In my bid to encourage widespread application of knowledge for enterprise development in Nigeria, i'll be leading InnCite in recruiting UK Universities to support technology and product/service innovation in Nigerian SMEs through the British Council AKTP programme.
The AKTP (Africa Knowledge Transfer Partnerships) are partnerships between private sector organisations and higher education institutions in Sub Saharan Africa and the UK. They leverage research, scientific knowledge and skills through innovation.
The programme is designed to help businesses improve their productivity and competitiveness using the scientific knowledge, technology and skills available from the higher education Institutions through collaborative projects between the institutions and the private sector.
I am a big fan of this British Council initiative and will be writing more on its potentials for economic development in Africa in subsequent posts.
For more on AKTP http://www.britishcouncil.org/africa-aktp.htm
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
WINNER - Open Innovation Africa Summit Ideation Competition
Yes, this is coming weeks later than planned but best late than never. This particular track will initiate the documentation of my participation at the recently concluded Open Innovation Africa Summit organised by Nokia, Cap Gemini and InfoDev - World Bank.
The event led by Nokia was one of its kind and quite ambitious. The aim was to network around 200 thought leaders in Africa " to promote the creation of new innovation services and collaboration models, which ensure continuous alignment between different players of the innovation ecosystem as well as to embed end-user driven co-creation and open innovation as critical elements to African innovation systems.
...while i was already invited as one of the 200 thought leaders to this event, i chose to also participate in the ideation competition which was meant to identify 8 top contributors to be invited to the summit. As the title of this post suggest, I WON:-).
"Selection was based on the quality of ideas, participation and interaction on the website, and the appreciation of the issues and challenges at hand"
...and my idea? is an extension of my thinking around building a vibrant innovaton ecosystem in Africa to harness the energy behind the budding social innovation movement for economic prosperity.
Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform
A platform that provides a new way of working for stakeholders (social innovators, government, businesses, through leaders e.t.c) and an opportunity to position government and businesses closer together to generate more innovative solutions to major societal and policy challenges.
By bringing together local stakeholders on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the platform will enable the integration of a range of resources and better coordination of policy and support to harness the developments in the space for the benefit of the continent, resulting in a step change in Africa.
The objectives of the proposed platform are as follows:
- Activating Social Innovation
- Garnering support from different sectors and policy makers for Social Innovation
- Creating Platform to fertilise and accelerate Social Innovation in Africa
- Establishing contextualised metrics and models for assessing impact of Social Innovation and - ROI (return on investment)
- Propagating a culture of seeking alternative solutions to addressing social problems
Possible initial activities of the platform:
- Thought leadership on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Africa (context through specfic research projects and collaborative papers)
- Policy dialogues on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurial training and support for Social Innovators
- Building local networks of Social Innovators and their supporters and facilitating interaction within the network through events and discussion fora
- Connecting to international networks e.g Social Innovation eXchange (www.socialinnovationexchange.org) for sharing of best case practices and insights
- Lead the establishment of a SOCIAL INNOVATION FUND for inventors (drawing resources from a wide range of stakeholders including companies, government andd international donors)
- Build and test models and metrics for assessing impact of Social Innovation and returns
...and lastly the rationale for this platform:
The popularity of social enterprise - business with social mission - is surging and the number of social enterprises is growing around the world. But its hard enough to start a successful business; founding a social enterprise that must compete in the marketplace and create social impact is an even taller order.
This growing army of socially minded entrepreneurs working at the grassroots of our society in the space between private and public sectors are creating innovative solutions to some of the world's pressing social challenges. With increasing concerted efforts to achieve the MDGs in sustainable manner, social entrepreneurs bring innovative application of business methods to find new solutions to problems such as quality of education, combating corruption, deepening democracy, poverty alleviation, citizen engagement in governance e.t.c
To harness the energy and potentials of this movement for economic prosperity in Africa, we propose the establishment of an ecosystem to create an enabling environment for Innovation and Social Entrpreneurship to flourish in Africa (Africa Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform).
The event led by Nokia was one of its kind and quite ambitious. The aim was to network around 200 thought leaders in Africa " to promote the creation of new innovation services and collaboration models, which ensure continuous alignment between different players of the innovation ecosystem as well as to embed end-user driven co-creation and open innovation as critical elements to African innovation systems.
...while i was already invited as one of the 200 thought leaders to this event, i chose to also participate in the ideation competition which was meant to identify 8 top contributors to be invited to the summit. As the title of this post suggest, I WON:-).
