Share this article

Dr. Aminah Zawede, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, urged Ugandan software developers to embrace Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to reduce youth unemployment at the inaugural Uganda Development Summit.

Dr Aminah Zawede speaking at the Uganda Development Summit in Kampala.

The Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, Dr. Aminah Zawede, urged software developers to embrace Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) as one of the ways to curb rising levels of unemployment among young people in Uganda.

Zawede, who was opening the inaugural Uganda Development Summit in Kampala, said there are countless opportunities in the tech space with multiple jobs that do not require the employee to sit in office.

“As a country, we have very many young people. Of our population, which is 45.9 million people, over 35 million Ugandans are under the age of 30. We graduate over 50,000 students out of our universities every year, and all these people are looking for employment. But there are opportunities in the technology space, jobs that people can do online from Uganda for countries outside, and companies within Uganda, but you don’t have to go to the office,” she said.

“Today, if you are starting a business and you cannot deliver things to someone’s home, then that business is going to fail. If you have a company where you cannot allow people to partly work from home and office, then you are not going to thrive as an institution,” Zawede added.

Uganda, being a landlocked country but land-linked due to its geographical location on the continent, serves as an opportunity for BPO to flourish. This geographical advantage enables Ugandan software developers to provide services to neighboring countries such as South Sudan, Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania, as well as to various countries across the continent.

For business process outsourcing to thrive, it necessitates that people possess innovative skills, the ability to work remotely, reliable internet connectivity, as well as a supportive national infrastructure. The countries at the forefront of this industry include India and the Philippines, with other nations also making strides in this field. 

This, Zawede said, is what the government is working hard to achieve.

“To do this, you must have connectivity. We are ensuring that we have the internet spread out to the entire country so that anywhere you are, you can be able to get internet. That is the journey we are taking as a government. Our role is to create an enabling environment. We are doing that; we are setting up innovation hubs where people can sit and think, and grow their ideas.”

The inaugural Uganda Development Summit was organized by Refactory, a pioneering training academy in Uganda, offering alternative industry-led skilling for the global technology industry. The summit brought together young people who can develop applications and systems online.

The summit marked a significant milestone for the country’s burgeoning tech industry by bringing together software developers from across the country for the first time.

The Refactory Executive Director, Michael Nyitegeka, said the Summit intended to not only transfer knowledge to software developers but also connect the young talent in the tech ecosystem to employers.

“Refactory has been training software developers or people in the software industry for the last five years. Our primary focus has largely been preparing people for the world of work and placing them into work. We have trained over 600 young people, and our placement rate is about 80%. The summit is intended to create a platform where the developer ecosystem is able to connect, engage, and learn. The intention is to speak to people that are employing and to people that are going to hire. We already have two companies here that are seeking to hire young talent,” he said.

The 2021 Google software developer survey estimates about 761,000 software developers on the African continent. Of those, only 13,000 are estimated to be in Uganda. This is less than 10% of the total number of developers, yet Uganda is one of the fastest-growing digitally enabled countries on the continent.

Nyitegeka said these worrying statistics must change.

“Our focus here is to showcase talent, but also to give them the opportunity to explore the continent and beyond.”

Nyitegeka also said that for one to become a software developer, they do not need to have a background in ICT. He further noted that Uganda has to change the mindset that any education that does not culminate in a degree or diploma at the end of the course of study is a failure and a waste of resources.

“The whole mindset issue that I can get a skill that does not lead to a degree is still a big challenge in our community, and yet the developed world has really moved on; give me what I can use, use it now. If it can get me to work, I am happy. Here [in Uganda], people ask questions: Will it give me a degree? Will I get a diploma? So, people are still stuck in the traditional approach to education, which is not a problem, but I am also saying that not everything that will get you to work must be a degree, a diploma, because what we have seen is that the majority of the people we are training have studied other degree programs like mass communication and community psychology and are now being hired as software engineers,” he said.

PS Aminah Zawedde (4th left) joins industry leaders and young innovators at the inaugural UG DEV SUMMIT

Over one million jobs in the software industry globally are not filled. Nyitegeka said Uganda’s software developers should not only focus on Uganda as their market place but rather aim to take on the global market by embracing BPO.

“People no longer care where you are working from. You can work from Uganda and deliver your work to companies outside Uganda.”