ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
An automated black soldier fly farm using IoT and computer vision

Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL), Hermetia illucens, have proven to convert organic waste into cheap and high-quality animal protein feed and residue frass fertilizer (a mixture of digested biowaste, larval feces and chitin-rich exuviae) for soil enrichment while addressing the dual problem of mismanagement of organic waste and climate change. People have already discovered the benefits of these flies and are using traditional approaches to rear them. However, BSFL is difficult to rear due to its sensitiveness to external conditions such as temperature, humidity, lighting, and rearing medium. Rearing them in a natural environment may sometimes lengthen their lifecycle as well as affect by-products of each stage. Therefore, in this document a system that automates the regulation and control of ambience in a Black Soldier Fly (BSF) farm using Internet-Of-Things as well as monitors the health of produced larvae using Computer Vision is proposed, designed, and developed. Results after testing the developed proposed system support the viability of the automated system in Black Soldier Fly rearing, with the mechanical subsystem showing structural integrity, the system effectively maintaining optimal environmental conditions (temperature: 27-32°C, humidity: 60-70%, light intensity: 100-400 lux and organic waste moisture: 60-70%) and the system demonstrating energy efficiency by its ability to changeover promptly between electrical grid and solar power.

Source: Ashesi
An automated email classification system for the Ashesi Support Center

The widespread usage of the internet has made email an indispensable tool for communication within organizations. Today, email is used by support centers as one of the mediums for providing solutions to the daily internal problems’ organizations face. An example is the Ashesi Support Center which is the hub for solutions for all problems and questions relating to IT, facilities, logistics, and other issues on the Ashesi University campus. In dealing with problems, the Ashesi support center classifies emails as either an IT related issue or an operations related issue. However, the support center does not have a way to automatically classify the emails. Hence, a support personnel manually sifts through the emails to group them. This can be a cumbersome process considering the support center receives over 40 emails daily during peak periods. Harnessing the power of machine learning, a classification model is built to automatically group emails the Ashesi support center receives.

Source: Ashesi
An automated fare collection for public transport (Touch & Go)

Technology has been a useful tool in the way we transcend our limitations as human beings. In the transport sector, we have seen remarkable improvements such the variety of modes within which we could travel as well as the applications that make planning our journey easier and more effective. Transit planning applications have been used in developing countries to make sense of their transportation systems and help people travel in more effective ways. However, most of these applications have limited coverage or reduced functionality when used in developing countries such as Ghana. In this project, a transit planning application is implemented to help Tro-tro users get travel itineraries for their journeys within Accra while minimizing travel distance and time.

Source: Ashesi
An automated plastic bottle collection system

Improper disposal of refuse has in recent times caused harm to live and properties. In our cities and towns, it is common to find waste at inappropriate places such as gutters. This project focuses on the use of Internet of Things and smart systems to aid the waste management system, by providing an automated plastic bottle collection system. This project is focused on providing an efficient method of automating plastic bottle collection by placing value on all bottles. Value is placed on plastic bottles returned to motivate individuals to recycle; vouchers are generated per each bottle returned. The prototype of the automated plastic bottle collection monitors number of bottles, bin level and generate vouchers. Information on number of bottles and bin level are secured in a web application to determine when bins should be emptied

Source: Ashesi
An automated toll collection system

An Automated toll collection system is the system that helps in eliminating the heavy traffic caused in the Metropolitan countries. It is one of the flexible methods used to manage the flow of traffic in big cities of today. An Automated toll collection system is proposed, and the RFID technology is used. It is an innovative method that uses electromagnetic waves to easily identify and track the tags that are attached to the windshield of the vehicle. The main focus of this project is to design a system that automatically identifies the unique tag number on the windshield of the vehicle and be able to deduct the money on the tag. When the transaction is done, the system must be able to send the message to owner of the vehicle to notify how the transaction happened and also be able to automatically open the gate for the vehicle to pass.

