Showing posts with label Co-Creation Hub. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Co-Creation Hub. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Co-Creation Hub Nigeria to get $245, 000 grant



19 Jul 2011 15:04 Africa/Lagos


Omidyar Network and The Indigo Trust to Fund New Social Innovation Center in Nigeria

PR Newswire

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and LONDON, July 19, 2011

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and LONDON, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Omidyar Network and The Indigo Trust announced today their support and intent to fund the Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Nigeria. The Hub is a non-profit, social enterprise centered around a shared work space where stakeholders from multiple walks of Nigerian life come together to collaboratively create tech-based solutions that address social challenges facing Nigerian society. It will be Nigeria's first multi-functional, multi-purpose space dedicated to the creation of social technology ventures. Omidyar Network will grant up to US$200,000, and The Indigo Trust has provided a grant of US$45,000.

The Hub will accommodate 50-60 tech start-ups at one time and will provide pre-incubation services including: advice, training, mentorship and access to funding through a network of local and international partners. The Hub will also serve as a place for stakeholders to meet, brainstorm, share ideas and collaborate through partnership events, meet-ups, focus groups, hackathons, competitions and talks by guest speakers.

The Hub founders, 'Bosun Tijani and Femi Longe, saw first-hand the impact of focused social innovation efforts through their leadership in the Social Innovation Camp Nigeria and Tech in Governance camp that took place this year in Nigeria. The camps yielded a number of technology initiatives focusing on issues such as government accountability, health information and crime tracking and reporting. Their goals for The Hub include helping to stimulate the creation of more than two dozen social ventures over the next two years. The Hub will open its doors in August this year.

"The Co-Creation Hub promises to foster the development of technology-driven social enterprises that will address many of Nigeria's most pressing problems," said Stephen King, Omidyar Network investment partner. "The Hub will provide the environment, stimulation and connections to capital and expertise necessary to help Nigerian entrepreneurs launch their social missions to improve the lives of millions of Nigerians."

The grant represents Omidyar Network's latest investment in innovative uses of technology for development and support of entrepreneurship in Africa. It follows the recent creation of the Africa Transparency and Technology Initiative and support of the African Leadership Academy and the Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship.

"We are delighted to support a venture which will create an enabling environment for African-led innovation, contextualized to local needs," said Francesca Perrin, founder and director of The Indigo Trust. "The Hub will bring together developers, innovators and business professionals, creating the right conditions to stimulate innovation and generate technology-led solutions that improve governance and support development objectives across Nigeria. We're excited about the potential of Hubs. It seems natural to us that people should come together to share technical, human and social bandwidth."

About The Indigo Trust:

The Indigo Trust is a grant making foundation that funds technology-driven projects to bring about social change, largely in African countries. The Trust focuses mainly on innovation, transparency and citizen empowerment. The Indigo Trust makes grants to African projects or programmes, or to organisations which operate at least partly in African countries. We believe that access to information for all empowers people to change their own lives and communities. Fran Perrin founded the trust that she now runs with her husband William. The Indigo Trust is one of the 18 Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts (SFCT). The Trusts work and fund autonomously across many different sectors and geographic regions but share offices and administration. For more information see The Trust's blog: http://indigotrust.wordpress.com

About Omidyar Network

Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. To date, Omidyar Network has committed more than $448 million to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple investment areas, including microfinance, entrepreneurship, property rights, government transparency, consumer Internet and mobile. To learn more about Omidyar Network, please visit www.omidyar.com.

SOURCE Omidyar Network

CONTACT: Greg Pershall of Omidyar Network, +1-360-607-8901; or Dr Loren Treisman of The Indigo Trust, +44 (0) 20 7410 0330

Web Site: http://www.omidyar.com



Releases displayed in Africa/Lagos time

19 Jul 2011





18 Jul 2011






Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Nokia Supports Social Innovation Camp Nigeria




Nokia Supports Social Innovation Camp Nigeria

In line with its established reputation for Innovation, Nokia is partnering with a social enterprise venture, Co-Creation Hub to provide a platform for young Nigerians to come up with business ideas that also address some of Nigeria’s social issues. Co-Creation Hub had sought entries from Nigerians on how they can use mobile technology to set up businesses that address issues like the quality of Education, Health, combating corruption, and deepening democracy. The entries were pruned to 6 out of which three winners have emerge after a 48-hour camping at the Pan-Africa University, Lagos. Nokia along with other organizations like TBWA/Concepts will allow the winners use their platforms to transform the ideas into thriving businesses.

Segun Fodeke, a software developer won the first prize with her idea on how mobile devices can be used to track the performance of elected government officials against the promises they make when seeking elections. The second position was won by Olusegun V. Sangowawa for her idea on using mobile technology to improve people’s access to health information. Tosin Agboola’s entry emerged third position. The idea seeks to use mobile phones are platforms to alert Nigerians about wanted criminals rather the current use of newspapers, whose reach is quite limited due to poor literacy level and poverty.

Nokia is particularly availing any of the winners who develops a mobile application, an opportunity to upload such on Ovi Store. Ovi store is Nokia’s proprietary platform from which millions of Nokia faithfuls can download applications, games, maps and music. Globally, there are at least 3 million downloads on Ovi store everyday. Nokia’s Head of Marketing for West Africa, Reuben Onwubiko said the Ovi Store platform provides the winners a life-time opportunity to make money from the revenue from downloads all over the world. He said the onus is therefore on those who have entered for the competition to ensure that they come up with solutions that would be acceptable even beyond the shores of Nigeria.

Founded in 2008 in the UK, Social Innovation camp runs as process/event to create innovative applications of the web and mobile technology to solve social problems. Social innovation camps have been run London, Edinburgh, Slovakia, Australia, South Korea, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Czech Republic. The Nigerian initiative is the first of its kind on the African continent.

For Enquiries, Contact:

Osagie Ogunbor
Head of Communications
Nokia West Africa
+234-706-418-6685

About Nokia
At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.2 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services through Ovi (www.ovi.com), including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia's NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.