AMUA Accelerator | The finish line
The journey, the champions, and the lessons
Lately, AMUA Accelerator announced its Winners in their 12-month Accelerator that witnessed about 300 ideas that participated from across the country. With the top four teams receiving a Seed fund worth USD 6000 each. These four best teams are from diverse backgrounds as they represent different regions of the country. From tech-based innovation to non-technical Innovations that are solving different challenges from the listed 5 challenges of the competitions.
Recapping the roadmap of the accelerator
The Cohort started 12 months ago by calling different stakeholders to dissect the actual challenges faced by PWDs (People with Disability). The stakeholders were diverse coming from the Public sectors with responsible ministries represented, the PWDs themselves, Organisations working with PWDs, the parents and guardians of PWD, Innovators, the development community as well as representatives from UNFPA. Five challenge statements were made that were used by the Accelerator to go round the country sharing with different actors during the call for applications.
After a series of activities including the Bootcamp, 8 teams sailed to the acceleration stage. These teams received further mentorship support from Industrial experts that helped them build their MVPs through constant testing and iterations.
The video below sums up the entire journey of the Accelerator, from the call of application to the acceleration phase of the best 8 teams.
About the demo day
The demo day marked the peak of the entire accelerator, as different stakeholders and key players in the health and entrepreneurship ecosystem joined together to listen to the seven best teams that were refined throughout the journey. The AMUA II Innovation Accelerator DEMO Day was able to be attended by diverse stakeholders coming from the Government, UNFPA staff, Innovators, etc.
- Guest of Honor — Dr. Amos Nungu, Dr. Amos Muhunda Nungu, Director General of the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology ( COSTECH )
- Dr.Wilfred Ochan, UNFPA Deputy Representative and OIC
- Representatives from President’s Office, Regional Administration, and Local Government
- Representatives from the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children
- Innovators
- Representatives from the community of people living with disabilities,
- University Students
This equates to a number of 70 people, with an average of 42 people attending the event live throughout.
The event was also attended by a panel of judges playing key roles in the ecosystem. The table below includes the names and short descriptions of the judges.
The AMUA II DEMO Day was looking to award the best four (4) teams out of the seven (7) teams which all advanced to the final stage, where their innovative solutions best address the challenges faced by people with disabilities (PWDs) to access sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services
So, who are the Champions?
Who are these 6000 USD worth teams? How are they addressing these challenges brought forward and agreed by stakeholders?
Meet them here!
Lessons from the Accelerator
The accelerator is an Initiative of UNFPA Tanzania managed by one of the strongest ecosystem builders in the country, Sahara Ventures through its subsidiary Accelerator. This Cohort has a lot to learn both positive and negative. It could be used as a very good case on how best to run an accelerator program solving challenges of the specific vulnerable group and how you could involve them to be part of the program.
Some of the notable learning are as follows;
Involvement of Specific Vulnerable groups (especially the targeted beneficiary) to participate in looking for challenges that affect them. For the case of this program, the cohort was looking to solve challenges faced by PWDs. Key questions would be, were they involved? How effective has their involvement been? The answer to that is Yes People with Disabilities were involved about 30 percent of the participants during the Challenge definition session came from either PWDs themselves or organizations representing or working with PWDs. The challenge definition to me is very key in making sure that the Accelerator addresses the real problem faced by targeted beneficiaries. The fact that they were involved in this stage is commendable. Apart from that, the Challenge definition ensured that all groups of disabilities are represented and all the necessary infrastructure for them to participate effectively into considerations.
The other similar question on the context of the Involvement would be, How many were involved in Idea presentations?
The program made enough effort to make sure that PWDs are reached so that they become aware of the challenge and hence participate, during the Community engagement session as well as the regional hackathon of the program the team Visited PWDs or their organization in every region they visited. Special focus was on organizations working/representing PWDs. This is translated very well into the number of PWDs who participated during the Application stage. However, only one PWD member managed to sail to the next level of Bootcamp. She was part of the team from Singida. The team managed to go to the acceleration stage but however, they pulled out on grounds that they were not ready for the demo day. The biggest learning here is on the level of understanding of the Innovation concept to the participating PWDs or their groups that they could not come with powerful Innovative Ideas to solve their own challenges convincing enough to be selected to the next levels. There is a need to continue to support this group with understanding the Innovation concept. This could be having more exclusive programs for PWDs on the agenda or at least making sure that one of the requirements for participating Ideas is to have a PWD member.
Having Participants that are coming across the Country.
One of the notable achievements of this cohort is the nature of Ideas originality. The majority of this cohort Idea came from diverse geographical backgrounds compared to the first Cohort. For example, of the winners of this year’s event, only one team came from Dar es Salaam while the rest were from the other regions. Dar es Salaam is more favored by Innovation infrastructure and access to information compared to other regions, hence standing a bigger chance compared to their colleagues. The team noted that and therefore did an extensive community engagement that has led to more participation across the country.
One on One follow up mentorship
The majority of the team that managed to the finals have said that the one on one follow up mentorship done by this program has been instrumental for them to perfect further their Ideas. Before then the Mentorship was remote or through available resources in their settings. The team did a one on one pre-demo day mentorship that has helped massively to perfect and gauge commitment among participating teams.
So now you know, solving communal problems innovatively does matter a lot as it involves more youth not only coming with solutions but also empowering them with necessary tools that are useful to solve their social-economic problems. Only what we need is to invest more in learning and implementing those learnings as we continue solving various challenges innovatively to solve different community challenges sustainably.
AMUA Accelerator I: Innovate for Sexuality
AMUA Accelerator II: Innovate for disability
The second cohort is officially closed. AMUA III is on the pipeline, about to begin, it's theme will be around Data.
AMUA Accelerator is UNFPA’s Innovation accelerator that is implemented in partnership with Sahara Ventures with the support from UKAID.
