Overview:
More than 1,190 young Ugandans have now completed MTN Uganda's ACE digital-skilling programme, as the economy turns to technology for growth.
KAMPALA — MTN Uganda has graduated 503 young people from its ACE digital-skilling programme, part of a push to build a workforce that can support businesses and jobs as the country looks to technology to drive economic growth.
The latest cohort takes the number who have completed the programme to more than 1,190, among them people with disabilities and refugees. Graduates were trained through a hybrid learning model in computer and online essentials, digital marketing, e-commerce, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, and are eligible to progress to the ACE Career and Enterprise track, which offers advanced digital and entrepreneurship training aligned with MTN’s Ambition 2030 strategy.
George William Egaddu, chairperson of the board of trustees of the MTN Foundation, said the programme was designed to help young people turn access to technology into economic opportunity. “At MTN Foundation, we believe that investing in young people is an investment in Uganda’s future. Digital access creates the opportunity, but it is skills that enable people to turn that access into livelihoods, businesses and solutions,” he said.
The training feeds into a broader national ambition. Under the Fourth National Development Plan and its Tenfold Growth Strategy, Uganda is targeting a tenfold expansion of its economy to US$500 billion by 2040, with ICT, science, technology and innovation identified among the drivers of that transformation. The country’s youthful population sharpens the task: three-quarters of Ugandans are under 30, a demographic that presses on the jobs market even as it offers a large pool of potential workers and entrepreneurs.
“The opportunity before us is to ensure that our young population is equipped not only to participate in the digital economy, but also to shape it,” said Amos Mpungu, an assistant commissioner who represented the permanent secretary in the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, Dr Aminah Zawedde. He said programmes such as ACE complemented government efforts to build a digitally empowered society in which young people could use technology to create jobs and solve local problems.
MTN Uganda said expanding connectivity would deliver limited economic impact without the skills to use digital services productively.
The MTN Foundation, which receives 1 per cent of MTN Uganda’s net profit for social investment across economic empowerment, education, health and humanitarian response, said it invested more than UGX 5.1 billion (about USD 1.37 million) in 2025 in programmes reaching more than 60,000 people. An independent assessment of the Foundation’s economic-empowerment projects run between 2022 and 2024 found that 88 per cent of youth participants secured employment after training and 93 per cent reported improved business performance, with more than 22 start-ups supported.
For the latest graduates, the programme now opens a path into more advanced training, shifting the focus from acquiring basic digital skills to applying them in jobs, businesses and new ventures.