About
I build things that work — and run the business around them.
I’m Jonathan Paul Katumba — most people call me Paul. I’m a self-taught developer who became a founder, an AI engineer, a development-sector consultant, and a teacher. Fifteen years in, I’ve built and run a company, shipped production AI products, and learned to read a P&L as fluently as a codebase.
I work where software meets African reality — low bandwidth, mobile money, WhatsApp, offline-first. I’ve also kept studying on purpose: finishing a BSc in Applied Accounting and becoming an ACCA member, because I want to be numbers-literate, not just technical.
- $500K+
- Capital raised across ventures
- 2,000+
- Customers served at Minute5
- 4
- African markets
- 13
- CTO-founders mentored
How I work
My operating system.
Outcomes over polish
I lead with the metric. What gets measured gets managed — instrument it, track it, decide on data, not vibes.
Find the one law
Every problem has a dominant variable. I name it first, then everything else is optimisation around it.
Build for the constraint
Offline-first, low-bandwidth, mobile-money, chat-native — because that’s how Africa actually uses software.
Leverage over labour
I’d rather build the machine — increasingly with AI agents — than do the task by hand.
Honest about fit and gaps
Reputation is long-term capital. I don’t oversell, and I’ll tell you what I don’t know.
Impact with a business model
Not charity. The things worth building stand on their own unit economics.
Track record
Some of what I’ve built and led.
Minute5
Founder · CEO & CTOGrocery delivery in Kampala. I built and scaled it to 2,000+ customers across four markets — dark-store ops, mobile money, and an AI order-prediction model that cut delivery time ~60%. Part of a venture portfolio that has collectively raised up to $500K in early-stage capital.
Crested AI
Co-founderA WhatsApp assistant helping Ugandans reach government information and services — civic RAG on Gemini, in partnership with Nation Media Group.
Averor
Co-founder & CTOESG analytics SaaS scoring agribusinesses 0–100 against CSRD/GRI standards. Next.js, NestJS, Postgres and vector search; piloting with 20+ agribusinesses.
GIZ WE4A
Team LeaderLeading a donor programme helping 100 women-led MSMEs digitise — a tiered digital-readiness methodology delivered across Uganda.
MEST Africa
Head of CTOsMentored 13 CTO-founders building venture-backed startups across the continent.
Refactory
FacilitatorTeaching JavaScript, Node and Vue to the next generation of Ugandan engineers.
Toolkit
What I build with.
Education
- BSc Applied Accounting — Oxford Brookes
- ACCA member
- MEST Entrepreneurship (2023)
- Google Developer — Web
Recognition
- MEST Software Entrepreneur
- Anzisha Prize — Top 20
- MTN App Challenge winner
- Sigma Squared Fellow