Project references

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Strengthening the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem by developing and managing an Industry-Academia Platform

The Project will assess industry needs focusing on technical expertise, knowledge, focused high-quality research content, market validation processes, evidence-based decision-making, talented future professionals and building up ideas and business proposals.

Within the project these needs from industry are added to the changes in technical expertise and skills as a result from the 4th Industrial Revolution (often dubbed as “IR4.0”) and the need for talented future professionals that will require a greater emphasis on soft skills or life-skills of the current and future workforce. This will go hand-in-hand in order to fulfil the industry needs. Although not all future needs are exactly known, there is a common understanding that many of the current jobs will be redundant in the next 5-10 years and replaced with jobs that currently do not exist yet. In any case, technology, data, innovation will be key

Next the project will focus on the academic needs in order to enhance the employability of students, gaining visibility for academic outputs, and increasing access to industry for mentorship, joint research, facilities, and technologies with the goal of connecting research towards commercialization and innovation. Within the needs of academic stakeholders there is a distinction between university education and TVET in Tertiary Education Institutions (TEIs).

Finally this will result in an academia Industry Platform that will act as a complementary, independent and non-aligned platform to the existing dense web of incubators, accelerators, hubs and similar structures that already operate in the entrepreneurial space in Kenya.

Types of activities carried out:

Consulting
Training
Research
Validation of research
Database development
Capacity Building
10 Challenges

The project for the Kenyan Ministry of Trade and Industry will run from July 2020 until December 2024 and is being funded by the World Bank.

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Strengthening the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem by developing and managing an Industry-Academia Platform

The Project will assess industry needs focusing on technical expertise, knowledge, focused high-quality research content, market validation processes, evidence-based decision-making, talented future professionals and building up ideas.