Updates

Kampala, 20^th February 2025: Uganda will host the first-ever Middle East and Africa Digital Transformation Summit (MEA-DTS) from 25^th to 27^th June, 2025 at the Kampala Serena Hotel. This has been revealed by Hon. Dr. Chris Baryomunsi (PhD), the Cabinet Minister for ICT and National Guidance during a press launch at Uganda Media Center today.

According to Dr. Baryomunsi, the summit will be hosted under the theme; Driving Digital Transformation for a Connected and Inclusive MEA Region, with H.E. President Yoweri K. Museveni as the Chief Host.

“The MEA-DTS is consistent with Uganda Vision 2040, where we have ICTs as pivotal to transforming Ugandan from a predominantly agricultural community to a modern and prosperous country. Further, the summit supports the EAC Vision 2050, by leveraging ICTs for value addition in critical sectors like agriculture, tourism, minerals, oil & gas, and knowledge, to create more jobs and boost livelihoods,” he said, adding;

“The summit will champion digital technologies that facilitate enhanced economic transformation and regional competitiveness. It will enrich Africa and the Middle East’s contribution to SDGs, such as SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure).”

The 2025 Middle East and Africa Digital Transformation Summit, the first of its kind is being co-organised by the Ministry of ICT & National Guidance, COMESA Business Council (CBC) and HiPipo – a leading entity in ICT and financial inclusion in Africa.

HiPipo is a reputable entity, recently named the most Innovative Financial Inclusion Organization in the Middle East and Africa 2024 while its Chief Executive, Innocent Kawooya, was honoured as the FinTech CEO of the Year in 2024 across the Middle East and Africa.

Speaking at the launch, Kawooya noted that the summit ties-in perfectly with Uganda’s National Vision 2040, the Government ICT Agenda, the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Africa Agenda 2063.

He added that HiPipo has been at the forefront of digital transformation for the past twenty years, with leading projects such as 40 Days 40 FinTechs, Women In FinTech Initiative, HiPipo Music Awards, Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa.  

“These efforts have meaningfully impacted the lives of countless low-income Africans in the ICT and creative sectors. For instance, HiPipo has empowered AgriTech innovators, impacting over 600,000 smallholder farmers by helping them access land, connect with genuine input suppliers, reach better markets, and eliminate exploitative middlemen,” Kawooya noted.

He added: “We are therefore happy to bring this Summit to Uganda and look forward to meaningful deliberations on important aspects such as digital innovation, financial services, policy and regulation, sustainability and impact, etc.

On his part, Dr. Jonathan Pinifolo, the Chief Operating Officer at COMESA Business Council noted that the Summit offers an opportunity for governments and private players in the ICT sector to find a common ground for seamless trade across borders.

“COMESA is the biggest trading block in Africa and we believe that it is important to connect with the rest of Africa and the Middle East by leveraging digital tools, policies and innovations for trade,” he said.

“We envisage greater opportunities to deepen e-government services, investment, manufacturing, commercial agriculture, services, e-commerce, employment, oil and gas, energy, wealth creation, and modernisation, with enhanced opportunities for our people across Africa,” he added.

The summit will be a multi-stakeholder engagement, with participants from over 60 countries including policymakers, ICT industry leaders, innovators, and investors. It will facilitate showcasing advanced digital solutions, emerging breakthroughs fostering economic growth, improving public services and enhancing quality of life. There will also be networking sessions to facilitate collaboration, including by the participating youth from over 70 Universities in Africa and the Middle East.

HiPipo and COMESA Business Council (CBC) have entered a Memorandum of Understanding to scale the Include Everyone program in the COMESA region.

The five-year collaboration supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will focus on empowering women and youth engaged in informal cross-border trade in the COMESA region through initiatives that promote financial inclusion and digital trade.

Speaking at the signing ceremony at the COMESA headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, the COMESA Business Council CEO Teddy Yagambaram Soobramanien noted that the collaboration will start with cross-border traders at the Mwami/Mchinji one-stop border post, a strategic point that connects Zambia and Malawi and serves as a hub for regional trade.

“We would like to welcome HiPipo to the COMESA region. They come with experience in digital and financial inclusion, and we believe the Include Everyone program rhymes well with our Digital Financial Inclusion Program for MSMEs,” he said.

He added that at the end of the project, there should be a digitalised trade ecosystem with improved cross-border trade efficiency and reduced transaction costs for all.

HiPipo CEO Innocent Kawooya highlighted that most cross-border traders in the COMESA region face common challenges, including limited access to capital, high mobile money transaction charges, foreign exchange loopholes, poor internet connectivity and trust issues with existing digital platforms.

He, therefore, noted that HiPipo comes with 20 years of experience in digital and financial inclusion that has seen millions of lives changed through initiatives such as Women in FinTech and Incubator program, 40 Days 40 FinTechs, and Digital Financial Awards Africa, among others.

“Through the Include Everyone program, we want to extend financial and digital literacy programs tailored to at least 5,000 cross-border traders each year at key border posts through innovative programs; we want to advocate for interoperable digital payment systems to reduce transaction costs and improve accessibility for traders; we will also support FinTech innovators in developing solutions tailored to the needs of cross-border traders,” he said.

