Engineer Bainomugisha is a Professor of Computer Science and the Principal, Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences. His work spans foundational computer science, academic leadership and technological innovation, with a sustained focus on advancing Africa’s contribution to global scholarship and translating research into public benefit.

As Principal, he leads an academic unit spanning computing, artificial intelligence, library and information sciences. His ambition is to strengthen CoCIS as an internationally recognised centre of scholarship and education excellence, distinguished by the quality of its graduates, the originality and impact of its research and the influence of its innovations. Central to this vision is a conviction that African universities have a defining role in shaping the technologies, ideas and institutions that will serve future generations.

His leadership priorities include rigorous and relevant education, stronger postgraduate training, impact-driven research and strengthening ties between academia, industry, and public policy. He is committed to creating an environment in which staff can build fulfilling academic and professional careers, and students can develop the knowledge, judgement and practical capabilities to lead in a changing world that we live in. Across the College’s disciplines, this includes advancing how technology safely and responsibly developed  and how  information created, organised, preserved and made accessible to society.

Bainomugisha has founded and leads several impactful research and innovation initiatives including, AirQo, a Makerere University initiative combining locally developed sensing technologies, artificial intelligence and open data to support cleaner air in African cities. In 2026, AirQo was named an Earthshot Prize finalist in the Clean Our Air category. He was recognized among the Google.org Global Leaders to Watch 2022, serves on the Advisory Council of the Africa Clean Air Network, the Global Future Council on Clean Air of the World Economic Forum, and the board of Sunbird AI, among others.

Earlier in his career, Professor Bainomugisha focused on “close to the metal” research, investigated and developed programming languages and software tools to help programmers easily write highly adaptive and distributed mobile software without worrying about low-level hardware concerns. His research in this area helped create iScheme and Flute programming languages.

He received a Ph.D. (with Greatest Distinction – “Summa cum laude”) and MSc. (with Great Distinction) in Computer Science from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium in 2008 & 2012, respectively. He received a B.Sc. (First Class Honors) in Computer Science from Makerere University in 2006, where he also received the Best Science and Overall Best graduate award for that year.