The role of innovation hubs in driving sustainable development

In Uganda, Entrepreneurship and innovation are increasingly playing a pivotal role in the burgeoning digital age. However, despite being recognized as the 2nd most entrepreneurial country in the World with over 75% of the population aged below 35 years, many ventures in Uganda die before their birthday.

This has been simply attributed to a broken ecosystem that is characterized by:

• Closed and/or bureaucratic systems

• Limited market access

• Lack of resounding business clinics to test, incubate, and validate business concepts for commercialization,

• Limited available skilled talent in the areas of highly specialized technology and business management,

• Outmoded and insufficient policies to foster innovation and entrepreneurship,

• Lack of access to seed capital and other necessary resources that hamper business growth and sustainability.

It is for that matter very pertinent for all the stakeholders as entrepreneurs, academia, private sector, and government to take a collective approach to buttress the socio-economic transformation agenda.

Focus industries:

1. Agtech: Provides an opportunity for farmers, especially in rural areas, to monitor weather conditions, the plant and animal health, access the central marketplace for their produce, and use mobile payments, and agri-information services among others.

2. Fintech: There’s a focus on the fintech industry in Uganda as technology provides wide legroom for more financial inclusion given Uganda’s small banked population eg in the mobile payments space.

3. Healthtech: Better and affordable healthcare is much more needed in Uganda across all aspects of patient care with respect for safety, education, diagnosis, treatment, communication, and equity.

4. Informal Sector Business: Today, many businesses such as retail, bodabodas, delivery businesses, and restaurants among others are struggling with many challenges not to mention the adverse effects of Covid-19. The government has embarked on formalizing such businesses for proper planning as well as widening the tax base.http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=255141

Special thanks to Elvis Segawa, Taaka Proscovia, and Sseguya Baker.