Source: Ashesi
An automatic retractable clothes drying rack

Working adults and university students find it difficult to complete their laundry in a day because of the unpredictable weather conditions in the tropics of West Africa. There are existing drying machines, but these machines are either not smart or they are hard to install and maintain and they cause easy damage to the clothes. In comparison to the United States where electric drying is mostly used, about 16 billion kW is consumed per year or 5.8% of the whole resident electricity consumption. Equating this electricity consumption rate to that of West Africa, it will be very expensive for an average student or working adult to afford. This capstone project presents the design and prototype fabrication of automatic retractable clothes drying rack that facilitates the drying of clothes in highly humid and rainy environments. The automatic retractable clothes drying rack is divided into four parts: The drying rack frame, the linear actuator, sensors, and motor controls, and the cover curtain mechanism. The drying rack frame is a scissors-like mechanism, that releases and exposes the clothes based on the weather conditions of the environment. This paper entails the processes taken in coming up with the design, the prototype implementation, the result and analysis from the prototype testing, and some suggested future work.

Source: Ashesi
An ecommerce web application for the businesses on the Ashesi campus

This project is about building an ecommerce web application for the businesses on the Ashesi University campus to help them have access to their customers (students) better and to also help the customers have access to these businesses easily. Throughout my four years of undergraduate studies with the University I have realized the necessity for this application. It is quite difficult to access the businesses on campus at times. These businesses either have a physical presence or an online presence. For the businesses with a physical presence, students may go to the shop only to realize that the good that they want is out of stock or the price of what they want is higher than they had budgeted for. For the businesses with an online presence, students have to wait for those businesses to make themselves available before they can purchase what they want. These challenges of accessing the businesses on campus eventually leads to low patronage on the side of the students. This project seeks to make these businesses on campus always available to the students and also influence the flow of accurate information concerning goods in terms of availability and price. Upon completion of this project, it is the aim of the developer that not only would students have better access and accurate information concerning the businesses on campus but also the businesses would also reach their customers easily.

Source: Ashesi
An effective architecture for monitoring and accessing e-commerce businesses in Ghana for taxation

The emergence of electronic commerce has been a game changer in the business market industry especially during and post COVID-19 era. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, most new and existing businesses have resorted to operating either fully or partly online. The outcomes of this move have been very phenomenal and lucrative as it reduces the general cost of operation and distrubtion on the part of the business owners. While these online businesses make huge profits, the government, on the other hand, struggles to general revenue from these businesses in the e-commerce through tax. The underlying factor that makes it difficult to tax online businesses is that there is no effective approach to obtain relevant data on them to aid the taxation process. The existing approach to obtaining the needed data is manual copying of data which is not highly performant. Also, the manual approach can be very tedious and time-consuming since one person must sit down and do all this work. Therefore, this study proposes web scraping approach to extracting and gathering data from the online businesses using "BeautifulSoup" and "Selenium library". The proposed methods proves to be very efficient because it is going to automate the processes involved in data extraction and gathering. The web scraping approach was tested with Instagram platform and extracted relevant data on about two hundred and seventy-two (272) online business cutting across cosmetics, clothing, shoes, computers and accessories, furniture, etc. It took the proposed method an average time of 34.932 seconds to scrape and extract on 272 online businesses. This clearly depicts that web scraping could be the best option for data extraction as compared to manual approach.

Source: Ashesi
An electronic health record system with information sharing and data re-use capabilities for diabetic patients

Diabetes is a significant cause of adult disability and death in Ghana. People living with diabetes experience complex psychosocial challenges, including psychological and emotional insecurities, limited social support, and inadvertent HIV/AIDS stigma. Management and self-care are weak, and healer-shopping between medical systems is standard. Significant limitations exist with diabetes care, including poor diabetes education, a lack of guidelines for diabetes care, erratic supply of essential diabetes drugs at health facilities, and poorly trained diabetes health care professionals, including doctors, nurses, and dieticians. We consider challenges for research, healthcare, and policy. This project focuses on how an electronic health record can facilitate healthcare tasks and, based on the findings, develop a technological platform to help people with diabetes in Ghana to get quick access to healthcare, and constant medical assistance while facilitating the work of healthcare actors. After interviewing 50 Ghanaians with diabetes, the significant findings were that people with diabetes in Ghana do not have access to convenient healthcare. The interviews also revealed that the healthcare routines, including regularly visiting the hospital, and checking what they eat, overwhelms the people with diabetes. This research showed that an electronic health record could allow self-management for the diabetics; it could be used as a medium for permanent medical consultation. Relying on my findings, this project developed a platform that will help people with diabetes to get medical assistance wherever they are and whenever they need it by keeping track of their medical record, reminding them of their daily routines and also allowing permanent communication with their medical doctors. The platform facilitates medical appointment booking and check-ups. The user of the platform is able to track their calories and sugar consumption. Looking at the long run, the platform will serve as an electronic medical record that will not only help people with diabetes but non-diabetics as well. Further updates will be made to adjust the platform to technological advancement.

