Uganda's technology challenge is not only about money. It is also about mindset.
For years, whenever new technology enters our lives, the first question is often what could go wrong. The conversation quickly turns to misuse, distraction, cheating, addiction or harmful content. Those concerns are real, but if that becomes our starting point every time, we risk missing the opportunities technology brings.
The debate about technology in schools is a good example.
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Phones and other digital devices are often viewed mainly as distractions. Yet the same devices can provide access to dictionaries, research materials, educational videos, calculators, artificial intelligence tools and other learning resources.
The answer does not have to be unlimited access. Schools can establish rules around technology and teach students how to use it responsibly.
For example, a school could have lockers where students keep their phones during lessons and collect them at designated times. When a teacher wants students to use the devices for research or another learning activity, that use can be supervised. Such an approach maintains discipline while recognising that technology is already part of modern life.
The bigger question is whether Uganda wants young people merely to consume technology or to understand how to create it.
A child who is introduced to computers, coding, artificial intelligence and digital tools early in life may eventually become more than a user. That child could become a software developer, engineer, digital entrepreneur or creator of a product that solves a problem in Uganda and beyond.
This is why technology education should not begin only when someone reaches university.
Uganda has institutions teaching computer science, information technology and engineering. But the country also needs to ask how many young people passing through these programmes are being encouraged to build products that can compete beyond Uganda.
Africa has shown that it can adopt technology quickly. Mobile money is one example. Digital media is another. But the next stage should be about creating more technology, not simply using products developed elsewhere.
A digital business can also grow in ways that traditional businesses cannot. A software product created in Kampala can potentially be used by someone in Nairobi, Lagos, London or elsewhere without the company having to build a physical shop in every city.
That is a different kind of opportunity.
Artificial intelligence is making this opportunity even bigger. It can assist with research, writing, coding, analysis and problem-solving. Like every technology, it can be misused. But refusing to engage with it will not make it disappear.
What Uganda needs is responsible use, proper guidance and skills.
The same thinking should apply to classrooms. There is nothing wrong with modernising the way students learn. Smart boards, computers, digital learning materials and other classroom technologies can complement teachers and make lessons more interactive. The blackboard should not necessarily remain the only symbol of education in a country that says it wants to prepare young people for a digital economy.
There is also a need to look beyond schools when discussing children and technology.
Young people encounter information from many places, including television, the internet and social media. Parents, teachers, technology companies and children themselves all have a role to play in making that environment safer. Parental controls, age-appropriate content, supervision and digital literacy are more useful in the long term than pretending technology can simply be kept away from young people.
A calculator offers a simple comparison. Schools accepted that students needed calculators because they were useful learning tools, while putting rules around when and how they could be used. Phones and other digital devices are much more powerful, so they require stronger controls. But their power is also precisely why they can be useful.
The issue, therefore, should be responsible use rather than fear of technology itself.
For me, this is not just an abstract argument. Technology has played a major role in my own journey. I have spent years using the internet to learn, communicate, discover opportunities and build projects. That experience has convinced me that access to technology, when combined with guidance and determination, can open doors that might otherwise remain closed.
My argument is not that every young person should be given unlimited access to every device or online platform. It is that society should learn to distinguish between technology and its misuse.
Uganda also needs to have this conversation without turning it into a political argument. The question is bigger than any president, political party or government. It is about how individuals, families, schools, businesses and institutions think about the future.
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If technology is going to shape the future of work, education and business, then young Ugandans need to be prepared for that future.
They should not only know how to operate a smartphone. They should understand how technology works, how to use it responsibly and, most importantly, how to create with it.
Uganda does not need to abandon discipline in the name of technology. Neither does it need to reject technology in the name of discipline.
It needs a balance.
The country's next technology breakthrough may not come from a large corporation or a foreign investor. It could come from a young Ugandan sitting in a classroom, learning to solve a local problem with technology.
That possibility is worth taking seriously.
Uganda must therefore change how it thinks about technology -- from seeing it mainly as a threat to understanding it as a tool that requires responsibility, skills and imagination.
Mr Martin Luther Nyanzi is a Ugandan media entrepreneur and youth advocate.
