Government through the Ministry of Finance has unveiled a new technology innovation and incubation hub at Makerere University in Kampala.
The Shs 80 million incubation hub is expected to play an instrumental role in empowering youth to create new ideas that will boost enterprise development and the country’s economy at large.
It was officially opened by State Minister for Finance in charge of General Duties, Dr. Gabriel Ajedra at a function held at the Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences.
In his remarks, Dr. Ajedra noted that; “we have so many innovators, but they have not tried to take their products to the market because they lack marketing skills and why they do not translate into goods and services is a missing link that we need to address.”
He reiterated that there is a big gap between innovations and consumers adding that the center will aim at creating a linkage between innovators, investors, and consumers.
According to Dr. Ajedra, the center will accept applications vetted online based on development ideas which will see five startups recruited, funded and grown through training a representative of the enterprise.
Prof. Banarbas Nawangwe, the Makerere University Vice-Chancellor said the center will mainly focus on supporting innovations to challenges in the fields of education, health, engineering, social services and agriculture, providing training, skills, and workspaces to empower youth.
This will join a number of incubation centers that are in Makerere University including iLabs which focus mainly on automation.
Together with the help of government, students and staffers at Makerere University College of Engineering developed the Kiira Electronic Vehicle and the Kayoola solar-powered bus, innovations that have taken the world by storm.
With the construction of a new incubation hub at the University, many more innovations are bound to come up and in the end, boost the country’s economy.
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