Alice Namuli Blazevic

Alice Namuli Blazevic is a Partner at Katende, Ssempebwa & Company Advocates, with 20 years' experience in corporate and commercial transactions. Her practice focuses on Technology Law, specialising in Technology, Media & Telecommunications law, where she is one of East Africa's leading authorities on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies.

She represents several Fintechs and Blockchain Technology-based businesses which are reshaping the mode of doing business in Africa and Europe. She has pursued a course in Artificial Intelligence titled 'Elements of AI' from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

She also has experience in projects and infrastructure finance, mergers & acquisitions, PPPs, and the energy, oil & gas sector, and cross-border transactions where she has advised various large multinational ventures within Uganda, and across East, South and West Africa, Europe and North America.

The 2024 Edition of Chambers and Partners Global Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers noted that Alice receives particular recognition for her work in the TMT sector. She is based in Kampala and is also respected for her experience of mandates relating to cryptocurrency and blockchain. The 2020 Edition labelled Alice as "one to watch," with sources recognising her strengths in TMT work, particularly in the IT sector, and one peer noted that she is "increasingly relied on by her firm as part of the next generation" of lawyers.

Alice is a Board Member of the Innovation Advisory Board of the Uganda National Social Security Fund External Innovation Program, Chairperson of the Uganda Legal Tech Network (2018 to date), and Founder of the Legal Innovation Hub – Uganda, the first legal tech incubator in Uganda. She organised the first Legal Tech Pitch/Competition in Uganda under the theme "Law meets Tech" in 2019 and the first Legal Tech Conference in Uganda with the theme of Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and the law. She is the Country Representative and Host of the World Legal Summit (WLS) for Uganda.

She has given public lectures and presented papers on AI, Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies at the International Bar Association (IBA) Conferences (Rome and Accra, 2018), the East Africa International Arbitration Conference (Addis Ababa 2018 and Kigali 2017), the East Africa Law Society Annual Law Conference, the International Internet Association Forum (Kampala), Nairobi University School of Law, Strathmore University Law School, Makerere University School of Law, the Africa Tech Summit (Kigali), the Commonwealth Lawyers Conference (Zambia), and the LexAfrica Business Forum, London, among others.

Alice served as the Vice President of the Uganda Law Society for two terms from 2016 to 2018, and as Chairperson of the Female Lawyers Chapter of the Uganda Law Society from 2013 to 2016, during which she introduced categorised 'Women in Law Awards'. She also serves as the Uganda Country Leader for Legal Business Women for Africa (LABFA).

She was awarded a Commonwealth Fellowship to work at Hogan Lovells LLP in the United Kingdom in January 2015, and is an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellow, having attended the Tutu Leadership Fellowship Program in Cape Town and Said Business School, Oxford University in April 2018. She is the Founder of Coffee With Alice, a mentorship program for aspiring lawyers, law students and young advocates, and the founder of 'I Read I innovate', a children's literacy community-based project.

She was the winner of the Uganda Law Society 'Legal Services Innovation of the Year' Award 2021, and was a 2019 Nominee for Best Woman Lawyer in Legal Practice and for the Leadership Award – Women in Rotary International. She was named one of the 'Top 40 Influential People under 40' by New Vision, Uganda's leading daily, in 2018.