A Brief Overview

ICT In Uganda

Who Am I

Born and raised in Uganda

Machine Learning & AI  Research

Sama

Sunbird AI

Uganda  

- The Pearl of Africa

ICT Overview

The Information and Communication Technologies encompass telecommunication, broadcasting, and postal sub-sectors.

Prioritized as the sector to spur economic growth and transformation in Uganda

Over the last 10 years, the sector has seen exponential growth attributed to many factors in Uganda

• Privatization
• Governmental framework (Ministry of ICT) for policy guidance/ UCC
• Gov't expansion of infrastructure - fibre/4G 

Total Population

Mobile Phone

Internet users

Active Social Media  Users

45.01

Million

26.83

Million

10.67

Million

2.50

Million

Urbanization

vs Population

Penetration

Penetration

24%

60%

24%

5.6%

With the rapid emergence of wireless network capacity and the ubiquitous growth of mobile phones, the context of the infrastructure is changing.

Changing

New Policies

A national ICT policy is in place and an education sector ICT policy is before Cabinet.

The Ministry of Education and Sports is taking steps to co-ordinate ICT development and has allocated resources to support implementation of its ICT strategy.

In Education

As it adopts ICT, Uganda faces the same challenges as most developing economies

•  Poorly developed ICT infrastructure
• High bandwidth costs
• An unreliable supply of electricity
• General lack of resources to meet a broad spectrum of needs.

Role of ICT to provide creative solutions to local issues - Gulu District

Opportunities and Challenges

•  Uganda’s IT-enabled services market is expected to grow 70% between 2020 and 2025
• Emergence of Startups, Hubs​
• • ​SafeBoda
  • Outbox
  • Innovation Village

Recap 

• Policies
• Current Initiatives
• Infrastructure

Why Skills Exchange Is Key

• Despite growth; Capacity is still very limited
• Gender gap
• Computer Illiteracy 

One Last thing: A personal story ...