Tech Hubs: Sparking Tech Innovation in Africa

Technology innovation hubs have been celebrated for their potential to spark innovation, stimulate economic growth and tackle societal challenges in novel ways. However, many hubs are struggling to become financially sustainable while grappling with complex challenges in diverse ecosystems.  We asked seven hubs across five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to explain how they are addressing some of these challenges and generating revenue.  See Loren’s full article for the Huffington Post here.

How Independent Journalists in Africa are Flourishing

At Indigo Trust, we’ve been fortunate enough to support organisations in sub-Saharan Africa that are working hard to ensure that critical information reaches the most marginalised in society, that their voices are amplified, corruption is uncovered and a more just society is promoted. Loren Treisman’s article for Huffington Post published earlier this month.

What have we learned so far about tech hubs in Africa and Asia?

We were really interested to receive a report recently from GSMA on its work with hubs in Africa and Asia. The GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund, which is funded by DfID, aims to build collaboration between start-ups and mobile operators, helping mobile operators to overcome challenges innovating in emerging markets, and helping start-ups overcome challenges which prevent them from scaling up their operations.

A bit of background to Malawi’s mHub

mHub in Malawi was established by Rachel Sibande in 2013. Over the last three years, it has seen around 4,000 young people come through its doors and take part in activities within the hub. This short news film from Voa News gives some background to the hub.

The Joint Hub Fund is supporting mHub this year, as well as eight other tech innovation hubs in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Valuing Data: How to use it in your grant-making

It would be fair to say that British philanthropists haven’t traditionally made the most of data in their work. But there exist a number of opportunities for British grant-makers to change this and recent research we supported with New Philanthropy Capital outlines some of the ways this can be achieved.

From the funding application process through to implementation and evaluation, grant-making involves a continuous creation of data. More and more funders are making their grant-making data publicly available, to support evidence-based decision-making and to improve transparency and accountability. But we think more of this can be done to improve grant-making throughout the UK.

In this paper we explore how grant-makers can make better us of data within their organisations. We also argue that to really harness the value of data, funders must take a more collaborative, shared approach to using data. By highlighting specific examples and emerging approaches, we outline how this could best be achieved.

Let NPC know what you think of the report over on Twitter @NPCthinks

Indigo Christmas Office Clausure

Ho ho ho! The Indigo team will be out of the office from now until early January. As such, any proposals received during this time will not be reviewed until the New Year and applicants should expect a slower-than-usual response.  Don’t worry, though, we’ll be sure to read all of your emails, tweets and listen to any voicemails you might have left for us over the festive season once we’re back in the office. If you’d like to leave us some real gifts, they’d be most welcome too. If you are celebrating Christmas, we’d like to wish you all a very merry time!

Opening Government and Closing Civic Space

Last week saw the Open Government Partnership’s annual summit, which this year took place in Paris. Put briefly, the idea behind the initiative is to make governments ‘more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens’. It’s a voluntary club that now boasts some 75 countries across the globe and 2016 has seen it face some of its biggest challenges yet.

Introducing HapaSpace and IceAddis

As mentioned in a previous post, The Joint Hub Fund was delighted this year to be able to support two new hubs –IceAddis in Ethiopia and HapaSpace in Ghana.

IceAddis was established in 2011 and aims to be an open community workspace, a vector for investors, and a pre-incubator for young tech entrepreneurs. Based in Addis Ababa, IceAddis aims to create a well-functioning entrepreneurial ecosystem to allow young people to reach their potential. Unemployment in Ethiopia is high (estimated at 17%) and very few people have access to the internet. IceAddis aims to mitigate these challenges by developing a space where Ethiopian innovators can develop ideas into fully-fledged products and services. IceAddis receives between 60 and 80 requests for start-up or project support each year from young people in Ethiopia and is working to expand its reach.

Mistrust elections? In Ghana there’s an app for that

What role will tech play in the upcoming Ghanaian elections. In this CNN article, Loren outlines some of the ways in which technology is playing an increasingly important role in everyday and political life in the country.

Researching Social Tech Ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa

For some years now, we have been supporting social tech communities and ecosystems around sub-Saharan Africa. As a comparatively young field, research in this area is much needed to guide practice both in Africa and also inform work around the world, including the UK. We are delighted to be supporting this work alongside Comic Relief and Nominet Trust. The following text is reproduced here courtesy of the Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute. The original post can be found here.

The Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (M-ITI) is delighted to announce that it has been commissioned to produce an ambitious piece of research on ‘Social Tech Ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa,’ by a partnership of three key foundations making grants in the fields of social tech and international development: Comic Relief, Indigo Trust and Nominet Trust.