The Ministry of ICT and National Guidance has today signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Innovation Village geared towards driving the ICT Innovation agenda in Uganda.
This is in line with the government’s commitment to create a digitally driven economy and realise universal goals inclusion, sustainable development, economic progress and poverty eradication through digital innovation.
Speaking during the signing ceremony, Dr. Aminah Zawedde, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance said the partnership intends to unlock the market opportunity for Uganda’s ICT innovators and facilitate a legal framework to support public-private collaboration to transform Uganda’s ICT innovation landscape for socio-economic development.
“Our digital Uganda vision provides an overarching framework and unified ICT policy direction that responds to the national vision 2040. Part of this strategy involves creating strategic partnerships that support forming a digitally knowledgeable and empowered society to inspire innovation and productivity of the people, organizations, businesses and government,” Zawedde said.
She added, “Together with the Innovation Village, we will identify and develop projects that support innovation-oriented activities that are focused on leveraging emerging digital technologies and spur the development of the innovation ecosystem in Uganda.
“We will continue to establish different partnerships with various partners both in the private and government sector to enable digital skilling, provide capacity building, training and certification courses to different innovators and the population at large to achieve digital transformation of the economy.”
According to Japheth Kawanguzi, Team Lead at the Innovation Village, this collaboration will see government through the Ministry of ICT support the ecosystem through financing mechanisms to deliver tailor-made services to young tech-preneurs through a series of business training, coaching and mentorship help young people transition into the employment and job creation sectors with the right skills.
Kawanguzi said, “Together, we will work towards capacity building and development of innovators, and build a virtual factory network at national level to empower ICT innovators and entrepreneurs to scale their businesses, with a focus on the competitive advantages of each of Uganda’s regions, aligned to the National Development Plan (NDP) III”.
This move is strategically geared towards sustainably supporting the National ICT Initiatives Support Programme (NIISP) whose sole aim is to facilitate the creation of an ICT innovation ecosystem, equip entrepreneurs with digitals skills and find a market for Ugandan innovative digital products both locally and internationally.
