#OutToLunch A generation of smartphone holders who can’t google is a danger to businesses

By Denis Jjuuko

One of the most important discoveries of our time, is the internet. A resource that we use today to make our lives better in almost every aspect. It is perhaps the second most important discovery after fire.

It has made many things possible. One needs acres of space to exhaust how the internet has made this life possible. From transferring money from one part of the world to another making e-commerce possible and cutting the costs of doing business significantly.

But since the creation of the world wide web in the late 1980s, one of the most significant innovations has been the ability for people to search for information. In the modern era, search engines have been perfected to provide us with all the information we need on almost anything.

People’s needs whether looking for information for academic research or buying some sweet corn, search engines provide this information at our finger tips. This is what has made Google a powerful tool and turned its parent company, Alphabet, the world unicorn that it is. Needless to say, that its founders have turned out as some of the wealthiest people in the world.

Google with all its powerful algorithms doesn’t charge its users for search fees. All you need is an internet connection and bingo! Of course, you must have the ability to discern what is correct and what is not because search engines simply index information from millions of websites including fake ones. Of course, there is some effort to remove certain sites like those that promote terrorism from these search engines but largely any form of information you need is there.

We live in the era of the smartphone, another very important tool that enables anyone to publish news whether fake or not. However, the most worrying trend in Uganda is the inability of diploma and degree holders to search for information to make right decisions.

Sometimes a PhD holder in Uganda and a cart pusher peddle the same information without any ability to determine whether the news is fake or not. This is one of the reasons we in Uganda are poor — the inability to discern the information that the internet throws our way.

Many Ugandans are easily conned by 419 scammers who promise them to have won lotteries they have never registered to participate in. Others lose money through pyramid scams that have been written about in other countries. This is a result of mainly our inability to search for the right information.

If our businesses must grow and survive, we must fully understand the search element of the internet. Searching for opportunities and understanding the partners that we want to do business with. But if we can’t ascertain a business opportunity from a scam, we won’t be able to grow.

Search engines can lead us to opportunities including new innovations. But do we know how to find this information? To separate it from the genuine and the one that isn’t so? When you look at how quickly Ugandans take in to conspiracy theories which all of them can be easily debunked through search, then you know that our businesses are in trouble.

It may sound weird but our syllabuses at a certain education level should teach people how to search for the right information and perhaps that will help people make critical decisions based on the right information.

Based on the information highly educated people spew on social media platforms, it is rightly possible that they are making decisions in their workplaces based on unverifiable information. This is going to make many businesses lose money.

If a well facilitated highly educated employee who has access to internet cannot use search engines to verify information or even make a few calls but simply tweets whatever comes their way, how are they making decisions for the business?

In Whatsapp groups of university graduates is where most misinformation is shared by people in critical managerial positions. How are these people managing the people below them? How can a university graduate with 20-30 years of working experience be so reliant on information that they can’t verify when they own a smartphone with data?

Business owners and those at the highest levels must deliberately find ways to empower their workers so that they make decisions based on the right information. If you see somebody in a workplace Whatsapp group sharing all the fake news, know that they are making wrong decisions for the business.

The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

Tags: Denis Jjjuuko, Internet connections, Internet services in Uganda, Out to Lunch, Smart phone users

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Medical apprenticeship programs critical in improving diagnosis and treatment

