Five days full of inspiration, great ideas, teamwork, and a lot of fun!
That was Impact Week Kenya which took place from July 21st to 25th at the Africa Nazarene University (ANU) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The result was 17 amazing final pitches and an overall great turn out of impactful projects.
The core idea of Impact Week was to bring together experts from the fields of Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking with motivated students and faculty members of the ANU to design impactful ideas and sustainable business models. A total of 19 experts from Germany facilitated workshops for 100 participants. Five different tracks framed the topics of Impact Week which included education, health, finance, mobility and agriculture.
The goal was to identify local problems and to create user-centric solutions and prototypes that were accompanied by potentially profitable business models. Core elements of the business models not only concerned sustainable profitability but also a mission and long-term vision for social impact.
The agenda:
Day 1 – Understanding the problem and user needs
Day 2 – Ideation and prototyping
Day 3 – Business Model Design
Day 4 – Vision, mission, first steps to market
Day 5 – Grand finale: Impact Awards
Each day local experts attended the workshop to give inspirational presentations. These special contributions were key to learning about the speakers’ experiences which reflected on the challenges of the current project and provided suggestions for new ideas for moving forward.#
One essential aspect of Impact Week is that the the ambition for social change will continue beyond the closure of the even by building upon the energy and developing the tangible outcomes from the 5-day workshops to the next level. Eight out of the 17 teams will therefore receive an opportunity to be a part of the new ANU accelerator program which aims to help teams to translate their ideas into reality. Additionally, Kenyan experts in Social Entrepreneurship will mentor the students in the upcoming month.
The top teams of the Impact Award:
- 1st place: E4E
A platform for young people graduating from school that helps them to find jobs and trainings to fit the employers requirements - 2nd place: CounterFighters
An approach to fight against counterfeits pharmaceutical products, which is an increasing issue in Kenya - 3rd place: Detour
An app that helps people to find the more efficient route to avoid traffic jams.
The whole expert team from Germany was amazed and impressed by the determination and passion that participants demonstrated throughout Impact Week. Aside from the tangible outcomes, the learning process involved in business model design was another valuable experience for participants. We are curious to see how teams implement the their ideas in reality and are happy to take part as mentors at the Innovation Incubator of the ANU! It was a tremendous week for us all and we look forward to seeing th seeds begin to grow.
More information on Impact Week can be found on the following social channels:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/theimpactweek
Facebook: http://facebook.com/theimpactweek
Blog: http://impactweek.net/blog/