Source: Ashesi
An embedded system low-cost gesture control for the visually impaired: Facilitating inclusive learning for the visually impaired in Ghanaian tertiary schools

This capstone project focuses on designing and implementing a low-cost embedded system-based gesture control device to assist visually impaired students in accessing classroom content and navigating their classroom environment more independently in Ghanaian Universities. This project has four main objectives which are: • Design and build a low-cost gesture control device using a microcontroller and ultrasonic sensors. • Implement a web application for the visually impaired to access class material in audio format • Test the integration of hardware components with the web application. • Evaluate the usability of the overall system The device uses affordable, off-the-shelf components and open-source software to achieve precise and reliable gesture recognition through sensors like ultrasonic sensors, buzzers, and an MP3 player. This allows visually impaired users to interact intuitively with their classroom environment. The expected outcome is to design and develop a scalable and adaptive assistive technology solution that improves the quality of life and encourages self-reliance for visually impaired students in Ghanaian universities by providing them with much more independence and educational resources.

Source: Ashesi
An enterprise resource planning system with information sharing and data re-use capabilities for hospitals

Technology is bringing people and activities closer each day. And a quick review of the technological trends for 2018 reveals that the top 10 trends focus on connecting to a big ‘tree’ with heavy reliance on data (Newman, 2018). In other words, the technological trends are such that each individual technology is developing an interface to link and interact with other technologies. We have seen already, that this is eventually giving rise to artificial intelligence, machine learning and more concepts on big data and data warehousing. This project focuses on applying the trend of data sharing and re-use on a software application. Specifically, integrating individual software modules, each serving a specific organizational function, into a single software. The target is hospitals. The application will allow a hospital to be able to share information across all its domains, maintain patient records nicely and save time and resources. The application was tested both on and offsite. From the results, it can be concluded that the solution is relevant as well as usable. By implementing this solution and applying additional features such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, hospitals can save time and resources while giving better medical care to patients.

Source: Ashesi
An entrepreneurship capstone project that seeks to address the inefficiencies in the social commerce industry in Ghana

Apsel is an innovative startup with a dedicated team focused on transforming the social commerce landscape in Ghana. Our mission is to simplify online sales processes, enhance customer reach, and build trust for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) vendors through our 3-dimensional solution: Service Conversational AI, Apsel market and Payment Recall Solution. To achieve this, we have conducted extensive concept testing to validate and refine our intervention. This technical document aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the system design and implementation process that supports our core functionalities, including account management, inventory management and order processing. The document is structured to showcase the step-by-step development of our solution, encompassing data gathering (objectives, methods and results), use case scenarios, requirements elicitation and analysis, testing and evaluation, system design capabilities, and concluding with recommendations for future enhancements. This detailed account reflects our commitment to delivering a robust and user-centric platform that meets the dynamic needs of our target market.

Source: Ashesi
An immersive virtual space for hosting online events

In the digital age, video conferencing solutions have become essential for facilitating work, play, and events. During the pandemic, their popularity soared as they provided a valuable alternative to in-person meetings. As of 2024, their relevance endures, supporting remote work, global collaboration, and various events, from weddings to business meetings. However, despite their widespread use, current video conferencing solutions often lack the natural interaction found in face-to-face encounters. Most platforms use a grid layout that is optimal for corporate settings but falls short in informal scenarios. These solutions are less effective for events requiring dynamic, spontaneous interactions akin to the "cocktail party effect." This paper seeks to address these shortcomings by proposing Virtual Hub, a web-based application designed to bridge the communication gaps left by existing solutions. Virtual Hub aims to offer a 2D virtual platform which combines professional video conferencing features with informal, interactive elements like audio spatialisation and proximity-based interactions. This approach will enhance formal and informal digital interactions, creating a more natural and engaging user experience.

