ICT innovators will no longer have to worry about resources required for them to do their work. This was after the government through the ICT Ministry decided to establish the ICT Innovation Hub where all the necessary resources would be available and accessed freely. groundbreaking for the Hub which was hosted at the Uganda Information and Technology Institute in Nakawa and according to Frank Tumwebaze the ICT and National Guidance Minister, these would cost 5.6 billion Uganda shillings. “Without innovation, I have said this before, you will never get the dividend of your investment in connectivity. The money we put in the backbone, the money we put in consuming this airtime and MBs we can never get it. We can only get it if your very own children are able to become Technology Entrepreneurs or what they call Tech-Preneurs and they are also able to sell to the wider market.”
The ICT Innovations Hub will be constructed by the Engineering Brigade of the Uganda People’s Defense Forces and was expected to be completed in the next six months. “So I appeal to all the sectors, we can do any work now called upon and we shall not behave like what is going on now where we take on the work and then we sit down to say pay us this and so forth. For us, we are ready to perform the duty up to the end.” With these efforts being put in place, the government was encouraged to be the lead consumer of products which will be coming out of this Hub in the name of Buy Uganda Build Uganda. “So we want to give out more money, those ideas that have passed the trial stage and are struggling to go to the market. And I would like to appeal to the government and request the Rt. Hon to support us. When people have done our innovations, we appeal to the government to buy them.”
The development was part of the broader digital strategy being drafted by the Ministry of ICT. In it included how the government will digitize some sectors such Education and Health. This innovation program was allocated 13 billion shillings in this year’s Financial Budget just to ensure it is put into reality.
