Working with ICT Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
As part of the MySkills4Afrika program, I spent two days with startups at the ICT Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The center provides technical, business and soft skills to Ugandans building solutions in the space of Information and Communications Technology.
The main partners in the establishment and operations of the ICT center are the Uganda Government, currently through the coordination of the Uganda Police Force (UPF) and Microsoft. UPF has provided the working space, furniture, hardware, internet access and other facilities needed to run the center. Microsoft is collaborating via the Microsoft 4Afrika initiative, to help accelerate economic development and global competitiveness for Afrika by focusing on three critical areas — world class skills, access to affordable devices and innovation.
Office hours
The director of business development of ICT, Julius Kanyamunyu helped schedule office hours with the following startups:
Over the course of the two days, I spent a few hours with each startup training their team on using Power BI and reviewing their user interface for mobile and web apps.
Presentation to the ICT Center
On the last day I gave a talk to everyone at the ICT on using Power BI for data analytics and best practices for building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
I demoed different offerings of Power BI including Power Query, Power Pivot and the new Power BI preview experience. Together these offerings provide businesses with a solution to import data into Excel and then upload it to create a live dashboard with informative visuals.
I ended my talk with the best practices on building MVP by emphasizing on starting small and building something big.
I wish all the startups at the ICT center good luck and a successful launch of their products!
