Walter Wafula
22 August 2008
Stakeholders in Uganda's Information, Communication and Technology sector have created a platform aimed at uniting Kampala's software firms to increase their efficiency in service and product delivery.
Work on the ICT Software Cluster Initiative commenced on Tuesday, in Kampala, with a workshop that gathered representatives from government, the business community and academia, to discuss the future of the Uganda's first and notable ICT Cluster.
A cluster refers to a group of companies and institutions located in a single geographical location, interlinked by interdependence in providing particular product or services among them, to increase their competitiveness.
The Kampala ICT Cluster will be virtually connected based on the idea of the Silicon Valley, a leading high-tech business area in the United States of America because of its large number of I.T companies including, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Hewlett- Packard and Intel among others.
Speaking to the participants, Ms Goretti Amuriat, Project Officer Gender and ICT at Women of Uganda Network said, the concept was adopted from the innovation system and Cluster programme for Eastern and Central Africa. The programme is a collection of collaboration of research of three East African Engineering institutions including Makerere University Faculty of Technology.
The objective of the Cluster is to stimulate innovativeness, to increase competitiveness among firms for economic growth and change mind sets of ICT firms and institutions. If you have been working alone, this concept wants to bring you in group to achieve a common goal, according to ICT Cluster the company behind the initiative.
"By competitiveness, we mean the ability to provide quality products and services more effectively and efficiently that are relevant to competitors," Ms Gorreti said.
"It's also the ability of a nations firm to achieve sustained success versus foreign competitors without protection or subsidies."
Discussing the benefits of a cluster Mr. Peter Leting a lecturer at the Faculty of Technology Makerere University said Clusters make firms more competitive in an environment where there's piracy of software like in Ugandan.
"Working with a cluster, will give you the opportunity to seek assistance from government collectively which is harder done alone," Mr Leting added. He called upon software firms in Kampala to make use of this opportunity to join the new ICT platform to be part of the benefits of the Cluster in the near future.
The new ICT initiative will be funded by government, Non Governmental Organisations like The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Rockefeller Foundation as well as institutions like Makerere University, will support the initiative in its first 18 months of inception. where in the country.
The ICT Cluster is expected to be moved forward by a team of leaders who were elected by the committee members of the ICT Cluster. The project is expected to be launched as soon as all interested ICT firms in Kampala are registered with the Cluster next year.
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