IT Stakeholders Launch Roadmap For Digital Transformation

Centenary Bank in partnership with the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, together with the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP), on Wednesday 16th Nov, launched the process that will define Uganda’s long-term roadmap on digital transformation.

Peter Kahigi, Cente-Tech’s Chief Technology Officer, while addressing stakeholders at the Bank’s head office in Kampala, said digital transformation is accelerating in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“For us to realize the promise of today’s smart revolution, policies need to be smarter too. The roadmap we are creating will be more responsive to change to fully capture potential gains in productivity and economic growth and address rising inequality as technological disruptions create winners and losers,” said Kahigi.

Innocent Ejolu, UNDP Partnerships, Innovation and Development Solutions Specialist, said the roadmap will present an overarching vision for a well-connected Uganda that delivers on the opportunities presented by various technologies and limits the risks whilst stipulating how the vision can effectively be achieved.

Amos Mpungu, representing the ministry of ICT, welcomed this effort of defining a roadmap that will deliver long-term digital transformation in Uganda.

“As a nation, we have various initiatives that are being undertaken with the solitary objective – to digitize Uganda. This effort to aggregate the efforts into a single blueprint is needed now and we are happy to lead this, in partnership with the various stakeholders across the ICT sector”, he said.

The meeting sought to engage and consult key stakeholders and identify the current baseline of inclusivity, and digital penetration in Uganda and identify opportunities; by putting into consideration the current national context for digital skilling in the country’s education ecosystem.

Once curated, the digital transformation roadmap will; enable the various digital agendas as a country to be achieved, streamline and structure investment in the Ugandan digital space and enable the utilization of big data generated every day to mitigate risks among others.

Cente-Tech’s Head of Product and Business Development and Customer Experience, Steven Kirenga, applauded UNDP and the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance for uniting the ICT sector’s major players.

“At Cente-Tech, our mission is to deliver innovation that matters to enable and inspire growth. Therefore, our partnership with the Ministry of ICT and UNDP is a natural one, as we believe that digital transformation is the only way to achieve equitable and inclusive social and economic transformation in Uganda,” Kirenga said.