Nokia seeks innovative Kenyans ahead of Africa summit

Kenyan innovators have a chance to showcase their prowess in a new challenge co-sponsored by phone-maker Nokia, infoDev and Capgemini.

Creators of the 3 best ideas will be invited to the second Open Innovation Africa Summit 2012 (OIAS2) to be held in Nairobi from May 28-30 2012 to share their thoughts with ‘respected thought leaders.’

Dubbed ‘Ideas to Innovation’ the global competition seeks to get societal, structural, financial and technological ideas that will help foster innovation leadership in Africa.

According to a communiqué from Nokia in Kenya, the challenge is open to all Kenyans “with fresh and disruptive ideas” and can log on to www.ideasproject.com/oias2 until 2nd May to submit an entry.

After the deadline of 2nd May, 2012, the second stage of the competition will commence where the entries received from across the globe will undergo an initial screening and evaluation. The jury will consist of members from infoDev, Capgemini, Nokia and academia.

“We believe that this challenge provides a stimulating platform for entrepreneurs, students, SME’s, professionals, researchers and NGO’s to share innovative ideas for the African continent,” said Jussi Hinkkanen, vice president, Corporate Relations and Business Environment, Nokia Middle East and Africa.

“This is an important precursor to the Open Innovation Africa Summit, where several of these ideas will be developed further in a workshop environment.”

The challenge seeks to continually foster innovation debate in Africa and pave the road for accelerated socio-economic transformation that is inclusive across the population. Kenya’s Vision 2030 recognizes the urgent need to shift Kenya to a knowledge based economy; and the only way is to confront challenges of global competitiveness for national prosperity.

“Come up with an idea of a tool or practice so that can turn African innovations into shining businesses able to have a great impact on your community,” urges Hinkkanen.

The ideas will be evaluated based on their novelty, their impact on society, business and innovation, their scalability and portability, as well as the idea’s suitability to solve a particular problem.

The ideas to Innovation’ competition acts as a “pre-brainstorming” session for the summit and is run under the Ideas Project by Nokia which is an online community for everybody from all around the world to brainstorm.

It enables the two-way exchange of ideas between users and developers around innovation and allows everyone, not just the delegates of the OIAS², to participate in this important debate.