NEST360 Innovation Landscape: catalog of promising technologies from African innovators

Written by: Carrie Noxon

In partnership with NEST360, African universities are building innovation ecosystems to support local innovation of next-generation technologies.

These ecosystems include design studios where students and faculty have access to the high-end tools used to prototype solutions to real-world challenges. Students learn techniques for building successful prototypes and are given opportunities for hands-on, project-based learning as part of invention education programs.

In addition to providing infrastructure for prototyping designs, these studios act as innovation hubs and support international collaboration among students, universities, industries, hospitals, and non-profit organizations.

The rapid growth in promising ideas and alpha- and beta-stage prototypes coming out of the African design studios led to the creation of the NEST360 Innovation Landscape, a resource that catalogs innovations from the universities.

The first edition of the Innovation Landscape includes information on ideas and prototypes gathered from innovators among NEST360 university partners including, Addis Ababa Institute of Technology Design Studio (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), Malawi University of Science and Technology Design Studio (Limbe, Malawi), Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences Design Studio (Blantyre, Malawi), University of Ibadan Design Studio (Ibadan, Nigeria). University of Lagos Design Studio (Lagos, Nigeria), Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology Design Studio (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). The information included in the report is self-disclosed and directly provided by the innovators or their institutions.

If you have an innovation to be considered for inclusion in the next edition of the Innovation Technology Landscape, complete the NEST360 Innovation Landscape Submission Form and email the completed form to becca.kirby@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Innovation partnerships | Olusola Oke, University of Ibadan

Innovation partnerships | Olusola Oke, University of Ibadan

by | Feb 10, 2023 | , , , ,

Olusola Oke is a NEST360 Invention Education team member and the Design Studio Assistant Manager at the University of Ibadan (UI) in Nigeria. Mr. Oke visited the United States in October 2022 as part of a bidirectional exchange program to meet his colleagues at Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies (Rice360) and NEST360. While in the United States, Mr. Oke shared his insights on fostering innovation capacity through the UI design studio, presenting at conferences in San Antonio, Texas, and Seattle, Washington, and providing a guest lecture at Rice University. He shared the following reflections after his engagement in the bidirectional exchange program.