Source: Ashesi
An implementation of a web platform to support free recycling in Ghana

The advent of free recycling is largely alien and unheard of in Ghana. This is the practice of giving out unwanted but reusable items to other people who may have need of it. Freecycling is a linguistic blend of the words free and recycling which connotes the practice of giving unwanted items for free rather than discarding them in landfills. This project implements a web platform that enables local community members to advertise free items and request for free items that have been advertised.

Source: Ashesi
An Inclusive Health Management System for BAFROW Medical Center

This paper presents the development of a web-based health management system, BafrowCare, to enhance the delivery of healthcare at Bafrow Medical Center in The Gambia. In order to counter problems such as inefficient appointment scheduling, delayed communications, and accessibility issues, the system has prominent features including appointment scheduling with reminders, telemedicine, e-prescriptions, health data portability, and visually impaired patient and local language support features. It was constructed using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL and hosted on Digital Ocean for access. Stakeholder feedback highlights improved workflow efficiency and reduced administrative workload, though challenges in remote testing between Ghana and The Gambia slowed iterations. Future enhancements include multi-language support for Wolof and Mandinka, a native mobile app, and SMS alerts for non-smartphone users. This work demonstrates the potential of digital health solutions to improve patient care and operational efficiency in resource-constrained settings, with recommendations for AI-driven documentation and integration with existing medical records systems.

Source: Ashesi
An intelligent e-learning system to promote an inclusive classroom experience for deaf and hard of hearing students in a Ghanaian university

Millions of persons with disabilities living in low-income countries cannot access either primary, secondary, or tertiary education due to the lack of infrastructure, digital tools, and devices that promote inclusive learning. According to a definition given by UNESCO, "inclusive education means includent student with disabilities in the mainstream school environment" [33]. This research addresses the project them of developing an intelligent learning system to enhance an inclusive classroom experience for Deaf/Hard of Hearing students (D/HH) in a Ghanaian university. The aim of this research is to identify how an Elearning system can improve the English abilities of Deaf students in a tertiary institution which is in line with the mandate of the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (S.D.G.4) of "Quality Education for all". Data is collected from primary sources through surveys and focus groups with identified D/HH students, School Administrators, and teachers of D/HH students. The paper answers the research question "How can an E-learning system support an inclusive classroom experience for D/HH students in a Ghanaian university?" The results of this research will shape how an E-learning system can be adopted to support inclusive education in various tertiary institutions across Ghana.

Source: Ashesi
An Intelligent Telehealth System to Manage the Spread of COVID-19 at Hospitals

With the outbreak of the Coronavirus, people who visit hospitals are put at risk of contracting the virus in addition to their existing condition. As a result of the risks associated with the COVID-19 virus, unique and innovative solutions must be introduced to help reduce the spread of the virus. This project proposes an Intelligent Telehealth system to help manage the spread of the COVID-19 virus by reducing the number of physical interactions at hospitals. This system would help reduce the number of physical interactions at hospitals by instituting virtual consultations between doctors and patients. These consultations would include special features such as a Computer Vision component to monitor facial expressions. These special features would ensure that the gap between physical healthcare and virtual healthcare is bridged. The system was implemented as a mobile application for patients to create and manage bookings with doctors and to manage their medical records as well. A web application was also built to handle video consultations and to give doctors the opportunity to update the patient’s medical records during consultations. After the system was implemented, it was tested with three patients to measure its usability and usefulness. Scores were measured on a scale of 1 - 5 and all patients had scores ranging from 3-5 thus showing the usefulness of the system.

Source: Ashesi
An intelligent traffic control system

Traffic congestion has been a problem in Ghana for a while now. Unfortunately, the traffic control system in Ghana is inefficient at managing this issue. This is because it solely operates based on time intervals of 1 and a half to 2 minutes, which leads to an equal allocation of flow time. However, equality does not necessarily mean efficiency as some of the time allocated could be wasted because of the low number of vehicles at the junction. Therefore, this project proposes an intelligent traffic control system using an efficient algorithm. This project aims to use efficient algorithms and Artificial Intelligence to make real-time and dynamic decisions based on data gathered to ensure a more efficient and equitable traffic control management system. Traffic data such as the number of vehicles, prioritized vehicles like ambulances, etc. is gathered at every junction and real -time traffic flow decisions are made to drain the network of junctions based on the density of vehicles on each stretch of road.

Source: Ashesi