"Selection was based on the quality of ideas, participation and interaction on the website, and the appreciation of the issues and challenges at hand"
...and my idea? is an extension of my thinking around building a vibrant innovaton ecosystem in Africa to harness the energy behind the budding social innovation movement for economic prosperity.
Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform
A platform that provides a new way of working for stakeholders (social innovators, government, businesses, through leaders e.t.c) and an opportunity to position government and businesses closer together to generate more innovative solutions to major societal and policy challenges.
By bringing together local stakeholders on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the platform will enable the integration of a range of resources and better coordination of policy and support to harness the developments in the space for the benefit of the continent, resulting in a step change in Africa.
The objectives of the proposed platform are as follows:
- Activating Social Innovation
- Garnering support from different sectors and policy makers for Social Innovation
- Creating Platform to fertilise and accelerate Social Innovation in Africa
- Establishing contextualised metrics and models for assessing impact of Social Innovation and - ROI (return on investment)
- Propagating a culture of seeking alternative solutions to addressing social problems
Possible initial activities of the platform:
- Thought leadership on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Africa (context through specfic research projects and collaborative papers)
- Policy dialogues on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Entrepreneurial training and support for Social Innovators
- Building local networks of Social Innovators and their supporters and facilitating interaction within the network through events and discussion fora
- Connecting to international networks e.g Social Innovation eXchange (www.socialinnovationexchange.org) for sharing of best case practices and insights
- Lead the establishment of a SOCIAL INNOVATION FUND for inventors (drawing resources from a wide range of stakeholders including companies, government andd international donors)
- Build and test models and metrics for assessing impact of Social Innovation and returns
...and lastly the rationale for this platform:
The popularity of social enterprise - business with social mission - is surging and the number of social enterprises is growing around the world. But its hard enough to start a successful business; founding a social enterprise that must compete in the marketplace and create social impact is an even taller order.
This growing army of socially minded entrepreneurs working at the grassroots of our society in the space between private and public sectors are creating innovative solutions to some of the world's pressing social challenges. With increasing concerted efforts to achieve the MDGs in sustainable manner, social entrepreneurs bring innovative application of business methods to find new solutions to problems such as quality of education, combating corruption, deepening democracy, poverty alleviation, citizen engagement in governance e.t.c
To harness the energy and potentials of this movement for economic prosperity in Africa, we propose the establishment of an ecosystem to create an enabling environment for Innovation and Social Entrpreneurship to flourish in Africa (Africa Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform).
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Affiliations
A quick introduction to 2 interesting organisations through which my work will be deployed.
InnCite Ltd: a UK based consulting practice that seeks to accelerate enterprise competitiveness through product and process innovation. InnCite facilitates the exploitation of R&D for improved enterprise performance.
URL: www.innciteonline.com
Co-creation Hub on the other hand is a social enterprises committed to bringing together people from different sectors to work collaboratively on solutions to social problems in Nigeria.
URL: http://www.cchubnigeria.com/
More on Co-creation Hub soon.
InnCite Ltd: a UK based consulting practice that seeks to accelerate enterprise competitiveness through product and process innovation. InnCite facilitates the exploitation of R&D for improved enterprise performance.
URL: www.innciteonline.com
Co-creation Hub on the other hand is a social enterprises committed to bringing together people from different sectors to work collaboratively on solutions to social problems in Nigeria.
URL: http://www.cchubnigeria.com/
More on Co-creation Hub soon.
Friday, November 26, 2010
‘Harvesting Innovation in Small Business Solutions’ - SME Toolkit Conference
24/11/2010
The Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan African University, Nigeria brought together over 200 participants at its maiden SME Toolkit Conference as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration in Nigeria. Trainers, users, experts, content and service providers all came together in an attempt to redefine and scale the use of the toolkit by more SMEs.
The toolkit in my view is a powerful personal assistant for small businesses as it provides them access to enormous resources ranging from software, business forms, tools, training and much more.
The event kicked off with the stream titled "Emerging Web and Mobile Innovations" which i happened to be a panelist on alongside Mayowa Owolabi (Dudu Mobile) and Sunday Ojuolape of Life Entrepreneur Institute. The stream focused on how the trends in web and mobile applications could be leveraged to improve access to the tool by SMEs who are often disadvantaged and with limited Internet access.
Expectations were high as the panelists were handed the role of suggesting possible indication and direction for which innovation around the toolkit should go given their knowledge of web and mobile development. While impressive suggestions were made by the panelist, it was an excellent opportunity for me to apply a bit of the co-creation paradigm in a real life situation. Setting the scene with the introduction and contribution of all panelist (including moi), i reiterated the need for users and stakeholders to engage in a process through which innovation around the tool is generated based on real value and needs of the users and stakeholders.
