The portmanteau “Uni:nnovators” is a creative combination of “university” and “innovators”, reflecting the spirit of young minds who pursue technological advancement and innovation in higher education institutions. This spirit was evident at the CcHub Uni:nnovators Startups in Residence Program Demo and Showcase Day, where a young innovator confidently told the judges, “We don’t have the answer to that yet. But we are willing to go back and properly look into it.” Besides demonstrating a readiness to learn and experiment, which is indispensable for any innovator, this statement also revealed the passion that young innovators share for their projects.
“It is important to support and encourage the fresh minds within the university. They may not have the impressive CV yet but they have the vision and passion that sets them apart. Programs like this inspire them to realize their dreams early,” said Miracle Nnaji, a senior investment analyst at Health Cap Africa, who was one of the panellists.
The Uni:nnovators: Startups in Residence Programme is the brainchild of the Co-creation Hub (CcHub), a social innovation centre and technology hub. It is one of the leading tech hubs in Africa and has played a key role in developing and supporting the African tech ecosystem. In its 13-year history, the Hub has birthed over 1000 companies, with these companies raising over $150 million, $10 million of which came from the Hub. “It is the heart of what we do,” the managing partner of CcHub Creative Economy, Ojoma Ochai said. “Supporting innovators with the skills, knowledge, networks and funds.”
The Hub recently entered a dynamic co-funding partnership with GIZ Make-IT in Africa to jointly implement the transformative Uni:nnovators program in Nigeria, Kenya, and Namibia. The program is designed to inspire innovation in tertiary institutions in Africa by providing a space for entrepreneurs, innovators, and technologists to come together, collaborate, and work on new ideas, through a variety of programs and services to support startups and tech companies, such as mentorship, incubation, and funding.
In July, the centre called for applications from across Universities. Out of 256 entries, thirty start-up teams were selected to benefit from capacity-building sessions to improve on their research-based innovations and build prototypes. 10 student-led startup teams from the University of Lagos and the University of Ibadan made it to the 6-week design sprint, where mentors helped them strengthen their pitch and innovation ahead of Demo Day, where each team would pitch their products to a line of judges. One team had research-based innovations looking to reduce maternal mortality in pregnant women. Another team was building a turbocharger for rural farmers using IoT. “The world’s problems are too deep and complex for us not to have a strong theoretical foundation in the work that we do,” said Ochai in her keynote speech.
Nigerian universities have emerged as fertile grounds for practical innovators. The University of Lagos, for instance, hosts six innovation hubs in its vicinity and operates various innovation and entrepreneurship boot camps under the school’s purview. During her keynote address, Professor Ayodele Atsenuwa, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, emphasized the importance of higher education institutions utilizing the structures established by innovation centres like CcHub rather than competing with them. She stated, “We recognize that in order to maintain our relevance and significance as educational institutions, we must create environments where individuals can explore their potential.”
In 2020, a research group from the University of Oxford produced the AstraZeneca vaccine, a vaccine that helped solve a global problem, the COVID-19 infection. Earlier, the researchers had developed a harmless chimpanzee adenovirus vector that could deliver the genetic code of any target protein into human cells. This vector had been tested in clinical trials for other diseases before COVID-19 emerged. Similarly, some of the innovations that have been a part of CcHub, started from school boot camps, courses, or research they were working on. “Programs like this help them understand their bachelor’s thesis is not something meant for the department; it can be transformed into a solution for real-world problems with market potential,” Nnaji explained.
However, while most innovators have a deep understanding of the science and tech behind their products, they may lack the business acumen to bring their ideas to market. “I expected certain knowledge gaps,” said Nnaji. “Some of them had to stretch themselves to go online and do some quick research on how to arrive at an addressable market size. And without a proper understanding of context, they throw up figures. However, I do not see it as a challenge but an opportunity,” he added.
Identifying knowledge gaps early on can help the posterity of Africa’s ecosystem. A report by BCG2 says structural barriers such as a fragmented market and low consumer purchasing power, can make Africa challenging for tech entrepreneurs and investors. “It can impact the time to ascertain product feat, which in some cases impacts the possibility of attracting certain funding needed,” said Nnaji.
The disparities in Africa’s tech funding are also a concern for Judge, Emeka Nwachinyere, the founder of agritech startup Kitovu Technologies, who was impressed with two of the agritech innovations. One of the innovations was a fridge that used a natural refrigerant to store food for up to 48 hours. “It is solving a critical problem of the high poorer losses, which can be as high as 60% of the fruit and vegetable value chain,” Nwachinyere commented. “If Nigeria is to escape the possibility of waking up one day and finding itself amid a food crisis, we must invest in developing agricultural infrastructure. However, the challenge remains whether these innovations will be able to find funding,” he added. Although Africa’s innovation space is vast with many opportunities to explore, fintech takes up the most attention and funding. Interestingly, none of the 10 teams at the Uni:nnovators showcase presented a fintech solution.
The future of African innovation
The CcHub team is going to Namibia and Kenya next, where they will duplicate a similar sprint and 12 more student-led ventures will be selected to participate in a knowledge exchange with leading researchers in their fields in Germany for physical sessions to help strengthen their prototypes. The go-to-market strategy is to be able to communicate that universities and higher education institutions are now the whole of knowledge creation and innovation. “There is no shortage of ideas and innovation on our continent. I believe that the critical problems we have on the continent can be solved with the ingenuity and the creativity that you (the innovators) have,” Jude Feranmi, Practice Lead, at HEI Innovation at Co-Creation Hub told the innovators. “Whether you move on to the next phase of this program or not, the problem you are working on needs to be solved. And that’s the kind of spirit we want to encourage going forward.”
Six university teams scaled through: Smart BiliWrapper (University of Lagos), TY Dami Energy (University of Lagos), Slim Re Biopsy (University of Ibadan), Pharmalink (University of Lagos), Medherence (University of Ibadan) and ConnectCare (University of Ibadan). They earned $5000, and further mentorship to support them to build and deploy their solutions into the market. One of the team leads could barely contain his joy. The emotions rippled through the room. At that moment, any doubts about the future of African innovation were dispelled.