Africa-Press – Uganda. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), in partnership with Uganda’s Ministry of ICT and National Guidance, have launched the third phase of the Uganda-Japan Connect program aimed at supporting Uganda digital startups to scale up their operations.
The program also aims at boosting the ICT-enabled startups to become competitive in the global tech ecosystem.
Speaking during the launch at the National ICT Hub in Nakawa, Shirley Nakyejwe, a senior ICT officer at the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance underscored the importance of the program to Ugandan innovators.
“As the program is progressing we are looking at the different levels of the entrepreneurship lifecycle. This program enables entrepreneurs interface with successful industrial players as well as facilitators and experts from within and outside the country,”Nakyejwe said.
Jun Shiomitsu, the CEO AVODA Institute of Entrepreneurship from Japan said they assist startups at different stages of development
“We aim to see Ugandan ICT-related startups connect not just with Japanese companies and the Japanese market, but also globally,”Shiomitus said.
The program which started in 2023 is a mentorship and business development initiative designed to support early-stage Ugandan ICT entrepreneurs.
Shiomitus explained that the program looks at policy support for ICT development in Uganda, and human resource development.
“ And then number three is business matching. So we would love to see Ugandan startups, ICT related startups connect, not only with Japanese companies in the Japanese market, but locally. Output four is the mentorship of Ugandan ICT enabled startups, and we have four batches running over the four year period. We are now in batch three,” he said.
He explained that the first batch named the pre MVP( pre minimum viable product startups) is supporting starts which are developing prototypes but they haven’t started really selling yet.
“ Batch two, which has just concluded a few months ago, was really early stage idea, stage startups. Some of these startups are still in just the mind, and they are just getting started, getting a team together, getting their ideas to solidify. And so output two was a great gathering of much younger entrepreneurs in collaboration with the Uganda ICT Institute.”
“The current batch, batch three, is focused on post-MVP startup support, aiming to help startups scale their prototypes to market. This phase focuses on post-MVP (Minimum Viable Product) startups aiming to scale to an annual revenue of $100,000. Previous batches covered the idea stage, pre-prototype stage, and post-prototype stage. The program is designed to help these startups transition from prototyping to market success.”
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