Vice-President Jessica Alupo has launched a digital hub for Teso region in eastern Uganda.

Launching the digital hub on Tuesday at Katakwi district headquarters, Alupo said the hub seeks to provide the youth, women, elderly, enterprise owners, students and farmers with knowledge and skills in digital technology to enhance their capabilities to produce and market their products worldwide.

Vice-President also said the programme is expected to create sustainable livelihood opportunities for the informal sector and enable small business owners to participate in regional and national trade.

“Digital transformation is one of the key drivers of effective human capital development. Therefore, it gives me much pleasure to launch this project,” she said.

The programme is to be implemented in a phased way starting with Katakwi, Amuria and Kaperabyong district. Later, the programme will traverse in the rest of remaining districts in Teso.

Alupo urged the youth to maintain discipline during the course and asked Huawei to establish an Information and communications technology (ICT) resource centre in Katakwi to promote continuity and sustainability of the programme.

She also asked Huawei to equip parish chiefs with computer knowledge and skills for the success of Parish Development Model (PDM) programme.

The President launched the PDM program in February 2022. The PDM is a government multi-sectoral strategy to reducing poverty, by moving the 39% households (i.e., 3.5 million households or 16.1 million Ugandans) under subsistence economy (living hand-to-mouth), into the money economy.

Alupo noted that the Government considers Huawei as a very strategic and important partner in the transformation of Uganda. 

“We also acknowledge with appreciation to Huawei for building smart infrastructure here, such as aiding education through ICT,” she said.

Katakwi Resident District Ccommissioner Maj. Godfrey Katamba said the focus of these initiatives includes promoting digital foundation skills, digital communications and information, digital transactions, using the Internet for problem-solving, online safety, civic responsibility and data privacy, which will promote digitalisation of the informal sector (Jua-Kali) enterprises for productivity and job growth in the country.

The DigiTruck programme is co-ordinated with development and training partners globally to close the access and knowledge gap in digital literacy so that no one is left behind.

Connected by 4G, each DigiTruck can accommodate 20 learners in one session and equipped with the Huawei IdeaHub smart screen, 21 Huawei smartphones and 21 Huawei laptops, all of which run on solar power installed on top of the truck.

Vice-President Jessica Alupo touring the ICT hub.

Huawei Technologies Uganda deputy managing director Jian Gao said Uganda is an important partner for China in Africa.

“The two countries enjoy profound traditional friendship. In recent years, our political mutual trust continues to be consolidated, the practical co-operation in all fields yielding fruitful achievements. China wishes to cooperate with Uganda continuously to promote the Comprehensive Co-operative Partnership in scoring new achievements,” he said.

He added: “The DigiTruck Project that Huawei started in Uganda is one of the examples of Chinese companies in Uganda performing due social responsibilities.

Gao encouraged beneficiaries to use the skills acquired during the DigiTruck training to indulge in e-commerce, sell their farm produce online and also to get jobs.