Institutions of higher learning have been challenged to support young entrepreneurs, innovators and creatives by collaborating with industry players to advance innovations from ideas to commercial products.

Safaricom company Technology and Innovation’s expert Eng. Andrew Musila expressed the need for industry players to join hands with universities to boost Kenya’s innovations which are the engine that drives the country’s entrepreneurship plan that opens up opportunities which translate into sustainable jobs for the youth.

Speaking during the closing ceremony of the annual Innovation Week and Industry Summit held at KCA university, Musila regretted that Kenyan innovators have for a long time lacked the support to upscale their innovations.

He noted that innovations are the heart of Kenya’s bid to avail key solutions to challenges bedeviling the country in various sectors.

While revealing that the mobile network operator will continue to support universities to identify, develop and transform innovations to commercial products, Musila upheld the need for Kenyans to continue improving the country’s innovation ecosystem through collaborations between local and national governments, private sector, development partners and civil society groups.

“We want to jointly solve societal problems and innovations are meant for this key need. We have the right technology to enable us to go about this and for the innovation week, we have been able to offer thought leadership to the innovators. We will partner with the universities to help the innovators transform their innovations from prototypes to commercial products,” said Musila.

His sentiments were echoed by Prof. Vincent Onywera, the KCA’s DVC Research, Innovation and Outreach Onywera who expressed satisfaction in the types of innovations showcased at the week-long exhibitions.

Onywera at the same time urged the youth to actively use their skills and knowledge to seek solutions to societal problems.

“We have established four innovation hubs which will be operationalized next year. We are doing all these to open an opportunity to Kenyans with innovations to have their ideas incubated, developed and commercialized for posterity,” said Onywera.

The event, which brought together local and international innovators, exhibitors, researchers, creators and more than 2000 participants; was anchored on the theme “Leveraging on Academic-Industry Linkages to Foster Sustainable Innovations”.

The closing ceremony culminated in an awarding ceremony for the best rated Business Plan and Hackathon.

Alvin Ekada, a student pursuing Software Engineering at JKUAT University scooped the best Business plan competition category while Hope Wanjeri, a student at KCA University pursuing Software Development emerged the winner of the hackathon.

Alvin’s business plan seeks to improve Healthcare Accessibility and Outcomes by connecting patients with trusted providers while Hope has developed a Health management system that uses NFC cards to store data on health records about patients.

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