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Good practice Imported

The Innovation Village — Kampala's Self-Sustaining Tech Hub Network

Uganda · Kampala · See the Uganda profile · See the Kampala profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 63% 62/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Founded in Kampala in 2015, The Innovation Village grew into a multi-city co-working and accelerator network reported by the World Bank to host around 2,000 young innovators across roughly 130 youth-led start-ups, later expanding to Gulu, Mbarara and Jinja.

2,000 innovators
Young innovators hosted at the Kampala hub (2018)
130 start-ups
Youth-led start-ups hosted (2018)
5,000 active users
IRA InsureX active-user threshold
5,000 US$ per month
IRA InsureX monthly recurring revenue threshold
<1 %
Uganda insurance penetration at programme launch
The Innovation Village — Kampala's Self-Sustaining Tech Hub Network

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
The Innovation Village Uganda
Period
2015–2026
Keywords
technology incubation, entrepreneurship, digital economy

Context

Uganda's technology entrepreneurs historically lacked affordable office space, mentorship and access to capital outside a handful of donor-run competitions, leaving many promising ventures without a next step after failing to win start-up prizes.

Objectives

Entrepreneur Japheth Kawanguzi founded The Innovation Village in mid-2015 to give such ventures a home, combining co-working space with a structured accelerator programme and sector-specific support.

Activities

The Village opened at the Ntinda Complex in Kampala, running a 12-week accelerator alongside sector-specific 'labs' spanning agriculture, education, energy, financial services and insurance, and later expanded to additional sites in Gulu, Mbarara and Jinja. It has since built sector partnerships, including the IRA InsureX programme with Uganda's Insurance Regulatory Authority, which requires participating insurtech start-ups to reach at least 5,000 active users or $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue and aims to help double Uganda's insurance penetration.

Results

A 2018 World Bank feature reported that the Kampala hub had grown to around 2,000 young innovators working across roughly 130 youth-led start-ups. Independent coverage from the World Bank's development blog and Ugandan outlet SoftPower News corroborates the hub's scale and multi-city growth, but neither publishes audited job-creation, survival-rate or revenue figures for graduate start-ups.

Conclusions

The Innovation Village is a credible example of a self-sustaining, multi-city tech hub network with documented scale and sector partnerships, but the evidence is observational description rather than a rigorously evaluated outcome study.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Founder Japheth Kawanguzi and Innovation Village management team, Sector-specific 'lab' teams (agriculture, education, energy, financial services, insurance)

Conditions for success

  • Structured accelerator programme (12 weeks) alongside co-working space
  • Sector partnerships with regulators/industry bodies, e.g. IRA InsureX with Uganda's Insurance Regulatory Authority
  • Multi-city expansion (Gulu, Mbarara, Jinja) to extend reach beyond the capital

Common failure modes

  • No audited job-creation, start-up survival-rate or revenue figures are published for graduate start-ups
  • No independently verified data on gender or disadvantaged-group participation was found

Where it fits

Governance type
private/non-profit-run innovation hub
Scale
multi-city
Income level
low-income

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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