EXPERTS: ICT, innovation industry has potential to employ millions

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda’s digital technology innovation industry is still one of the virgin employment areas for Uganda’s young innovators, with a capacity to handle millions of engineers, according to Aminah Zawedde, the Permanent Secretary at the ICT and National Guidance Ministry.

Zawedde, says that while Uganda has a population of 46 million people (and an economy of just 50 billion dollars), the digital innovation industry is never meant for the local market but cuts across borders.

This is the reason the government is encouraging as many people as possible into the industry, because it is an area where there is even no competition, provided one has a good idea.

She was speaking at opening of the inaugural the Uganda development summit codenamed “UG DEV SUMMIT” at the Nation ICT Innovation Hub at Nakawa under the theme: “Deepening Cooperation For Shared Global Affluence.”

The two-day summit that has attracted at least 500 participants, mainly from Uganda, is aimed at showcasing Uganda’s talent in the innovation industry and chatting ways of leading Africa, but also encourage Ugandans to look beyond the borders.

The PS told the mostly young innovators, that everyone can innovate, and that there was no need of first having a university degree or diploma course in software engineering, adding that the millions of young Ugandans with no jobs could enter this industry.

The summit, is facilitated by Refactory Academy, a private innovation support, incubation and development company, which has been training innovators for the last five years.

Some of the challenges that innovation growth has faced include the inability of developers to have their works developed into market products, which ends up frustrating them.

Due to the lack of proper exposure and marketing, there is also sill a challenge of accessing capital or big investors.

However, experts say there is also a lack of proper research into products and the market terrain, which is vital for the industry to grow. But the PS said the attitude towards foreign products as being the best for the country, is being overcome.

The ministry says they are aware of this and there are enhanced efforts to help the innovators overcome this, as well as establishing a platform for Ugandans to be employed globally, even without the necessity of getting out of the country.

The summit also seeks to answer the question as to why Uganda still has very few software engineers (13,000 out of the 700,000 in Africa), yet for some years if has been regarded as one the fastest growing digital communities in the continent.

Michael Niyitegeka, the Executive Director at Refactory says the theme of the year is aimed at displaying to the world what Uganda has to offer in terms of talent so that the country not only attracts investors, but gets Ugandans exposed to the market, which will in the end lead to more qualified tech engineers.

There were also calls for the mindset change regarding education in Uganda so that technological skills are developed at a younger age of a child. “Our education sector needs to graduate beyond focusing on the problems of today to digitizing the learning experience positions, the talent market to fluently speak the global language of both today and the future,” said Lawrence Muganga, the Vice Chancellor at Victoria University.

“The language here is AI, Cybersecurity, Digital mastery and other disruptive technologies,” said Muganga.

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URN