By Denis Jjuuko You probably know somebody who after trying many healthcare facilities, they were told there was nothing wrong with them and they should go back home. The symptoms persisted though and the more facilities they visited, the more they were told the same. Sometimes they were given painkillers to psychologically manage them. Desperate, they visited a traditional healer whose Thursday clinic deep in the village is thronged by many people who share similar experiences. The healer is basking in glory. He saved so and so; his marketing team disguising themselves as waiting clients assure them. After a few months of some relief, the pain comes back and this time more excruciating. But since they tried everything and failed, they give up and wait to die. And indeed, they die. At their funeral, we claim that it was God’s plan! Well, if you don’t know anyone who has gone through that, at least you heard of King Oyo’s story. The now deceased Tooro Kingdom leader visited some high-end hospitals in Kampala after feeling persistent backpain. X-rays, MRI scans later, they told him they saw nothing. Being a person of means, he flew to a hospital in Nairobi where he was diagnosed with cancer. A year later he was dead. What did the people in Nairobi saw that the Kampala ones couldn’t? Well, Nairobi has a PET Scan or a few. Kampala and the whole of Uganda don’t. A PET Scan costs about US$3m or approximately 17 Landcruisers. If there was a meeting of government officials, you would run out of space to park them. That is how many we have in Uganda but a PET Scan is not something we have been able to buy and install yet. But it isn’t just the lack of technology that is a problem. You can have a PET Scan and still fail to diagnose a patient properly. Patients aren’t sent for a PET Scan on their first visit to a clinic as it is rarely used as a diagnostic test rather one that determines an extent of the disease. Other tests have to be done. And still a diagnosis can be missed depending on who has done the scan or X-ray and the reading of the results. If for example a child has a bone tumor, a pediatric radiologist would probably pick up the first signs that an adult radiologist may easily miss. Even then, the doctors who ordered the tests and other specialists can sit as a group and discuss what they are seeing. They may even disagree. After that, they could order for a biopsy and eventually a PET Scan if it is needed. You see, that means that you need to have a team of specialists with not only adequate training but also experience that exposed them to a diverse spectrum of patient diseases and how to diagnose them. If you only train in Uganda and practice in Uganda for a year or two, it is most likely you won’t be able to diagnose many diseases even with advanced technologies at your disposal. Doctors in Europe struggle to diagnose and even treat malaria, which is many times chicken feed to Ugandan doctors. When did your doctor last consult anyone before prescribing drugs? Most likely he or she listened to you, sent you to the lab, looked at the results and sent you to the pharmacy or told you to go back home. Isn’t that likely to lead to a wrong diagnosis? I am not saying that a team needs to look at each and every case but you get the drift. To have good doctors in Uganda, there is a need for a robust apprenticeship program so that the graduate doctors can learn from as many experts as possible. When we spend years discussing intern doctors’ wages, it means we are delaying their learning. They aren’t getting the right exposure from the seniors. And if they aren’t properly apprenticed, they will not become good doctors. There is no two ways about it. We also need to have a critical number of health workers sent elsewhere for exposure. They should learn how medicine is practiced elsewhere while getting exposed to different diseases and treatment methods. Government should be talking for example to American hospitals for medical residency. We could send some to Aga Khan in Nairobi as well. Those who are sent by government, they should be contracted and incentivized to come back to work here. The right technology and generally good working conditions should be in place. Upon return, they should train others through apprenticeships. They should spend a certain number of hours a week for a few years in public hospitals with the list of young doctors they have mentored as part of their deliverables. Ensure that those trained doctors remain in hospital wards too. This is actually cheaper than sending politically connected patients abroad for treatment because Uganda can only send so many. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

October 26, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Uber’s abrupt exit calls for regulation of international brands to protect users

By Denis Jjuuko Ten years ago, Kampala was all the rage. Uber, the global taxi hailing app launched in Kampala with fanfare. The razzmatazz that comes with a global brand that promises to change the world. All our transport problems, at least in Kampala, would be sorted. It was cool to order a Uber or arrive at a fancy party in one. If you hadn’t installed the app, you were being left behind. There was no need to buy a car. Uber would sort that at the fraction of the cost. If you had a car, it was so cool to use it as a Uber on your way to or from work. And if you didn’t like your boss, you could quit your job and become your own boss as a Uber driver. It wouldn’t get any fancy than that. Some people cashed out their savings, bought a few corollas, got their cousins who had previously graduated from university and made them Uber drivers. Side hustle had never been so simple. Special hire drivers cried. Calls placed to their previous customers went unanswered. The suitor had a new lover. You were exploitative. Uber transported someone to wherever they wanted at the cost of a chapati! Some young people decided to create Uber for all sorts of things. Looking for somebody to wash your clothes over the weekend, a “uber” was created for that. Need a truck to transport something? There was a “uber” for it. Need a boda? Well, another “uber” was created before Uber itself introduced bodas. Innovation hubs were full of ideas with young people dressed in hoodies spending all their time trying to create the next Uber. To be fair, it wasn’t just in Uganda. Every new innovation has somebody trying to replicate it for another industry. With apps like Uber and AirBnB and their early global success, other platforms for gig work or sharing were created everywhere. UpWork, Fiverr, DoorDash… the list is endless. We were told the sharing economy was the new thing. That we didn’t need to own stuff. We could easily share. The problem though with international brands like Uber is that they can wake up and make a decision that affects many people. Like they did when they announced that they will no longer be available in Uganda. And within a few minutes, they were gone. They didn’t even have the courtesy to inform the drivers signed up on their app for at least a week. I believe some were even still processing the news and maybe even parked at malls waiting for clients only to realize that the application had gone mute. I believe those who hadn’t checked their communications platforms restarted their phones several times. Developing economies like Uganda shouldn’t just allow these brands to come in, do and go as they wish. They can’t just be making abrupt decisions from Silicon Valley. Why couldn’t Uber give time before exiting the country? They could have given a 90-day notice so that their drivers and customers have enough time to prepare. To operate here, the government should force them to follow some rules and regulations. Usually when they start offering service in smaller economies like ours, there is something they want which isn’t direct revenue. It is global presence that enables them to have an explosive initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange or attract some funding. Once they achieve those goals, their mission is over and can do whatever they want especially where there is no regulation. In markets where they are regulated, they can’t just wake up and announce that they have closed. Also, the actions of brands like Uber mean that there is a need to identify our challenges and find applicable solutions. For many years, I wonder whether Uber drivers made any money. The rates were so low prompting many of them to try to negotiate out of the app. What had made Uber appealing to drivers was the near guarantee of a return trip. Unlike a special hire (cab), the driver would be able to find a customer after dropping off somebody. That increasingly became difficult yet the rates remained low. When fuel prices went up, Uber didn’t respond appropriately. Apparently, increments had to follow some policy created based on the American or western European economy. Bad roads and traffic jams were never factored in. Ugandans largely drive old cars which means that they consume a lot of fuel and susceptible to breakdowns. If the roads are potholed, maintenance and repair become costly. An unregulated global brand wouldn’t care much about that while setting rates especially when they don’t own the asset that guarantees their return (25% of each trip in the case of Uber). Regulation of global brands is critical in protecting the interests of users. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