He further thanked the Bill and Melida Gates Foundation for the continued support over the years, noting that with cross-border trade contributing over 43 per cent of the Africa’s GDP, this project will create lasting impact in the COMESA region.

About HiPipo

HiPipo is a pioneering digital transformation organisation with 20 years of experience in advancing digital and financial inclusion across Africa and the Middle East. HiPipo has been recognised for its impactful initiatives in promoting financial and digital inclusion in partnership with global and regional stakeholders, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

About CBC

COMESA Business Council is a platform for private sector engagement, advocating for secure, competitive, and inclusive digital ecosystems that enhance trade and financial inclusion across COMESA member states.

Boarding schools’ students always need some upkeep. Commonly know as ‘Pocket Money’, these funds enable them to restock their ‘School Grab’, affordable to buy eats at their canteens, contribute church tithe and pay for some school activities such as sports, parties and outings.

Traditionally, this money has always been kept by the students directly or kept by the school bursars, matrons, patrons and teachers. But this always comes with its unique challenges. Money kept by students is prone to either getting misplaced or stolen by their colleagues while that kept by the school staff sometimes gets mismanaged by the same staff.

In a move to address these issues, a team of young innovators a few years ago developed a digital financial services product. Named Kawu; this platform enables parents to digitally send pocket money to their kids through an APP or USSD and also allows students to receive this money on a smart card and digitally spend it at their canteens.

“We basically issue out credit and debit cards to students. In most African schools, students are not around to have mobile phones. So, when they are in schools, the only way they can access money is through cash. What we do is we take away all that process of sending money to students through teachers who then give it to them in cash. Kawu allows you as a parent to send money directly to the student, who then receives it on his/her smart card and uses the same card to make payments, save and make necessary withdraws,” explained Steven Kakooza, a co-founder and director at Kawu.  

He added: “When you look at the Education system in Africa, you find that students spend on average nine months every year in school. On average, someone spends 15 years in school. These are years the Youth spend without accessing digital financial services yet they need them. We created Kawu to address this issue. Because, the earlier we introduce the Youth to digital financial services, the better for them as they are able to transact, and start saving at an early age.”

He revealed that since its launch in 2022, Kawu is currently used by more than 62,000 active customers – students and parents, in up to 70 schools across Uganda. He highlighted that to deliver this service, Kawu works with Interswitch; a bank of Uganda licensed financial technology company.

Kawu has featured on Day 40, the final day of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

A group of Young Ugandans are determined to revolutionize Savings and Investments through a digital platform named Eazy Sacco.

According to Ben Okello Mwaka, the Founder and CEO of this platform, Eazy Sacco is a FinTech solution that concentrates on savings and investments for the unbanked and underserved communities.

“The idea of Eazy Sacco came up in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had been part of Savings groups that died during this period. So, we thought that we would use technology to make these Savings groups work. Since 2019, we have been working on this product. We officially launched it in 2023. Our platform is accessible through Web and a Mobile APP while works on the USSD alternative are underway,” Mr Okello stated, adding;

“When some accesses the platform, they create an account. Once the account is verified, you can either create or join a savings or investment group. The platform gives you control over your funds and how to access them and also allows you to join more than one group.”  

He noted that since 2023, Eazy Sacco has been able to on-board some 20 Savings Groups and currently serving about 1000 active users.

“We have partnered with financial technology companies that offer payment services, so you can transfer money from a bank or mobile money account to your Eazy Sacco account. You can also withdraw money from your Eazy Sacco account back to your mobile money account. One of our partners is Eversend Uganda; a licensed and regulated financial technology organization. In future, we intend to secure our own licenses and setting up our own in-house payment gateways,” Okello noted.

Eazy Sacco has featured on Day 39 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Informal Women Traders and Youth are some of the most unserved and underserved people in matters digital and finance. For finance particularly, this is so because most Informal Women and Youth don’t have collateral security to use to access credit plus majority of their businesses are undocumented thus lack proper financial records and data to support their need for finances.

With most formal institutions not welcoming them, many turn to seeking for support from alternative credit channels which are usually expensive.

However, innovators are contributing to addressing this challenge through developing platforms that help create financial history and also record business data for these kinds of businesses. One such platforms is Tawaza Digital Varieties; a new digital and financial inclusion start-up for Informal Women and Youth. 

“We are a digital financial services provider currently doing savings, credit and payments. We mainly work with Women and Youth in the informal sector. We deliver these services through a digital platform that was installed for us by our partners – Instersolve, Kenya. This platform came with a complete framework that allows us to onboard users and also be able to have subscribers visit it and learn more about how to work with digital products,” noted Winfred Nandawula, the regional programs director for Tawaza Digital Varieties.

She added: “Among the digital products we have is Diva Grow; this allows customers to do saving and investment. After subscription, they choose from three available options and get started. They can deposit, withdraw and buy shares. We also have a digital ledger product, which helps small businesses to smartly record their business records and use them to access finance.”

Nandawula highlighted that their target audience are people with some income source but have been left out of the formal finance systems due to absence of records about their businesses. She noted that Tawaza is accessible both as a mobile APP and through USSD.

