CREATIC4AFRICA: ICT innovation lab for young African entrepreneurs

The project addressed the need to channel the creativity and technological innovation of African youth as an engine of social and economic progress on the continent, supporting the own ideas of people with first-hand knowledge of the cultural and socioeconomic challenges of their countries.

The objectives of the project were:

• To establish an innovation lab for African youth interested in creating ICT applications that would improve their communities.
• To fund ideas generated and developed by Africans familiar with the reality of their countries.
• To train and support the selected participants until they successfully completed the development of their applications.

CREATIC4AFRICA was built around the following pillars:

• Call for ideas: selection of proposals from young Africans with the potential for social impact.
• Innovation lab: a training stay at CTIC with individualized training and mentoring for the development of each application.
• Commercial viability: orientation of the developments toward solutions that are commercially and socially viable in their communities of origin.

CTIC developed the innovation lab in coordination with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, and the Government of Finland. As a result, five fellows from Ethiopia, Senegal, and Cape Verde successfully completed the development of their technology applications.