UDB Launches Apprenticeship For Tech Graduates

Are you a fresh University graduate specializing in the technology field? Uganda Development Bank (UDB) is here to help you meet your next employment dream.

Through their annual Graduate Apprenticeship Program (GAP), UDB is this year giving opportunities to fresh graduates majoring in engineering with a bias in mechanical, software, and mechatronic engineering.

Others include graduates in irrigation and agro-processing engineering and data management with a bias in data science, analysis and or architecture, mathematics; computer science, and physics among others.

The 2nd cohort of the GAP program was launched at a press conference, held at the UDB Head office in Kampala on Monday.

Joshua Allan Mwesiga, the Director of Strategy and Corporate Affairs at UDB, said the program’s main objective is to provide hands-on skills development and job opportunities to nascent professionals in Uganda, in a bid to create a pool for the Bank’s future talent needs.

“At UDB, we recognize that job creation is central to the national socio-economic development process and core to the country’s transformation”, he said

He added that GAP is UDB’s response to this very technology era which is a pertinent aspect of the country.

He in addition said GAP is one of UDB’s responses to developing its human capital and aims at creating sustainable, decent, and meaningful jobs for budding professionals, and this is in alignment with the government’s priority interventions stipulated in Vision 2040 and National Development Plan 111 (NDP111).

“Key to note, UDB is the only development finance institution in Uganda and like all forward-looking organizations, continuity is key thus it becomes imperative to build a healthy stock of skills and talent to enable it to deliver its strategy”, he added.

Given that there is no specialized institution for fintech training in the country, the Bank sought to contribute to the development of these skills and competencies in the country by identifying high-achieving young individuals with high entrepreneurial and managerial promise, and by skilling them appropriately.

“At the end of their training, the apprentices will have acquired the relevant competencies required for various roles; those that will have completed the program, demonstrated the right attitude, conduct, and aptitude, will be absorbed into the Bank’s service”, Mwesiga pointed out.

Under the program, the Bank is calling for applications by graduates in specific fields of study, from the finalists who will be identified following a structured and competitive selection.

For one to be eligible, the candidate should be a Ugandan citizen that will have graduated with a bachelor’s degree qualification in the academic fields noted, from any reputable-recognized university above, plus 30 years of age and below.

The deadline for receipt of the application is 30th September 2022.

In 2020, the Bank rolled out a successful inaugural graduate apprenticeship program which registered 100 per cent retention rates and superior on-joint performance ratings for all the four trainees that were recruited in 1st cohort.

UDB is Uganda’s national Development Finance Institution (DFI) with a mandate to accelerate socio-economic development through sustainable financial interventions.

Consistent with this mandate, the Bank supports projects within the private sector that demonstrate the potential to deliver high socio-economic value, in terms of job creation, improved production output, tax contribution, and foreign exchange generation, among other outcomes.

These projects fall within the key priority sectors of the economy and are in line with Uganda’s development priorities.

The Bank’s financing interventions are mainly in primary agriculture, agro-processing, and manufacturing which account for about 80 per cent of its investment portfolio.

UDB however undertakes specific interventions in other sectors; including tourism, human capital development, and infrastructure, including ICT.