2-Day HEI Innovation Summit

​The emerging innovation ecosystem in Africa is proving to be a critical driver of economic growth in its role as an innovation enabler for key sectors and its contribution to the inflow of FDI.

​The last 4 years alone have seen the startup and innovation ecosystem attract over $10.5 Billion in funding to startups and companies focused on building the critical digital infrastructure required to deepen economies across the continent. While diverse organizations are coming together to strengthen this emerging innovation ecosystem, the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in most African countries play little to no role. 

To tackle this prevailing problem, Co-Creation Hub Africa (CcHUB) and Make-IT in Africa, with support from GIZ, co-funded an international development partnership program called UNI:NNOVATORS Startups in Residence Program. 

For 10 months, Co-Creation Hub’s HEI Innovation Practice worked with 6 higher education institutions in Kenya, Nigeria, and Namibia to support 30 student and academic innovators from within these higher education institutions and foster the culture of innovation within these universities.

​For the final phase of the program, CcHUB and Make-IT in Africa will hold the HEI Innovation Summit to mark the end of the program and also engage key stakeholders across Africa on the role of African HEIs in the emerging African Innovation Ecosystem. 

The two-day summit will achieve the following objectives:

• ​Showcase the innovators and innovations coming out of HEIs in Africa (as embodied in the innovators supported by the program.

• ​Facilitate interactions between innovators, investors, industry players, and other stakeholders critical to HEI Innovation in Africa

• ​Improve the capacity of HEI and Entrepreneurship Managers on innovation support and industry-academia collaboration

• ​Contribute to shaping the narrative about the critical role that HEIs have in contributing to the emerging African Innovation Ecosystem