Students Happy About Inclusion of Business Module in this Year’s Tech Camp
Oysters & Pearls-Uganda this year hired a business specialist to train more than 50 students who attended this year’s Tech Camp, on how to market their innovations.
“This is our first time to bring a business specialist because the students have been learning and developing the prototypes, without understanding the market demands,” said Denis Obote, program director in charge of technology at Oysters & Pearls-Uganda.
“We want to push the students close to the market. We don’t want them to make final products in the future when they don’t understand consumer demands and interests, do financial projections or market their projects,” Denis said.
During Tech Camp 2020 at Gulu High School, students were trained in the basics of business such as; how to form a business, how to recover from a business depression whether from the start of a business, in the middle or towards the end among others.
Cecillia Aduni, a student of St. Katherine Secondary School in Lira, is sure that after the business classes, she can ably advertise and convince her target buyers, which she has already identified, of their Smart Drop device. The Smart Drop is an automated trash can, designed to reduce improper dumping of non-biodegradable wastes like plastic, which reduce soil fertility.
Patrick Okello, a student from the Mbarara University of Science and Technology, MUST, has attended the Tech Camp five times, and is happy that this year he got ideas on how to start a business.
“The business class is a great idea that should be included in every forthcoming Tech Camp,” Patrick said.
Patrick and his team have designed a web portal where farmers and dealers of agricultural products can share data; methods of farming, areas with favorable prices for their products and inputs, and make predictions on weather patterns and use it to their advantage.
“I now have an idea of what kind of project I can start, who my competitors are and how to make my project better,” he said.
At O&P-UG, we believe that marketing and prototyping fit together, because marketing trains developers how to discover unmet needs among consumers and test concepts.
Marketing also acquaints developers with tips to translate consumer needs into viable products.
