Gayaza High School, Uganda were declared winners by technology giants Microsoft for their idea on how to transform education using technology.

At the Microsoft Global Forum that took place from March 11 to 14 in Barcelona, Spain, the school was announced winners beating other global challengers for the $15000 top prize.

The prize majorly went to Gayaza students who created an online library to market SMEs and provide ideas for students to start businesses.

The School’s winning idea was an ‘E-Market library’, which is an online library page with links to videos showing the processes of production within the small scale local enterprises in Uganda and where they are located.

The online library is expected to serve the purpose of marketing local businesses alongside giving youth an opportunity to learn from the successes of other businesses

Ronald Ddungu, the Gayaza High School Deputy Head Teacher commented before they won the accolade that the youth are being encouraged to be job creators and not job seekers but they do not have a library from where they can learn about the possible businesses that have succeeded in Uganda.

“We expect to adapt the idea in to a well-designed and free eLearning platform showing a library of instructional videos describing the processes of production within the local small scale enterprises to support the teachers as they embark on using a new curriculum in 2017 and the youth who want to start their own businesses,” he said.

Ddungu mentioned that a trade fair on the 9th October -Independence Day will be organised at Gayaza High School to showcase and teach business models required for marketing enterprises using this very idea.

For this particular project the school expects to train about one hundred forty four (144) students, aged between 12-19 years in basic ICT skills.

Source : East African Business Week