Digital evolution creating more careers

What you need to know:

  • Every part of our lives has been digitised; look at how we shop, entertain ourselves, travel to work and manage our health, nowadays and you will not deny this fact.
  • The more people embrace this evolution the more jobs they create.

One truth we cannot deny is that digitalisation has and still is taking the world by storm; so much so that Amy Edwards, a search engine optimisation manager for Bubble Jobs said, “The digital industry is growing at an incredible rate and, with new platforms, websites and apps being released daily, it shows no signs of slowing down. There are a wealth of niche job boards, specialist recruiters and career sites dedicated to jobs in the sector, most of which weren’t around a few years ago.” If you looked around today, you will notice that social media is awash with marketers who sell their goods to customers they only meet online, we have apps that get us doctors, where we order food and merchandise or even get you a mechanic to fix your car. The convenience that digitisation brings has created new career opportunities.

And like Saul J. Berman, the chief strategist and interactive experience partner for IBM Global Business Services, says, “We have moved from digital products and infrastructure to digital distribution and Web strategy to now into more holistic transformations that clearly are based on mobile, social media, digitisation and the power of analytics and we think it is really a new era requiring new strategies.” So can you really afford to stand on the sidelines of the digital evolution any longer?

Disan Sebingi – Digital marketer

Disan Sebingi, a digital marketer

In 2015, l realised most Ugandan businesses especially small and medium ones close prematurely because they lack funds to advertise. I also noticed that such businesses can improve if they had access to the digital market at an affordable cost, because the internet has availed space where people interact.
Between 2012 and 2014, l was working as an accountant and sales person but l never liked the job because I was just pushed to do it. Overtime, I started realising that my passion was in digital-related concepts. At the end of 2014, l decided to join a digital advertising firm (Bored Digital). Meanwhile, I worked on starting up my own online marketing firm strictly to empower small and medium businesses to enjoy digital services.

Currently, I dedicate 95 per cent of my time to building my company brand –GO Promotions.
My job is to introduce new and competitive digital online marketing techniques and lobby funds to increase on investment capital.
The most important thing is to give yourself room to find out whether a digital career is your passion because passion opens up most doors.
Be up to the digital trends, which are affecting everyone and employers are increasingly looking for this competence.

Edward Nimusiima – Social media influencer

Edward Nimusiima – Social media influencer


About five years ago, I used to do a lot of writing on my Facebook page. It was on a totally personal basis; writing about social life, the things I saw and experienced at university, on the street and everywhere. The only difference was; I did this writing creatively and in a humorous way.
Because of this, more and more people started following me to keep up with what I posted. Overtime, my social media presence grew. I thus seized this opportunity and opened a blog Nimusiima.com which I run concurrently with my Facebook page. With that, advertisers started reaching out to me to advertise products and events on my platforms.
In the digital world, it is called social media influencing. An event organiser would get to me to talk about their event at a cost. Here, all I needed was data to do my work. I would do this in a very witty, creative way and so, other people started to notice. Currently, I am called on almost a weekly basis.

One day, however, a creative director who runs an advertising agency visited my page and hired me. That is how I joined the advertising world at MAAD advertising to do digital marketing.
My job here is to create advertising content for our different clients/brands that they run on different social media platforms. I am also a fulltime social media influencer for Airtel Uganda. I have influenced for products such as the Techno Camon X, GoTV, URA, UHMG, UNRA, and Speke Resort Munyonyo, among others.

Pius Enywaru – Communications Lead

Pius Enywaru – Communications Lead

Like most people, I got onto social media purely out of curiosity and fear of missing out (FOMO). While in high school, I once posted controversial statements on Facebook about my school administration during holidays. Little did I know I had teachers who were my friends and reported me to the authorities at school. When I returned to school, I was summoned to the disciplinary committee and suspended from school.
That incident awakened my perspective on social media and I knew it could either break or make me. I fell in love with it more although my father had asked me to quit it. When I joined university, I got a better smart phone; I knew I wanted to understand technology.

I have since gone ahead to earn a decent living off social media, by helping a few companies with their digital image. I managed quite a number of social media pages, I have worked on a number of digital campaigns and about two years ago, my friends and I started a digital media and communications firm.

I also work with Pollicy, a civic tech organisation, in Kampala. As a communications lead, I run the organisation’s social media pages by creating content for them on a daily basis, writing weekly articles for the website about topics related to what we do. The most important thing for one interested in exploring digital career opportunities is to start with just about anything in their means. Additionally, the digital world is broad and evolves each and every day, so everyday is a day to learn and better your craft.

John Ssenkeezi – digital marketer

John Ssenkeezi – digital marketer

In spite of being an Accounting and Finance graduate, I started out my journey in media; first as a scriptwriter before moving to sales and onto traditional marketing and then to digital marketing. I then moved to the advertising world before rejoining the corporate world.
I have always been fascinated by technology. So, when a friend was doing a course in Computer Science, I always kept in touch with him, sharing a lot on coding, how to build websites, and since it is something I loved, I took a great deal of time to build on the skills, to study and to get certified.

At the moment, I am certified by Google, by the Online Marketing Institute, certified by Twitter and an alumnus of the prestigious Squared Online. Over and above, it has been the passion but I know too well that passion has to be backed by experience and education.
On a day to day basis, I oversee the digital marketing strategy of the company, working with a digital marketing agency to create content. So 8am-5pm I work with Airtel Uganda and on weekends, I do master classes in digital marketing in addition to digital strategy development for small businesses.

There is a really high demand for people who do digital marketing, influencers, strategists, content creators among others and these jobs keep growing. There are actually more opportunities than qualified individuals to fill them. I can see a lot of young people who would have otherwise been unemployed in cafes, shared spaces, on their laptops helping brands get online, building apps and creating content, among others.

Lorna Aine – Data Lead

Lorna Aine – Data Lead


In computer engineering, there are other courses such as software development, hardware engineering and data engineering, among others. Personally, I took keen interest in data engineering because I found it intriguing and interesting. I currently work at Pollicy as a Data Lead. Pollicy is a civic technology company that focuses on the use of data to train citizens in different organisations, circles, communities on the power of data and how they can use it in their operations and lives.
My job, therefore, is to put data/information around us (from the internet) in whichever way it comes into a format that can be understood by people.

On a day to day basis, I prepare materials that we use to teach people in different digital courses. We teach data journalism, digital journalism, among others. One thing I like about my job is that I do not just teach people but facilitate them on how they can better understand data/information from the internet.