THE MAKING OF AN AFRICAN INNOVATOR - MY ESCAPADE WITH INNOVATE FOR AFRICA

January 4th, 2021. The beginning of a new year, a new week, and what was to be the beginning of a life-changing experience for me. It was the Day-1 of the Innovation Readiness Training courtesy of Innovation for Africa (IFA) – A start-up founded and led by a team of students and alumni of Harvard and MIT graduate schools. From the first day, I observed how well organized and thorough the training was going to be, and in the four weeks that followed, I can say without mincing words that it was one of my most productive months ever to date. Even more surprising is that even though the program was entirely virtual with about forty participants and ten facilitators scattered across different cities and continents, we had incredible connections and interactions.

The lecture delivery strategy implemented by Margaret Wang and her team is a clear testament to her learning design prowess. However, it's not surprising considering her vast experience as a learning designer and her Harvard education. The constant constructive feedback I received from Viviana Rivera and other facilitators made the learning cycle complete, helping me to translate an idea into a prototype in just three weeks using design thinking amongst other milestones of the training.

In the spate of 4 weeks, we covered Personal Branding, Design Thinking, Strategic Analysis, and Data Analytics extensively. Asides from those, we had at least one guest speaker every week – mostly start-up founders, who came to talk to us about their entrepreneurial journey. Indeed, the training was intensive; I kid you not. In the following paragraphs, I would be giving you a sneak peek into the Innovation Readiness Training's various segments.

Design Thinking

Before the Innovate for Africa program, I thought design thinking was just one of those buzz words professionals use. It is more apparent to me now than ever before how practical design thinking is, having used it to create a product during the training. Design thinking prioritizes the development of user-centric products. One of the books we used – design thinking bootleg, designed for students at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, identifies five components of design thinking as Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test

We studied in-depth each of the design thinking components and finally developed an innovative product using these concepts. In my previous articles, WeCare - Mental Health Care without the Stigma and How do we solve the Mental Health Crisis in Nigeria? I wrote extensively on how we used the design thinking process to create a digital mental health application - WeCare. We even had the good fortune of presenting our idea and prototype to a team of experienced judges. You can view our pitch deck and project overview here.

Strategic Analysis

One of the most transferable skills we learned during the 1-month Innovation Readiness Training was Strategic Analysis. We learned about systems thinking, a methodical approach to analyzing an organization from a broad perspective to understand how stakeholders interact to make up the system. We also learned about strategic analysis. "Strategy" is also one of those words I considered buzz words used by consultants to get clients' money. Well, it turns out strategy in the real sense is no buzz word. Indeed, strategic analysis is a comprehensive framework for diagnosing a situation, involving the use of frameworks such as SWOT AND STEEPLE.

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) is a decision-making framework used to assess the current and future situation of a product, brand, business, proposal, or decision. In contrast, STEEPLE (Social, Technological, Environmental, Economical, Political, Legal and Ethical factors) is used to analyze the external opportunity and threats an organization faces. These frameworks can be used for assessing opportunities, risk assessment, reviewing corporate strategy, or strategic planning.

While we did the strategic analysis for a Jumia case study in our synchronous sessions, I analyzed the organizational framework of two start-ups in which I was interested. Check out my SplitSpot and Tenakata Organizational frameworks. Finally, we learned how to use Trello to manage projects effectively.

Hard Skills Lab - Data Analytics

The Hard skills lab was my absolute favorite. As a Machine Learning Engineer, it was natural that my hard skills lab track was Data Analytics. Several companies presented data analytics challenges they had in their organization, and we worked with clients to provide specific data analytics solutions for them. I worked with a real-estate start-up to analyze the Boston rental market using an external rental dataset in Boston. I used Machine Learning technique to build a predictive model on apartment rentals in the Boston area. The model will help them make better decisions on future apartments to list on their website based on predicted customer preferences. You can see my project page to view the full client presentation and client report.

One of the things that made the hard skills lab particularly interesting was the mentors we were assigned. Our mentors were professional data scientists who guided us when we hit obstacles along the way. I can't fail to mention that my mentor – Anais Vaillant, played an essential role in the successful presentation of my client project. She continuously encouraged and guided me throughout the project. Her words, "Never let the good be the enemy of the perfect" clearly stuck with me.

Personal Branding

Before the Innovation Readiness Training, I never thought it necessary to create a portfolio for my past and current projects. In retrospect, this was quite naïve. Over the course of the Innovation Readiness Training, I learned how to create a portfolio website where I can showcase my projects and even share my thoughts via blog posts such as this one. The personal branding sessions helped me revamp my resume and my mission statement. I am able to define better who I am, my career objectives, and what value I can provide to any organization. I continue to build my portfolio and document my progress on my website. This will help me showcase my talent to potential employers and partners through evidence of tangible projects I have done and also help me measure my growth and document my journey. Indeed, I know much better now how important effective personal branding is in fitting together every piece of the puzzle that makes up your professional persona.

Guest Speakers

It is always a privilege to speak to people who have walked the journey you're taking. We did not lack in that regard throughout the Innovation Readiness Training. We had the opportunity to interact with some of the most promising start-up founders and innovators from Nigeria and abroad. Some of the people who spoke to us include the founders of Social lender, Credpal, Generate Impact, Drugstoc, MEDSAF, and others. We had the opportunity to listen and learn from their story and how they overcame obstacles to create start-ups with social impact. We asked questions and sought-out advice on how aspiring social impact entrepreneurs such as myself can position themselves to discover opportunities and provide value to their communities.

One of the most memorable guest lectures that resonated with me was by Efosa Ojomo; an Innovation Author and Consultant who authored the book "The Prosperity Paradox". He discussed with us how prospective innovators often conflate the solution to a problem with the desired destination. For example, when you ask people what the solution to the bad leadership in Nigeria is, they most likely will say something along the lines of "getting good leaders". However, getting good leaders is the desired destination to our woes, not the solution. The solution then is the innovative processes that need to be taken to produce good leaders for the country consistently and sustainably. Thus, as innovators, we need to define our solution effectively and distinguish it from the desired destination we seek.

He also made us understand why the journey to entrepreneurship may not be linear. However, one must have a clear picture in mind of what his desired destination looks like, then take an audit of his current standing in terms of capabilities and resources, and then evaluate the missing resources and figure out a way to fill the gap. Efosa's brief words of wisdom have stayed with me ever since.

Key Takeaways

From my garnered experience through bringing an idea to a prototype in 3 weeks using design thinking; to client engagement and successfully solving a client problem with my data analytics skills; and designing organizational framework using SWOT and STEEPLE for two start-ups, I have had the opportunity of a complete training on Innovation and social impact entrepreneurship. The ability to effectively collaborate with colleagues virtually is also one invaluable skill that I have gained. To complete a program as challenging as this, I had to embody in totality all of IFA's core values, from being innovative to collaboration, grit, growth mindset, and inclusivity and diversity. I would especially like to appreciate the immense efforts of all the program facilitators and my colleagues, whom we worked tirelessly together to produce outstanding deliverables in the Hackathon project and the client project.

With the conclusion of the Innovation Readiness Training, my journey to becoming a social impact entrepreneur and an innovator is by no means coming to an end. If anything, it has only just begun. Perhaps, the title of this article should have been "Kick-starting the Innovator in Me". The journey will not be lined with roses or red carpet, but if there's anything that I know better now and that I would like you to take away from this article, it is that there is a methodical approach to Innovation. And as with anything methodical, Innovation can be learned. And as for me, it is a life-long learning process.