A bigger announcement was passed from the Uganda Development Bank Ltd as it entered into a partnership with the resilient bank network with a mega innovation the I-Growth Accelerator Program to support individuals to grow and expand their start-up enterprises in all sectors. “We partnered together to promote innovation but really with the focus on development. As the professor has said, we are a network of Universities, we are looking at community challenges.”

According to Prof. William Bazeyo the acting Deputy Vice Chancellor Finance and Administration at Makerere University, the Accelerator Program will focus on Agriculture and Manufacture under the theme; TOWARDS SMART AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE. “These sustainable innovations can only be sustainable if the materials they use are affordable and locally obtained so that an innovation cannot have to import everything, we are not copying anything, we are not copying anything from the Silicon Valley to come and introduce to the community, we are using African Ugandan brains.” Said, Prof. William Bazeyo – Dep. Vice Chancellor Makerere.

Patricia Ojangole the CEO of the Uganda Development Bank said the Agricultural sector experienced challenges such as adverse climate variability and most communities depend on subsistence agriculture and that’s on they have decided to support it. “2017 however, we are focusing on agriculture and manufacturing sectors because we think that these are critical sectors and also in line with UDB programs and UDB strategy where our focus is on these two sectors we think that this initial program should look at trying to address challenges in these two sectors.”