Four budding social innovators from Marsabit County are set to undergo a four month incubation to develop their businesses at local hubs run by the iHub to implement home grown solutions to drought in the county.
The four, Mt. Marsabit Women Dairy Group, climate advisory service Climate Information Pastoral Unit, warehouse rental solution When The Sun Shines, and feeds manufacturer Drought Cure will now get an opportunity to refine their business and financial models, get their legal structures in place, and receive training in sectors like investment readiness, theory of change, ethics, leadership, sales and marketing.
They will also receive grants from Disasters and Emergencies Preparedness Programme (DEPP) to actively develop starts-ups that will be able to launch their innovations into their communities.
The programme which is run through a partnership between Adeso and Mastercard Labs and is funded through UKAid and managed collaboratively by the Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) and Start Network offers an opportunity to startups to grow their businesses through a tailor-made programme that will develop their business acumen and technical skills.
The process which began with over 20 teams saw the startups go through various stages which included training, mentoring, coaching and support in three phases – Idea Generation and Selection, Research and Concepts, and Development.
The innovators were guided through a social innovation design process to come up with viable products that help to address challenges in food insecurity, water management, livestock protection, sustainable livelihoods and early warning information systems.
Comment (1)
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How does it help in food security, knowing that this is one of the county with high malnutrition cases, in the country and water being one of the main problem, as I can see they are testing milk, of which it doesn’t lust for long periods of time.