The rest was history as the session became highly interactive with the toolkit users openly expressing their love and disappointments with the tool but equally proposing ways of correcting the disappointments. The experience while short demonstrated the importance of creating solutions with people and not AT people. The openess of the stream also trickle down to other sessions as participants became more vocal and involved in the whole meeting.
I look forward to learning more about how collective intellingence and involvement of stakeholders in design/development process can help improve quality of solutions in Nigeria.
Will endeavour to be back tomorrow.
Bon soiree
The Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan African University, Nigeria brought together over 200 participants at its maiden SME Toolkit Conference as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week celebration in Nigeria. Trainers, users, experts, content and service providers all came together in an attempt to redefine and scale the use of the toolkit by more SMEs.
The toolkit in my view is a powerful personal assistant for small businesses as it provides them access to enormous resources ranging from software, business forms, tools, training and much more.
The event kicked off with the stream titled "Emerging Web and Mobile Innovations" which i happened to be a panelist on alongside Mayowa Owolabi (Dudu Mobile) and Sunday Ojuolape of Life Entrepreneur Institute. The stream focused on how the trends in web and mobile applications could be leveraged to improve access to the tool by SMEs who are often disadvantaged and with limited Internet access.
Expectations were high as the panelists were handed the role of suggesting possible indication and direction for which innovation around the toolkit should go given their knowledge of web and mobile development. While impressive suggestions were made by the panelist, it was an excellent opportunity for me to apply a bit of the co-creation paradigm in a real life situation. Setting the scene with the introduction and contribution of all panelist (including moi), i reiterated the need for users and stakeholders to engage in a process through which innovation around the tool is generated based on real value and needs of the users and stakeholders.
The rest was history as the session became highly interactive with the toolkit users openly expressing their love and disappointments with the tool but equally proposing ways of correcting the disappointments. The experience while short demonstrated the importance of creating solutions with people and not AT people. The openess of the stream also trickle down to other sessions as participants became more vocal and involved in the whole meeting.
I look forward to learning more about how collective intellingence and involvement of stakeholders in design/development process can help improve quality of solutions in Nigeria.
Will endeavour to be back tomorrow.
Bon soiree
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Welcome and thank you for your interest!!!
Thank you for making the effort to visit my blog which was birthed by my passion for economic prosperity in Africa through application of knowledge (mainly science and technology).
I remember pondering when i was "14" on the conditions in Africa and why we are so backward and plagued with a lot of issues. My little brain kept wondering why we can't simply learn what the WEST in particular is doing differently and endeavour to CREATE our own heaven through the lessons. Little did i know that the winds of life and decisions i'll make will lead me on a journey along this path.
With the opportunity to work on projects and with people from a number of countries across Europe and Africa namely: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Switzerland, UK, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Sweden, France, Ireland, Romania and Portugal. I have been formally and thoroughly inducted into the pursuit of deeper understanding of how better application of science and technology can help solve some of the pressing business and social issues in Africa.
My work will take a cue from my interest in "the power of us" (Collective Intelligence) and "Co-creation", drawing heavily on how to leverage knowledge from diverse sources for competitiveness of enterprises and nations.
Sorry if you find this blog boring as it will be a documentation of my work, findings, experiences and lessons as i start a new chapter in my bid to contributing to the development of my beloved Africa.
E ka bo! Welcome!
I remember pondering when i was "14" on the conditions in Africa and why we are so backward and plagued with a lot of issues. My little brain kept wondering why we can't simply learn what the WEST in particular is doing differently and endeavour to CREATE our own heaven through the lessons. Little did i know that the winds of life and decisions i'll make will lead me on a journey along this path.
With the opportunity to work on projects and with people from a number of countries across Europe and Africa namely: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Switzerland, UK, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Estonia, Sweden, France, Ireland, Romania and Portugal. I have been formally and thoroughly inducted into the pursuit of deeper understanding of how better application of science and technology can help solve some of the pressing business and social issues in Africa.
- How can we begin to create solutions to problems that are unique to us as against importing technologies which weren't created with our needs in mind?
- Have you noticed the amount of challenges we face in Africa that are ignored just because the solutions have not been created in the WEST or more recently Asia?
My work will take a cue from my interest in "the power of us" (Collective Intelligence) and "Co-creation", drawing heavily on how to leverage knowledge from diverse sources for competitiveness of enterprises and nations.
Sorry if you find this blog boring as it will be a documentation of my work, findings, experiences and lessons as i start a new chapter in my bid to contributing to the development of my beloved Africa.
E ka bo! Welcome!
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