Ugandan tech developers will showcase their homegrown digital solutions during the 2020 ICT Innovation Katale virtual event.
Organised by Makerere University School of Public Health- ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) Innovation lab with financial support from Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, the event shall take place on Friday 24 July, 2020 at 10am and will be broadcasted live on Facebook as an open event for the general public.
RAN was allocated 14 innovation projects under the second cohort of the National ICT Initiatives Support Program (NIISP).
According to Harriet Adong, RAN’s Director Communications & Knowledge Management, all the projects received funding from the Ministry and were assigned to the RAN lab to receive technical support and guidance towards the realization of these transformative digital solutions.
“With our partners at United Social Ventures, innovators have been taken through an intense incubation program that included Business and enterprise development training, development of a business model, and development of a market and user-outreach plan. Teams were also offered one-on-one coaching and mentorship support and given specialized attention during the COVID-19 Pandemic partial lock-down,” said Ms Adong.
Adding, “The 2020 ICT Innovation Katale Virtual event is the culmination of all these efforts. Though some of these NIISP ventures are still being supported towards recovery from the impact of the ongoing global pandemic, we feel it is a good time to showcase these innovations to potential scaling partners and to the broader public who we hope will be future clients and users of these homegrown digital solutions. Selected teams will be invited to pitch their ideas live and engage with potential partners. We will also have a plenary to discuss what needs to be done to support and facilitate the success of more ICT-based startups.”
Some of the innovations to be showcased include Akatale Fresh, Jaguza, MyLib, SignTapp, the sign language dictionary and translator, farm-lite, the agro-vcm, the mobile tax returns filing system just to mention but a few.
The public is urged to use the hashtag #RANICTKatale to post about the event on various social media platforms prior to and during the virtual event.
About RAN
RAN is a multidisciplinary innovation development lab that leverages the creativity and talent of entrepreneurs, scholars, faculty and communities to develop and scale innovative ideas. The lab was founded on the premise of bringing together scholars, a diverse array of industry players and entrepreneurs to co-create evidence-based solutions that build the resilience of communities facing recurrent shocks and stresses in Africa. We offer support to innovators in developing and launching their most compelling ideas, start-up enterprises and businesses that tackle the key challenges in communities like climate change, food insecurity, financial inclusion, rapid urbanization, disease epidemics and chronic conflict among others.
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