“God’s promises are like stars that shine brightest when it’s dark. I’m too blessed to be stressed,” reads one of her posts on one of the social media platforms.
After her A-level studies at Saint Mary’s College Namagunga, Arach joined Busitema University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering. While here, she was able to contest for the guild office and was elected the first female guild president of Busitema University in 2013.
Henry Opio, Busitema University’s first guild president, described Arach’s win as historical. He observed that electing Arach as the university’s first female president was an “impeccable masterstroke.
All of a sudden, there is new hope, there are new expectations and the guild looks rebranded with Zilla’s election. She represents the epitome of humility; she is an achiever and a big dreamer who is God-fearing, a good situational calculator, and experienced,” wrote Opio after Arach’s landslide victory.
Opio’s descriptions of Arach were manifested recently when, as founder of Lacel Technologies, she won the coveted best overall Young Achievers Award in the farming and agro-processing category, for helping farmers.
Later, Arach joined with friends and co-founded Akorion Technologies, a firm that has gone on to win international accolades, including the World Food Programme (WFP) Innovation Accelerator award. The firm has been recognised by SEEP Financial Inclusion and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
This year, Arach was among the six innovative individuals from Africa chosen to undertake the 2017 Westerwelle Young Founders Programme. Over 2,000 applications from 146 countries were received; a cohort of 21 young entrepreneurs from 15 countries was selected to attend the 2017 Westerwelle Young Founders Conference in Berlin, Germany.
Here, they were taught about German initiatives to foster entrepreneurship and pitching their businesses. Of the 21 cohorts, only Arach and two other participants qualified to showcase their companies at the conference.
Akorion is an agricultural innovation company that uses technology to provide services and products to farmers and agriculture-related entities in Uganda. Because of Arach’s zeal for hard work and innovation, Akorion has managed to develop the Ezy-Agric software suite.
The company currently employs over 20 full-time employees and 460 village agents as temporary employees, who provide services to close to 60,000 smallholder farmers using information and communications technology (ICT).
The agents collect information and use the Global Positioning System (GPS) mapping for farmers’ gardens and do trainings, plus services such as value-chain digitization, among others.
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