An Innovation Accelerator for the young African Innovators focused on promoting democracy and governance on the continent, has concluded after an intense program aimed at bridging the gaps in technical skills needed to stimulate growth and expansion of their innovative solutions.
The Accelerator program was tailor-made for the selected Top 20 innovators on the Youth Innovation Challenge on Democracy and Governance in Africa, a project by the African Union led by the African Governance Architecture (AGA).
The project is aligned to the AGA Youth Engagement Strategy (AGA-YES) to build capacity for the continent’s most promising digital and non-digital innovators by exposing them to a wealth of knowledge, experience and skills to enable them scale their innovations, create partnerships and explore opportunities on the continent.
In the course of the Accelerator, the innovators, incubation centres and hubs interacted and benefitted from the insights from experts and coaches and a thorough exposure to crucial industry, technical and business knowledge and tools.
The programme entailed a joint goal setting session with innovators and their coaches; a one-week intensive virtual training sessions; daily coach check-ins with innovators; talk sessions by top industry professionals and a Pitch Day.
The virtual accelerator program was implemented under the AGA – COMESA joint project on youth engagement in democratic governance and sociology economic development processes in Africa and supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and AfriLabs.
From the pitch sessions, AGA and COMESA will now proceed to a selection process of the final Top 5 innovators who will be accorded continental recognition by the African Union and benefit from exposure to other opportunities relevant to their innovation.
The unveling of the TOP 5 will be held on the 9th High Level Dialogue on Democracy, Human rights and Governance scheduled to be held virtually from 10-11 December 2020. Selection will be based on different evaluations carried out pre, during and post the program.
Some participants shared on why they believe their innovations are a game-changer in addressing the democracy and governance deficits in consideration of the nexus between governance, security and development.
“This project is a game-changer in my country because we are on a quest for building largest grassroots social accountability movement in Africa, I believe AGA acceleration program is an opportunity that will provide us necessary skills, tools and platform to expand our initiatives throughout the African continent”, Muazu Alhaji Modu- Citizen-Led Tracking, Nigeria.
“This innovation responds to the critical issue of the restoration of sustainable peace through helping the rural population getting clean, affordable, reliable and sustainable energy by empowering women and youth to mitigate conflict”, Lohose Talopondja Joe, Addressing Conflict and Inequity through Energy Access in the Masisi district, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“CareersMaster is an online platform that helps the youth discover who they are, where they are going and how to get there. The Platform helps government extend career guidance services to the youth and offers keys insights to governments in preparing labour market information. Our future vision to be a reliable and most trusted source of career information and inspiration for all students while preparing them for the diverse labor market”, Kaweesi Simon Peter- CareersMaster, Uganda.
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