ICT ministry, Innovation Village partner to unlock market for innovations

The Ministry of ICT and National Guidance has partnered with the Innovation Village to unlock the markets for Uganda’s innovations.

The partnership is in line with the government’s commitment to create a digitally driven economy and realize universal goals inclusion, sustainable development, economic progress and poverty eradication through digital innovation.

Dr Aminah Zawedde, the ICT ministry permanent secretary, said the partnership intends to 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.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the two entities 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,” she said.

Japheth Kawanguzi, the team leader at the Innovation Village, said the partnership will see government through the ministry of ICT support the ecosystem through financing mechanisms to deliver tailor-made services to young techpreneurs through a series of business training, coaching and mentorship help young people transition into the employment and job creation sectors with the right skills.

“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,” he said.

He said the partnership 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 digital skills and find a market for Ugandan innovative digital products both locally and internationally.