The six student-led startups from Nigeria selected for the Uninnovators’ Startups-in-Residence program, which aims to spur innovation in a few tertiary institutions in Africa, have been announced by Co-Creation Hub (CcHub).
As of July, according to media reports, CcHub had partnered with the Make-IT in Africa project run by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to launch a new co-funded initiative to support innovation within African universities.
In August 2023, thirty startup teams were chosen from 256 submissions, and they underwent an initial six-week design sprint to hone their pitches and innovations in advance of the Demo Day. Six teams, including Smart BiliWrapper from the University of Lagos, TY Dami Energy from the University of Lagos, Slim Re Biopsy from the University of Ibadan, Pharmalink from the University of Lagos, Medherence from the University of Ibadan, and ConnectCare from the University of Ibadan, were chosen for the next round.
Twelve more student-run businesses will be chosen from Kenya and Namibia for the Uninnovators program. These businesses will then have the chance to travel to Germany for hands-on sessions to help strengthen their prototypes and engage in knowledge exchange with top researchers in their fields.
In order to build and deploy their MVPs in the market and, as necessary, in collaboration with the industry, they will then receive funding and advisory services. The program will come to a close with a two-day summit in Nairobi, Kenya, where startups will present themselves to a global audience of investors and stakeholders in an effort to highlight the crucial role that higher education institutions play in the continent’s larger innovation ecosystem.
