Assessing Mozambique'S Software Industry To Foster Local Universities-Industry Collaboration

Universities-Industry Collaboration (UIC) is recognized as being used as a vehicle aiming to produce positive impacts towards real-life issues, research and the quality of education. Although extensive research has been carried out on UIC, a lack of market-oriented research projects towards software industry has remained unclear in emerging countries. Hence, this study has a twofold purpose: firstly, it summarizes current efforts regarding the use of software in Mozambique and, secondly, based on said analysis it proposes a mechanism as a means to accelerate collaborations between academics and industry partners to raise the quality of education. The data were mainly collected through semi-structured interviews targeted at participants from two groups of companies: IT and non-IT companies. Based on the findings, most companies use Java, Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), and C# as the primary programming languages and the use of proprietary database management systems prevail over open-source in both companies. A minor number of companies also develop in-house software. Key findings include lack of necessary skills matching to labor market needs, predominance of foreign software packages usage, and lack of collaborative projects between universities and local market. The findings are of a high value to Information Technology (IT) industry professionals & practitioners, academic & research community, and other stakeholders groups in Mozambique and beyond.