Uganda’s NCC2026 Pushes Academia-Industry Links to Drive Market-Ready Innovation

Industry leaders, policymakers, academics and young innovators gathered at Makerere University for the second day of the 10th National Conference on Communications (NCC2026), focusing on strengthening Uganda’s innovation ecosystem and turning ideas into market-ready solutions.

Held under the theme “Accelerating Market-Driven Innovation for Uganda’s Development,” the conference examined how academia, industry and government can work together to create an environment where innovation can support economic development.

CK Japheth, Co-Founder of The Innovation Village, opened the discussions with a session titled “Beyond Ideas: Building Markets and Ecosystems for Innovation.” He highlighted the role of universities and research institutions in building successful innovation ecosystems and called for stronger links between education, research and industry.

“Everywhere innovation has taken off is because it is anchored in academia,” Japheth said, stressing the need to close the gap between academic research and its practical application in industry.

The conference also explored the role of standards in supporting market-driven innovation. Patricia Ejalu, Executive Director, Standards at the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), said emerging innovations often develop without established standards, making it important to connect innovators with standards development processes.

Ejalu called for greater involvement of students in standards development and stronger partnerships between academia and industry.

Government’s changing role in Uganda’s digital economy was also discussed during the conference. Julian Rweju, Director of E-Government Services at NITA-U, spoke on “Government as a Platform: How E-Services are Creating Digital Markets in Uganda.”

Rweju said government should focus on creating an enabling environment for the private sector and creative industries to develop new digital solutions.

“We want to be enablers of the creative sector so that they can create new things,” he said.

He also called for open application programming interfaces (APIs) that would allow private-sector players to build digital services around government platforms.

“As government, we need to create open APIs for operators so that the private sector can provide the digital markets. So, government is no longer just a service provider; it is a marketplace,” Rweju said.

The second day of NCC2026 also featured young innovators from secondary schools, who demonstrated how they are using technology to address practical challenges, highlighting the role of the next generation in Uganda’s digital and innovation ecosystem.