UGANDA TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT UNIVERSITY

TM 201 RESEARCH METHODS

NAME: LUKAAGA FRED

REG NO. SEP20BIST/086U.

CONCEPT PAPER.

Technique- Artificial Intelligence

Area: Local Community – population growth rate.

Title: Machine learning model to determine the population (population growth rate) of my
local area by studying the past data of birth and death rates (records).

1. Introduction.

As a researcher and a demographer, I intend to find the correct figures of the population of my
local community where I live and I believe this can help the people in the local government and
may be the entire government to make appropriate plans for the exact population other than
under estimating or over estimating due to wrong figures provided. The local area am to study is
Kampala- the capital of Uganda.

2. Background of study.

The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) is the body responsible for all matters to do with
statistics in this country Uganda, it is the body that conduct the population census every after 10
years to determine the population figures for the country and per local community. According to
UBOS, Kampala was estimated to have a population of about 1570000 people, (UBOS, 2014)
and after almost 10 years it is estimated to have a population of about 3,652,000 people
(macrotrends, 2022), the figures are however, unreliable due to the vacillations in birth and death
rates. The unreliable figures not only make the leaders plan poorly for their people, but it is also
a threat to the security of the community. This has therefore increased the demand for a
dependable system or method of determining the population growth rates in the community
while considering the birth rates and death rates in the community. And as for me I intend to
depend on the data of the National Identification & Registration Authority (NIRA) of the birth
and death rates to use it to find a remedy for this profound problem by designing and developing
a machine learning system that will use this data to give dependable figures of population
changes in the community. The figures show there has been a decline in the birth rate for the last
10 years in Uganda generally from 43.5 – 35.7% (macrotrends, 2022), and still figures show
there has a gradual intrinsic fall in the death rate i.e. From 16.5 per 1000 people in 1971 to about
6.2 per 1000 people in 2020. (knoema, 2020). With a modern machine learning system, the past
data of both birth and death rates can be used to determine dependable and trustable figures of
the population rather than always waiting for the population census that comes after 10 years.

3. Problem statement.

Undependable figures of the population in my local community, has vastly led to under and poor
planning of the leaders for their citizens or residents. This has not only hindered them at the
planning level, but it has also hindered the provision of services, for example due to under
estimations made by the leaders, a lot of residents haven’t benefited from the services due to the
inadequacy and inefficiency of resources like in hospitals, schools, markets etc.

Objectives.

4. General objective.

To develop a machine learning system with improved accuracy in the determination of the
population in my local community by studying the birth and death rates data.

5. Specific objectives.

5.1 To understand the area of study

5.2 To collect birth and death data/ data sets

5.3 To design a model for population determination

5.4 To develop the model for population

5.5 To test and validate the system

6. Methodology.

5.1 & 5.2, in order to understand my area of study, I will review the existing systems, I
will study the numerous data sets of National Identification & Registration Authority
about birth and death rates most especially the ones of my local community i.e. Kampala.
I will furthermore, conduct diverse interviews most especially with people in the field of
demography, carryout face-face interactions etc. I will collect data from the UBOS
(Uganda Bureau of Statistics) about the previous population census and then collect data
from NIRA (National Identification & Registration Authority) about the birth and death
rates. This type of data I need in my study is referred to as “time series data” and it has to
cover for like the last 10 years.

5.3. To achieve the model/ system design, I will use UML diagrams, use case diagrams.
Etc.use Knime software, pytorch software etc.

5.4. To develop the system I would use some of the following tools i.e. use knime
software, pytorch software, Jupyter notebook etc. and use the programming languages
like python being the main and others like C++, java, R and JavaScript among others.

5.5. To carryout system testing and validation, I will use majorly three different
mechanisms i.e. unit test; Check the correctness of individual model components,
regression test; Check whether your model breaks and test for previously encountered
bugs, integration test; Check whether the different components work with each other
within my machine learning pipeline. And for the case of the validation of my system, I
will use the Time-series Cross-Validation method.

7. Reference. Macrotrends, (2010-2022). Uganda birth rate 1950-2022. Retrieved from

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UGA/uganda/birth-rate#:

Knoema, (*n.d*). World data Atlas>Uganda >demographics. Retrieved from

https://knoema.com/atlas/Uganda/Death-rate#:

Worldometer, (*n.d*). Uganda population. Retrieved from

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uganda-population.
Pluralsight, (2014-2020). Creating machine learning models.
https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/creating-machine-learning-models?aid.

towardsdatascience, data types from a machine learning perspective with examples.

https://towardsdatascience.com/data-types-from-a-machine-learning-perspective-with-
examples-

END