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

Agenda

 

  • Context of ICT in Uganda

  • Importance of skills sharing

  • Role of ICT to provide creative solutions to local issues

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 

Internet Penetration

A few statistics on internet usage in Uganda

 

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

  • Information sharing
  •  Internet centres
  •  Access to e-Government services
  • SMEs scaling
  • International Financial Services

 

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 ...

Thank You :)
 

Apwoyo

@BenjaminAkera