“We started to offer digital financial services in 2022. We have onboarded over 1300 subscribers and on these, some 200 are active monthly platform users. These save and access credit of not more than UGX 500,000 every now and then,” she noted.

Tawaza has featured on Day 38 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Since time immemorial, many people have been investing in tangible assets mainly, land, houses, automotives, and animals. But with technology, investment options have expanded with Treasury Bills, Bonds, Equity and Shares among others added to a list of areas of investment.

Among the companies that are providing technology supported investment in Uganda is XENO.

“We are a licensed Fund Manager that is helping over 120,000 individuals, groups and institutions to plan, save and invest for future expenses. We are using technology to help anyone who has a future goal to start saving from as low as UGX 10,000. We have a mobile APP, available on web and available on the MTN MoMo USSD,” said Arthur Nakkaka, a Product Manager XENO Uganda.

He added: “We are at the intersection of Fund Management and Technology. As a Fund Manager, we are a run four regulated funds. Bond Fund, Money Market Fund and Two Equity Funds. On the other side, we are a technology company that is using technology to offer a service that was once only available to a niche audience. We are distributing this service at scale to anyone who is able to save.”

He noted that XENO supports its customers to come up with a saving plan, design a portfolio and execute it, with continuous tracking through a mobile APP and guidance.

“For any saver, we need to understand why they are saving. There are very many modes of investment but the one we believe is the most effective is the goal-based investment. We always ask our clients what goal they want to achieve, we then ask them, the period they want to achieve this. After aligning on this, a customer goes on the XENO APP or the MTN MoMo USSD and get started. We also need to understand your attitude towards risk as this will determine where we will invest your money. So, what you save per day or month plus the returns you get from the investment is what will enable you achieve your goal,” he said.

He highlighted that they welcome customers as individuals, partners, and groups which can be formal or informal groups. The other customers they serve are institutional customers. He revealed that the most popular goals on the XENO platform are building wealth, education, building a home, retirement and income drawdown.

In Uganda, XENO Investment Management Limited is licensed and regulated as a Fund Manager by Uganda’s Capital Markets Authority and by the Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority.

XENO has featured on Day 37 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Interaction between AgriTech and FinTech is key to ensuring that Farmers can benefit more from Agriculture. Well as AgriTech focuses mainly on introducing technology in to agriculture, integration with FinTech (financial technology) moves this a notch higher as it doesn’t only make farmers adopt technology for farming but also ensures that they are able to transact – make and receive payments from the comfort of their farms.

It is this interaction that Hamwe East Africa is spearheading. Started as an AgriTech in 2013, Hamwe has over the years transformed into an AgriTech – FinTech; all for the benefit of farmers.

“We work with underserved farmers in off the grid areas of Uganda and East Africa. Well as everybody else tried to work with Farmers in peri-urban areas and central region, for us, we decided to go to areas were farmers lack services such as internet access. These are the actual smallholder farmers that need support,” Stella N. Lugalambi, a co-founder and managing director of Hamwe East Africa noted.

She added: “We build a farmer management system that enables farmers get a farming system, digital identity and economic identity. We are giving smallholder farmers an identity that allows them to access finance because they will have a system with credible data to prove that they actually earn and can afford to manage this finance.”

Hamwe is active in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi with plans to expand to the rest of East Africa in the near future.

“To date, we have over 400,000 farmers in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. We are planning to go to Kenya and Tanzania and grow our numbers to one million farmers by 2025. The beginning was a bit difficult but now we onboard more farmers easily because we know what to do. Even farmers are also adapting easily.”

Lugalambi noted that they offer a complete agriculture support service. Hamwe East Africa’s bundled services to the over 400,000 farmers include farmers’ profiling, assessing farmers’ needs, identifying off takers, connecting farmers to inputs suppliers and ready markets, agronomy services, crop insurance, payments and access to credit.

“Majority of our members come from cooperatives. Our work is coordinated by digital community entrepreneurs that support between 100 to 300 farmers. The digital community entrepreneurs (DCE) talk to farmers at the last mile because we get them from the same community where the farmers come from so they can easily engage and support them. The DCEs report to Territory Executives at the district level,” she said. 

She revealed that in order to further support farmers, they added FinTech solutions to the platform which are enabling farmers to easily transact.

“To ensure that our farmers are served well, we signed up with mobile network operators – MTN and Airtel for a payment gateway. We are directly connected with the mobile money operators so our farmers get their payments directly to their phones. We have also signed up with banks and Flexipay. These payment alternatives ensure that our farmers don’t have to be embarrassed walking long distances to banks to access their money.”

She nonetheless called upon the government, telecom operators and development partners to invest more in network upgrade and data connectivity as this will enable more farmers benefit more from these services.

On their part, she noted that Hamwe has partnered with Mastercard Inc to deliver a community pass – an electronic card that stores farmers’ information.

“We have just rolled out this card and it is so far being used by about 20,000 farmers. This is our newest innovation. It is accessible offline. We plan to upgrade it to even support payments in the future,” she concluded. 

Hamwe has featured on Day 36 of the annual 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.