Business
Tracking The Impact of Technology On Entrepreneurship In Uganda
In the last decade, the use of technology has contributed enormously to growth story of sub-Saharan Africa’s economies. Technology has opened Africa to new vistas and presented its youths with an opportunity to tackle the scourge of unemployment themselves – some have even turned that opportunity to million dollar companies.
In Uganda, technology is gradually contributing to the country’s economic trajectory. Over the past few years, the country’s technology sector has witnessed rapid growth, especially in the areas of mobile devices, computer applications, information processing and sharing.
According to statistics from Uganda Investment Authority, posts and telecommunications services activities grew by 30.3 percent in fiscal year 2010/11 and accounted for 3.3 percent of Uganda’s GDP. These growth changes have had a profound impact on Ugandan economy, making the Information Communication sector an important driver of economic growth.
The 2012 UN unemployment report indicates that the global youth unemployment rate stood at 12.6 percent, dramatically overshadowing that of adults, which stood at 4.8 percent. This rise is attributed to poor education systems that are not centered on practical skills especially in developing countries like Uganda. This has prompted the youth to come up with more innovative ways to create employment opportunities.
As of the end of 2011, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported 4.6 million internet users in Uganda, amounting to 13 percent of the country’s estimated population of 34.5 million. There are currently more than 48 licensed telecommunications service providers, a good number of which offer both voice and data services, and over 30 internet service providers (ISPs) that offer broadband and dial-up internet services.
Given this trend of ICT growth in Uganda, there has been a sharp increase in the number of entrepreneurs in the ICT industry who have not only enjoyed the reduced costs of production, but also targeted Public and Private sector support.
In 2012, three students of Makerere University designed “WinSenga “, a smartphone app that performs ultrasounds on pregnant women and can detect problems like ectopic pregnancies and abnormal heartbeats. They went on to become the first winners of the East and Southern Africa of the Imagine Cup, the world’s premier student technology competition hosted by Microsoft Inc.
However, two years later, this innovation has not realized full commercialization despite having been a unique and potentially lucrative innovation. This brings into consideration the fact that there are very many unique entrepreneurial ideas in Uganda only lacking but a feasible commercialization strategy, the WinSenga applications is just one among the many examples of innovative ideas that have still struggled to meet their objectives past the initialization stage.
