Pwani Innovation Week Gets Boost from Cellulant
Cellulant Chief of Brand, Divine Murajigimana, announces the sponsorship of Shs 3 million at the launch of Pwani Innovation Week. With her is Patron and Chairman of the Board, Swahili Pot Hub – Mr. Mahmoud Noor.
Cellulant on 9th November 2018 announced its partnership and title sponsorship of the inaugural Pwani Innovation Week in conjunction with Swahilipot Hub.
To be hosted in Mombasa County, the first Pwani Innovation Week will take place from 3-7 December 2018 at the Kenya Coastal Polytechnic. The highlight of this partnership will include a Concept Hack where youth from across the six Coastal counties – Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, Lamu, Tana River and Taita Taveta are invited to register for and compete to create innovative solutions for their communities.
The Pwani Innovation Week powered by Cellulant, will feature a variety of events including a week-long exhibition, a concept hack and a keynote address from the Cellulant Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Ken Njoroge on Wednesday, 5th December. The programme will also include family, art and cultural events concluding with the annual Pwani Got Talent competition – the regions’ biggest art and culture talent showcase.
“The young people at Swahilipot and the Pwani region at large are working to develop a culture of innovation that will improve their lives and transform the region.
Cellulant’s involvement in Pwani Innovation Week will go a long way in building an innovation ecosystem focused on creating and supporting new businesses across key sectors in the Pwani region”, said Mahmoud Noor, Patron and Chairman of the Board, Swahilipot Hub.
Presenting the sponsorship cheque at the official launch (Friday, 9 November) in Mombasa was Ms. Divine Muragijimana, Cellulant’s Chief of Brand who said: “We want to challenge the youth in the Coastal Counties to find creative and innovative solutions to everyday real-life issues affecting their community.
“At the core of Cellulant is the belief that Africans are the center of finding the solutions to the myriad of challenges that we face continent-wide. We want to engage, inspire and encourage the youth to come together and collaboratively create solutions for their everyday problems.”
“We are hosting a concept hack purposefully to encourage young people to get out of their comfort zones, think big and create innovative local solutions for each sector. In this, Cellulant brings a breadth of experience in solutions for the right problem, at the right time_experience that we are excited to share with the participants”, Ms Muragijimana concluded.
Participants are invited to enter the concept hack and demonstrate their creativity, resourcefulness and team building skills to develop innovative solutions to everyday challenges at the Coast.
Among the objectives of the concept hack is to provide the youth opportunities to showcase a product or service concept, develop a go-to market strategy and most importantly, stimulate creative problem-solving through collaboration. The solutions can cover any of the following key sectors – Agriculture and Agribusiness; Art, Culture and Heritage; Technology and Communication; Tourism & Hospitality; Transport & Logistics; Private sector including SME’s and the Public Sector – both National and County Governments.
Winners of the concept hack shall be announced and awarded at the event Gala dinner.
About Cellulant
Cellulant is a leading Pan-African payments company providing a one-stop digital payments platform. Cellulant’s belief in providing solutions to everyday challenges across Africa has led to digitizing payments end to end for various value chains and as a result providing increased transparency and broader reach within a single mobile commerce platform for financial sector players.
Cellulant is on a mission to build the number one payments business in Africa; led by values-driven entrepreneurial-minded people. In pursuit of this mission, Cellulant has commenced the third iteration of its business strategy anchored on consumer payments, internet payments and marketplace payments. This is aimed at fixing Africa’s payments problems by connecting 700 million mobile users to payments that power their daily lives.
Today, Cellulant’s payments platform spans 1 in 10 Africans, with 2.5 million doing monthly transactions. Cellulant’s coverage extends to 50% of banks on the continent and 17 million unbanked farmers in Africa. Cellulant debuted operations in Kenya and Nigeria in 2004 and has grown to operate across 11 African countries, including Zambia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Mozambique, Malawi, Rwanda and a combined team of up to 350 people.
About Pwani Innovation Week powered by Cellulant
Pwani Innovation Week is a consolidated effort by Swahilipot Hub, and its partners to help create a widespread culture of innovation in the coastal counties of Kenya – Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, Lamu, Tana River, Taita Taveta.
Scheduled for December 3 – 7, 2018 in Mombasa at the Swahilipot Hub, the event is aimed at stimulating the Innovation ecosystem in the Pwani region.
About Swahilipot Hub
Swahilipot Hub is a community of artists and technologists in Mombasa. Swahilipot Hub’s goal is to help the community develop themselves. What this means concretely is that Swahilipot Hub aims to help the community grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate in their skills, character or with their ideas. Please see www.swahilipothub.co.ke for further information.