October 26, 2026

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Corporate farmers, side hustlers must pay “school fees” to succeed

By Denis Jjuuko Over the weekend, a video surfaced online of a Kenyan who grew watermelons, looked for buyers, loaded them to the city, failed to sell them, stored them and they fermented overnight. The video went viral largely because many Ugandans especially those who hold day jobs in corporate bodies could relate. Known as ‘corporate farmers’ and under pressure to have a side hustle, many start businesses such as farming. These ventures — small gardens or even large farms, salons, clothing shops (known as boutiques), bufundas (small bars), grocery shops (labeled supermarkets), and restaurants among others are everywhere. One in Uganda must be seen to be doing a side hustle business or they are considered failures. There is a historical perspective to it. In the 1990s, many civil servants were retrenched and had no jobs. Kids saw how their parents or guardians without any other income suffered and swore not to suffer the same fate. In order to avoid those missteps, many decide to be different. Those who survived retrenchment saw their mothers open grocery shops at universities or doctors’ villages to supplement the family income. Today, many people are driven to start farming. Favourable weather patterns, abundant arable land, a growing population, affordable labour etc. On paper and indeed like for most businesses, it is all rosy. It doesn’t, however, take long before stories start springing up on social media platforms. Grown something and got nothing out, the platform is available to broadcast. But for many, the desire for a side hustle is hard to contain. In order to be different from their parents and grandparents, today’s side hustlers tend to think differently. Like the Kenyan watermelon man, if you harvest a sizeable number of them, hire a truck and take them to the market yourself, you would cut out the middlemen and make significant returns than if you sold them at the farm. Without much research or due diligence, the corporate farmer arrives at the market and everyone laughs at them. Nobody is willing to buy. There is a story of man in a suburb just outside Kampala known as Muvunza. The story goes that he one day arrived in Kampala with a truckful of matooke from his garden. He moved around several markets in Kampala and they were giving him peanuts per a bunch. He decided to offload the matooke at his home and watch them rot. The locals nicknamed him Muvunza (the one who lets stuff rot). Many corporate farmers or side hustlers are Muvunzas. If they are not letting matooke rot in their compound, they throwing money after money in ventures that are not sustainable or profitable. High rents, taxes, a small customer base and many other hinderances don’t enable them to make profit. Sometimes they don’t know because the salaries at their formal jobs cushion them from these losses. It is when they start running these businesses fulltime that they realize that the ventures were sinkholes. The main challenge for most hustlers is lack of experience or giving up before they have paid what Ugandans call “school fees.” For every venture, it will take time for the entrepreneur to crack it. To establish a network of clients or to be known for doing something requires time. If watermelons are your thing, the traders in Nakasero, Nakawa or Kalerwe markets won’t know you if you deliver once and even on the wrong day. They already have their suppliers. So, you will need to court them over time. They aren’t going to abandon guys they have been dealing with for the last 10 years just because you have shown up with a truck of watermelons or tomatoes. Maybe you even arrived when they stocked up a day before. You convince them one by one over a period of time. If you are to do farming and you do it for one season, there is no way you are going to succeed. Those who succeed do it for over time. Some seasons they make profits. Other seasons they make losses. Once they gain experience, they can then stabilize and be able to predict their incomes. By this time, the “school fees” paid have started to provide a return on investment. Networks have been established That is how traders in the Kampala markets start to call and place orders before even the seller arrives. That is how credit lines are established. That basically means that there is no excuse for experience. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

October 22, 2026