Nairobi – GDI Hub and Kenyan partners launched in Nairobi, Kenya the World’s First Innovation Ecosystem dedicated to supporting over 50 start-ups to develop new Assistive Technology products and services.
The Accelerator will be part of the Innovate Now program, a £1.5m investment in African businesses that will provide advanced business and technical support to accelerate over 100 start-ups and assistive technology innovations based within the thriving technology ecosystem in Nairobi.
Applications to be part of Innovate Now are open from the 10th of June to the 10th of August 2019 on the website www.innovationchallenge.fund. The chosen innovators will join the accelerator for 3 months from September to November this year.
Bringing human-centred design expertise, together with users of AT, research capacity, acceleration support and capital – the aim of this programme is to bridge the ‘valley of death’ for AT start-ups, towards market and global scale. In the long-run up to 50 businesses could be supported, reaching hundreds of thousands of people with new AT products.
Two businesses–Motivation and Amparo– have already brought their AT innovations to this ecosystem, to be joined by many African innovators.
This program is part of the £20m AT2030 programme, funding by UKAID which aims to reach over 3 million people, through testing new approaches to get assistive technology to those who need it around the world – at present up to 900m people – and backing ‘what works’.
