learning Award and Moonshot Nonprofit Award, selected from over 5,000 applicants worldwide.
The recognition signals a broader shift in global innovation where solutions are increasingly emerging from the communities most affected, not imposed from outside.
While ConnectRefugee is built for Nakivale, its implications extend far beyond it.
Across Africa and globally, refugee settlements rely on informal information chains that distort messages as they travel. Posters disappear. Announcements change. Trust erodes.
By creating direct, verified digital channels, ConnectRefugee offers a scalable model for settlements such as Kakuma, Dadaab, Cox’s Bazar and Azraq.
For NGOs, the platform enables:
- Direct access to 200,000+ residents.
- Verification systems to prevent misinformation.
- Analytics on reach and engagement.
- Multi-language publishing from a single post.
- Category-based communication across health, education, food security, livelihoods and emergencies.
For investors and policymakers, it demonstrates the viability of refugee-led social enterprises grounded in lived experience.
A shift in who builds the future
At its core, ConnectRefugee challenges a persistent assumption in humanitarian systems that refugees are recipients, not creators.
“For the first time since 1958, a technology tool for information has been built from inside this settlement,” the team said. “By people who understand what happens when information breaks.”
The project reframes refugees not as beneficiaries of innovation, but as entrepreneurs, developers and system designers.
As global attention increasingly turns to inclusive growth, digital public infrastructure and locally driven innovation, ConnectRefugee stands as a practical case study not of technology as spectacle, but technology as quiet infrastructure that changes daily life.
The app will launch soon. Its impact, however, is already visible.
Not because it promises to solve everything but because it proves something essential. When people closest to the problem build the solution, clarity replaces confusion and opportunity replaces waste.
