Launch of First Digital Employment Platform in EAC

A Rwandan built Innovative Digital Platform (INNODIP), aimed at linking academia and industry is set to be launched as the first software and platform of its kind in Rwanda and in the East African region.

The platform’s development initiative, unveiled in February this year with an aim to boost existing government efforts to create off-farm jobs including disabled persons, has since been under construction with local tech developers led by Dr. Kundan Kumar.

Prof. Dr. Prince Wasajja Kiwanuka, the INNODIP project coordinator said: “The construction works have now reached 85% and only one step out of the 12 steps remains to be worked on in the software development process”.

“The next time we will be talking about the platform we will be launching it. That is by the end of this December,” said Professor Kiwanuka.

Rwanda targets to create 1.5 million off-farm jobs by 2024 to reduce youth unemployment, and at least 214,000 jobs to be created annually since 2017, however, the 2023 National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) new statistics show that unemployment has reached 17.2%.

The platform will be built in a way that it offers former and current graduates an opportunity to find jobs in several industry domains based on researched information of the labor market but also industry to be able to find qualified employees.

The web-based platform www.innodip.rw will have interfaces for academia, industries, curricula, publications, consultancy, research call, internship and jobs offerings.

Both industry and academia- must enter an account with the organization’s email, while individuals can log in after registering as applicants and fill in some personal details, create a password and then log in to the system upon creation of a user account.

During a stakeholder’s validation meeting which involved testing the platform primary functions and interfaces, participants asked for improvements to be made in platform strong data protection especially on login passwords and user consent, terms and conditions.

According to Prof. Kiwanuka, upon launching the INNODIP, the plan is to disseminate its services to the rest of the regional countries in the East African Community as many countries have already expressed interest in using the platform.