© Barbara Birungi, Founder of Women in Technology Uganda (WITU) and Executive Director of Hive Colab in Uganda

‘If more women owned mobile phones, there would be more development’

In 2010, Barbara Birungi founded Women in Technology Uganda. This NGO provides networking, training, mentoring and partnering to increase the number of women in technological fields. Ms Birungi is also Executive Director of Hive Colab, a business incubator in Kampala for East African start-ups in technological fields which also dates from 2010. On 26 February, she was one ofseveral speakers invited by UNESCO to describe how e-science was being used in their country tostrengthen the interface between science, policy and society.

One of the session’s recommendations was for UNESCO to design a demand-driven web-based platform which would reflect the dynamics of the science−policy interface at all levels, from national to global. This session was one of more than 70 hosted by UNESCO at its Paris headquarters over three packed days, within a ten-year review of progress since the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 which included recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda.

• Q1 – How many Ugandans have access to Internet and mobile phones?

Uganda has a population of 34 million. According to the Uganda Communications Commission, 14% of the population had access to Internet in 2011, whereas 39% owned a mobile phone. Mobile phone use is growing fast and Internet use is spreading but access to both technologies has been limited by high costs, especially those imposed by telecom companies for accessing Internet, as well as poor infrastructure in rural areas.

There is also a lack of electricity in most rural areas and frequent power cuts elsewhere. Illiteracy is another factor. It is projected that 85% of men and 71% of women will be literate in Uganda by 2015, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. People also lack information on the benefits of both the mobile phone and Internet.