Officials in Uganda have opened an outsourcing center to train people in Internet technology.

    

From VOA learning English. This is the technology report. For years, many western companies have sent important business services to India where they can be done at a lower cost. This is called outsourcing and it has brought jobs to India. 

Other countries have seen economic gains from outsourcing and are seeking to copy the Indian model. For example, officials in Uganda have opened an outsourcing center to train people in internet technology. 

Their aim is to create jobs for Ugandans. 26 year old Flavia Alatissa studied information technology in school. Today she is happy to have a job but does not perform high level It work. She says many of her former classmates have been unemployed for years. 

Flavia Alatissa works for a company called technobrain. It offers business process outsourcing or BPO to foreign companies. The Ugandan government hopes more companies like technobrain will begin operating in the country. 

Uganda supports its small but growing BPO industry by giving free office space and internet service in Kampala. The government has trained hundreds. Of people. In the skills that BPO companies need and plans to train thousands more. 

Many people in East Africa speak English. The area is also in the same time zone as Europe. Rogers Karebi leads the Uganda BPO Association. He says labor costs in other countries are growing. A number of companies, he says, are now looking for lower cost choices for outsourcing. 

There are some big differences between Uganda and India. However, the cost of internet service in East Africa is higher. But most experts agree that the cost of internet service will, in time, go down. 

For VOA learning English, I'm Laurel Bowman.