RAN Lab

Uganda has several different types of innovative spaces. I have written before about the types of competition from the Demo African to Pivot East which strictly speaking are international events that have been hosted by local spaces. To understand the local innovation/incubation setting you need to split them into three parts. The first is Hive Colab, it is possibly the oldest space in the country and initially focused on space for the young people in Kampala as well as creativity in mobile solutions with an emphasis on very specific competencies such as in Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Python, HTML, CSS and many others. The space was started by Jon Gosier and is currently located in Kanjokya. The Hive Colab space has run now for quite a while and has gone on to produce known personalities such as Barbara Birunji who now runs and mentors other young women. This is the first category of innovation and incubation space and found its support from creative business people and companies. In addition to this the space benefited greatly from previous associations with Universities that were located in its vicinity (Nakawa Area).

The Second is OutboxHub which is located on Lumumba Avenue, this space was created by a different set of people with a thrust toward some of the same interests that drive the others except there was a greater emphasis (at least in the ealier days on Mentorship). The group created linkages with ICT groups in government. The idea was to give entrepreneurs a place where they could be equipped with the whole gamut of skills that are necessary for effectiveness in the technology space.    

The third type of space in my view is where the RAN lab comes in. It is located in several countries in the African Region and makes full use of its links with the University to create systems and applications that deal with challenges that are identified by professionals in the Education Space.

The offices are located in Kololo where there are the standard services including wifi, space and mentorship in business practice.