Uganda set to Construct Ushs 7bn ICT Hub

Government of Uganda is set to construct an ICT Hub at a cost of Ushs 7 Billion, at the Uganda Institute of Information Communication Technology (UICT) at Nakawa, a Kampala Suburb. This was revealed by Minister of ICT Judith Nabakooba during UICT 13th Graduation recently.

MS Nabakooba revealed that ICT hub will house 300 innovators to enable them access resources for training and incubation for their products as part of national ICT initiative.

“ICT is viewed as a major tool for building a knowledgeable society and modern technologies to transform,” she said, adding that digital technology has the potential to provide unprecedented solutions to address fundamental needs of society. Ms Nabakooba said skills development is key in stimulating sustainable development and can contribute to facilitating transition from informal to formal economy.

She noted that skills development is essential to address the opportunities and challenges to meet new demands of changing economies and technologies in context of globalization.

ICT has become a key economic driver, which according to Ms Nabakooba, must be adopted in all sectors of the economy to create employment as well as advancing research.

Construction of the ICT hub will commence in June and is expected to take one year to complete, according to Minister Nabakooba.Ms Irene Nakiyamba, the principal of the institute, said if completed the hub will help build a sustainable ICT led economy to align it with global changes.

The Uganda Institute of Information and Communications Technology (UICT) is the only Government institution specializing in skills-based middle-level ICT training. It offers practical-oriented ICT training at certificate and diploma levels as an alternative to the theoretically-grounded degrees offered by universities and other tertiary institutions in this same professional area.

UICT programs give students a chance to flourish in various ways. Students learn how to do research, but also how to pick projects that will improve a societal problem and enhance the quality of life for a community of people. These programs are designed to help students develop the vision to contend with global challenges.

To teach students to think like that, a program must be inter-disciplinary, and UICT programs do that by inviting students from all majors, such as Telcom, engineering, business, and ICT. The students form teams and pool their talents. These days, in both industry and academia, projects are done by teams. UICT students divide into teams who are mentored by both Lecturers and industry advisers. Working together, the teams try to find solutions to societal problems and to develop technologies to solve those problems”, said Nakiyamba.

Higher education experts agree that the best experience an undergraduate can have is research. For it is research that allows student to apply the theory they learned in their classes and use their hands and minds to design, build, invent and engineer devices and processes that improve society.