Kenya Stands Tall in Africa-wide Youth ICT Innovation Competition

An ICT initiative by Zetech University Kenya has been crowned among top entries in Africa in a continental Youth ICT Innovation Competition backed by the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The initiative, Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Technology Development, which acts as a business and technology incubator and has provided the necessary tools, training, and mentorship enabling over 200 beneficiaries to develop their innovation and entrepreneurial skills, was ranked in the top ten of the ATU Africa Innovation Challenge 2021 in the region.

Grabbing positions one, two, and three was Tunisia’s Startup Tunisia, Tanzania’s Coding Clubs, Mentorship and Incubation initiative by Apps and Girls, and Zambia’s ICT Innovation Programme by the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA).

The win by the Kenyan-bred initiative opens the door for Zetech University to attend a boot camp organized by ITU and training by innovation-support champion Afrilabs, as well as showcase their entry in a personalized virtual booth at the Global Innovation Forum.

The initiative will also be recognized by the ITU and ATU as an “Ecosystem stakeholders Best Practice” that can be scaled and amplified across Africa to foster youth resilience.

Tunisia’s Startup Tunisia initiative which ranked top in the Challenge, claims the USD 10,000 top prize and the title, “2021 ATU Best Ecosystem Practice Enabling Youth ICT Innovation in Africa”. Startup Tunisia offers grants and provides technical guidance to startup innovators, and has, in just two years, supported 550 startups as well as startup support organisations through providing a supportive policy environment, investments and capacity building.

The competition, sponsored by Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd (Title sponsors), Intel Corporation, GSM Association, and AfriLabs, also saw Tanzania’s Coding Clubs, Mentorship and Incubation initiative by Apps and Girls, and the ICT Innovation Programme of Zambia’s ICT Authority take home USD 5,000 and USD2,500 respectively. The former has empowered over 34,686 girls with problem-solving and coding skills, improved their academic performance in ICT and other STEM-related subjects and led to 69 businesses being set up. The latter has successfully commercialized over 30 Startups, created over 100 jobs and worked with over 15 local partners.

In a virtual ceremony headlined by Zambian Minister of Technology and Science, Felix  Mutati, ATU Secretary General Mr John OMO while announcing the winners, affirmed the Union’s commitment to inspiring the creation of an ecosystem in Africa that supports the development of homegrown solutions to local challenges.

“It remains our desire to enable a systemic perspective on innovation in the continent and I encourage all ICT stakeholders to be open minded to the idea of collaboration,” he said, further thanking all the partners of the Challenge, specifically Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd (Title sponsors), Intel Corporation, GSM Association, and AfriLabs for their collaboration and investment in innovation and skills promotion among the African youth.

This year’s edition of the Challenge identified institutions from Africa that create an enabling environment for youth to develop ICT innovations. Among the institutions that took part in the competition included policy-making bodies, incubators, universities and non-profits. This is in recognition of the critical role that such organisations play and the importance of investing in fertile soil from which innovators can grow from.

Applicants had to explain how they supported innovations and were additionally required to highlight two beneficiaries that have profited from the practice.

Speaking during the ceremony, Huawei’s President of Carrier Business Group, Huawei Southern Africa Region, Mr Samuel Chen, called for “further investment in connectivity, power and mobile money infrastructure that innovators can use to develop their innovations and through which citizens can access them”.

“For over 23 years we have supported local innovation in Africa by building infrastructure all the way from 2G to 5G, providing innovative software such as mobile money and AI, and we will continue to build local talent and build platforms and products to enable African innovators to develop solutions to African challenges,” he said.

The event Chief Guest commended the participants for their practices that respond to the African context and challenges and acknowledged that indeed innovation is what distinguishes and sustains competitive societies. While applauding the initiative by ATU and ITU, he went ahead to encourage African governments to be open to sharing of resources and good practices.

“I congratulate all participants and thank ATU and ITU for this initiative that is indeed a practical way of benchmarking with other peer countries on good practices for supporting ICT-related innovations and entrepreneurship in Africa,” said Mutati.

The event further recognized seven additional best practices by ecosystem stakeholders across Africa. Those awarded were, After-School STEM Clubs for Girls and Coding Boot Camps for Women (by the Visiola Foundation, Nigeria), COVID-19 Project for Zimbabwe (by African Surveyors Connect, Zimbabwe), Innovation and Techno-preneurship Acceleration (by St Joseph’s University of Tanzania), ICT in education (by Adamawa Code Kids, Cameroon), and Woman DNS Academy (by Internet Society, Benin Chapter).

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