About UBCGIG Library

Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) is the national information career for the Republic of Uganda. It derives its mandate from the UBC Act of 2005 which merged Uganda Television with Radio Uganda. Operating a total of 11 radio stations and 4 TV channels, UBC boasts of the widest national coverage and thorough grassroots news access.

UBC raising the knowledge bar.

In pursuit of its mandate to Educate; Entertain; and Guide, UBC has established the Global Innovations Guild Library as web-based platform for harvesting global innovations, and disseminating them to newly created parish focused guilds. Essential development knowledge will be a key factor in powering the human development initiatives of the Uganda government, individuals, enterprises, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders seeking to take Uganda to middle Income status and beyond. UBC’s GIG Library has been developed as a platform that will fill the vacuum for basic development information which citizens need, to optimize the available material resources. Development initiatives sponsored by government and the private sector, currently experience widespread underperformance and failure for lack of essential knowledge which happens to be abundantly available from local and global sources. Timely dissemination and application of knowledge in pursuit of human development objectives is the substance of cutting-edge innovation.

Tapping Uganda’s and global knowledge reserves.

Uganda alone has a school-going population of 15 million youths including 300,000+ students enrolled in 56 universities and more than 300 tertiary colleges. Through research and classwork, Knowledge and skills are explored in sufficient measure to feed the learning needs of active entrepreneurs and public servants. Currently, this vast knowledge output enables students to graduate with qualifications, but their transformational potential remains hidden in libraries and personal shelves as tokens of pride, rather than the productive-innovation keys that they are meant to be. In all communities, elders who are custodians of cultural and entrepreneurship history abound awaiting documentation for use in recollecting the past to inform the present so as to shape the future. UBC GIG Library has been created with digital space for every parish to provide this historically lacking platform.

UBC’s GIG Library: A grassroots knowledge generation and exchange platform,

Down to every village, Uganda is circulated with infrastructure for delivering various goods and services to the 45 million strong population. Some of it is government infrastructure, delivering services to citizens, while the rest is commercial-product infrastructure as well as platforms for civil society organizations of various kinds. The public is typically perceived as a market, and swamped by goods, programs and services that leave little room for the consumer public to proactively manage their resources and harvest a fair share of the market opportunities. Government programs are inadequately absorbed while commercial products promote widespread consumerism. As a result Ugandan and other African societies suffer as victims of capitalism where for example, Uganda is on record for consuming fake drugs, alcoholism even among minors and the widespread exploitation of valuable natural resource resulting from citizens’ ignorance. Through the UBC GIG Library, Multi-sectoral knowledge, delivered with digital efficiency, will reduce ignorance of the law, cultural exploitation and widespread poverty among working age youths.

UBC GIG Library: A human development knowledge catalyst

UBC’s Global Innovators Guilds can be compared to SACCOs which bring people together to pool financial resources and create wealth. Global Innovation Guilds differ slightly in that they are formed to recognize and optimize the essential power of knowledge, in enhancing al the other aspirations of the economically active public. While named and described differently in Uganda’s education history, innovation clubs have been attempted as young famers, wildlife, first aid and current affairs clubs in schools. The impact of such clubs has been limited by their history as school-based clubs which could not sustain group stability as students scatter to their respective villages. UBC GIG Clubs have been designed as parish based resilient think-tanks.

The UBC GIG Innovation model

Innovation or the discipline and culture of applying “novel” (fresh) rather than imitative or routine approaches in business and public policy, is necessitated against a backdrop of capitalist colonial history that has over centuries entrenched an economic culture that:

• Sustains a consumerist culture that fuels the industrial growth of advanced economies at the expense of developing technologies to meet local needs and for competitive export capacity.
• Yields to donor-fatigue under which poor nations perceive aid as the easier option of sustaining its citizens and focus on showcasing poverty rather than wealth potential.
• Generates graduates that limit their potential by perceiving vocational success as corporate employment rather than innovative entrepreneurship.
• A populace with localized peasant ambitions which is indifferent to the potential of its the abundant natural resources and open global market opportunities.

Resolved to transformation of the above culture, the UBC Innovation model has 4 features:

1. 1) Youth career-driven multigenerational innovation guilds.

   UBC GIGs will be championed by youth aged 16-25 who are motivated by the risk of unemployment on one hand and the global career prospects that abound for innovative individuals in wealth economies. Such guilds will target 12 members including fresh graduates and senior entrepreneurs and younger 16- mentees united by their prosperity ambitions.

2. 2) Parish Development Model based innovation absorption.

   UBC GIGs are designed to take advantage of the Uganda Government Parish Development Model as the point of engagement where the GIGs will generate innovative technologies and strategies, which PDM initiatives will absorb to optimize government material investment. UBC GIGs will press to showcase knowledge and innovation as the fundamental input that should precede and nourish the success of other “Emyooga” or skills.

3. 3) Targeting 12 Critical sectors of the economy

   UBC GIGs will be popularized by generating innovations in the sectors following critical sectors of the economy: Natural resources; Healthcare; Education and career development; Agriculture and Food sciences; Commerce and Finance; Culture, Creative Arts and entertainment; Information and Communication Technology;

4. 4) Powered by global -universities and corporate sectors.

   The UBC GIGs in every parish will be the one stop reference points for scholars, entrepreneurs, public servants and Civil Society agencies whose mission is to positively influence human behavior for their respective objectives. In the millennium, development knowledge is being generated and disseminated faster than ever before yet grassroots communities are achieving limited success as a result of using rudimentary technologies and strategies while alternatives are readily available waiting for absorption infrastructure. UBC GIGs will be created and managed by Internet savvy youths and adults with at a click will feed Local Councils and entrepreneurs with up to date innovations from the entire planet earth for the benefit of all citizens.

The UBC Global Innovation Guild (GIG) 4-step innovator’s cycle

The UBC GIG innovation tools range from games, aptitude tests and global benchmarking tools all which inspire innovators to set career goals for global rather than 3rd world stereotypes. In terms of career motivation a businessman, social worker teacher engineer, doctor or farmer needs to be informed and inspired by the economic achievement and benefits his or her global counterparts so that they will have a basis for innovating ways of achieving such dreams.

• GIG members’ multi-sectoral career goal setting activities.
• Internet and excursion based global benchmarking activities.
• PDM based innovation absorption activities.
• Intellectual property consolidation process.
• GIG members’ consultancy and career self-marketing tools.

Discover the power of innovation with UBC GIGs! Our dynamic hubs are not just reference points; they're catalysts for change, connecting scholars, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. As we bridge the gap between global advancements and grassroots communities, you have the opportunity to be a driving force. Ready to make a difference? Click now to apply for your Global Innovation Guild (GIG) number and unleash a world of possibilities!