Innovation Village, Cente Tech partner to promote ICT-based innovations in Uganda

Innovation Village Uganda and Centenary Technology Services Ltd have signed a memorandum of understanding that is geared towards acceleratingICT-based innovation ecosystem to facilitate the usage of technology and development of the software applications in Uganda.

Speaking at the signing ceremony on Wednesday in Kampala, Mr Japheth Kawanguzi, the team leader at The Innovation Village, said the partnership will create pathways for developing sustainable and scalable initiatives for the ecosystem that will leverage the use of tech innovations to transform the country’s ICT landscape to achieve socio-economic development.

“Today, we continue to see the various ways in which technology has changed the way we transact business, work and access information, products and services.

So, how do we take advantage of this opportunity to accelerate job creation, build market linkages and distribution network for digital entrepreneurs to thrive?” he asked.

Kawanguzi said that together with Centenary Technology services, they will build linkages that attract financing and investment to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, provide a distribution infrastructural network to empower digital entrepreneurs scale their business beyond local borders.

“We will also create pathways that give our innovators a competitive advantage and opportunities to support the creation of digital applications to support service delivery,” he added.

The partnership is aligned towards enhancing the adoption of technology and facilitate the growth of an open innovation ecosystem and digital marketplace where innovators, corporate organizations and entrepreneurs have countless opportunities to thrive, innovate digital products and reach new markets locally and beyond.

Commonly referred to as Cente Tech, Centenary Technology Services is the technology company of Centenary Group.

With a combined ICT industry experience of over 75 years in the public and private sector, Cente Tech provides holistic technology solutions and delivers innovation that matters to enable and inspire growth. Cente-Tech’s niche lies in ICT advisory and Research; ICT Managed Services and Infrastructure; and ICT Innovation and Digital Services

According toDr Grace Ssekakubo, Chief Executive Officer Cente Tech, the partnership aims to generate highly skilled innovators, who in return will create technology applications to support service delivery, create employment opportunities and improve the use of data for ICT innovation and application development in the country.

“We have over 20million Ugandans within the Centenary brand, we will help innovators commercialize their innovations. This will have an accelerated employment effect as these companies will make revenue, grow and employ more young people,” Ssekakubo said.  

The two entities will work towards building capacity of the tech local content, design and implement mentorship programs that build technical expertise, identify and develop projects that spur development of the innovation ecosystem and leverage on their strength and networks to facilitate the adoption of digital innovation in the country.

The move by the Innovation Village and Centenary Technology Service is strategically geared towards supporting the National ICT Initiatives Support Programme (NIISP) whose sole aim is to facilitate the creation of an ICT innovation ecosystem and marketplace for Ugandan innovative digital products.