Inspire Africa Innovation Lab

Nigerian social entrepreneur, Cynthia Mene, is the CEO and co-founder of Inspire Africa, a non-profit delivering entrepreneurial leadership education to African youth. She sold her first venture--a biodegradable, non-toxic soap business called EverGlow--in 2015 and subsequently launched the Kadosh Production Company, a sustainable cassava processing facility that empowered 300 female farmers to mechanically process and package crops, increasing yields and income by 30%. Cynthia has received numerous awards for her work, including the United States African Development Fund Award, Unilever’s Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Award, Global Student Entrepreneurs Award, Innovation Prize for Africans Post Prize Awards, and Global Innovation through Science and Technology Awards. She is a 2018 Global Good Fund Fellow, 2015 Mandela Washington YALI Fellow, and LEAP Africa Social Innovators Fellow. Cynthia holds a BSc in Textile Science and Polymer Technology from Ahmadu Bello University and a MSc in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management from Imperial College Business School.

Youth (18-35 years) account for 60% of Africa’s jobless (Source: World Bank). Rejected by formal employment and education opportunities, millions embrace entrepreneurship, but without business know-how and supportive networks their business ventures fail at alarming rates. Our world is in the midst of digital transformation, and so far, many have been left behind. 

Inspire Africa’s Ignite Innovation Lab (IGL) Digital Transformation is an online startup incubator and entrepreneurship program that teaches young Africans human centered design-thinking and digital business skills, so that they are equipped with the toolkit needed to create sustainable digital enterprises and thrive in an adapting global economy. 

In Africa, when small and medium-sized enterprises fail, livelihoods fall under threat. Investing in entrepreneurially-inclined young people strengthens their future businesses, and uplifts their communities by creating opportunities for employment and economic growth. IGL Digital Transformation elevates young Africans to realize their entrepreneurial potential to the benefit of all.

Call them the young and the restless. Youth (18-35 years) account for 60% of Africa’s jobless (Source: World Bank). Rejected by formal employment and education opportunities, millions embrace entrepreneurship. Over 70% of youth in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, DRC, Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Mali are self-employed or in family work (Source: Brookings Institution). 

Unsurprisingly, then, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the primary driver of economic activity across the continent. In  Africa’s largest economy, SMEs contributed 48% of GDP in the last five years, accounting for 84% of employment, and comprising 96% of all businesses (Source: Nigeria Bureau of Statistics). 

And yet, these businesses fail at alarming rates. In Africa’s second largest economy, 50% of SMEs disappear within 24 months (Source: Standard Bank South Africa). When SMEs fail, livelihoods fall under threat. Food cannot be purchased. Medicine cannot be procured. Tuition cannot be paid.  

Poor financing is commonly cited as a barrier to success for SMEs, but Africa’s young entrepreneurs also need business know-how and supportive networks to build resilient ventures. In particular, without digital literacy and problem-solving skills, African youth will struggle to create technology-enabled enterprises that survive the increasingly frequent disruption (e.g. COVID-19, automation) in today’s world

Inspire Africa’s mission is to uplift young people in Africa through education and mentoring. To date, we have trained over 3,000 youth in Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, funded 120 business ventures, and created over 300 jobs.  However, given recent COVID-19 social distancing requirements, we have redesigned our programming delivery for broader, deeper, and, importantly, continued impact.

Launching in July 2020, Ignite Innovation Lab (IGL) Digital Transformation is an online entrepreneurship program that teaches young Africans (aged 19-28) human centered design-thinking and digital business skills, so that they are equipped with the toolkit needed to create sustainable digital enterprises and thrive in an adapting global economy. 

Preparing: To begin, high-potential applicants attend a virtual summit, with workshops on design thinking, digital transformation, customer acquisition, entrepreneurial finance, and more. 

Problem-solving: Selected participants will be placed into diverse teams and collaborate in a facilitated Design Thinking challenge for two weeks that tasks them with developing a digital enterprise that addresses an issue targeted by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

Pitching: Team will virtually present their business plans to a panel of judges. Winners will receive prizes and mentorship and support to prototype their solution. All participants will join the Inspire Africa network.

Our solution targets underserved African youth (19 to 28 year)--students and graduates, employed and unemployed, male and female--all over Africa. It is a digital program in English, however so English fluency and access to a computer with an internet connection are necessary. We will do our best to market the program with local non-profit organizations and community-based organizations where youth can access the internet, but are aware that this reality may mean that participants, at least in our first cohort, may predominantly come from middle income, urban backgrounds where these requirements are not as financially prohibitive. 

To better understand their needs, we conducted stakeholder interviews with students and recent graduates in Nigeria. Our conversations revealed that many young people, some despite university education, have poor computer skills, including little knowledge of Microsoft Suite. Many also expressed extreme difficulty finding employment even months after graduation. These challenges are worse for youth with no higher education and young entrepreneurs are struggling too. IGL Digital Transformation directly addresses these challenges, teaching digital skills and entrepreneurship to help young people start enterprises that transform their circumstances.

Many young people in Africa feel (and have been) lied to: education no longer equals post-graduate employment and employment no longer guarantees economic mobility. Entrepreneurship, meanwhile, is an ever-risky escape. Without digital and problem-solving skills, African youth struggle to find secure employment and create sustainable enterprises. Our increasingly technology-driven world is leaving them so far behind that even when jobs and untapped sizable markets exist, they miss out. Innovation Lab Digital Transformation is centered on elevating young people in Africa to be able to take hold of these opportunities: opportunities to drive towards their goals, opportunities to thrive, and survive

Five years ago, I attended a program at Dartmouth for YALI Fellows and was introduced to design-thinking. I was stunned to see how, within a few weeks, with our facilitators’ support, my team and I identified a problem, ideated a potential solution, and iterated on it until we prototyped a suitable product innovation. I was determined to teach the same entrepreneurial methodology to young people in Nigeria and across Africa. Upon my return, I started Inspire Africa and created our signature Ignite Innovation Labs (IGL). The impact was significant: youth-led enterprises and jobs. But, after the COVID-19 outbreak I learned that almost all the businesses IGL helped establish were failing. For example, one alumni who’d started Cash4Trash to empower youth to monetize recycling services had grown her monthly revenue to $3000 after attending IGL sessions in 2018, but was now struggling as customers and employees alike grew wary of all high-contact businesses. Just like that years of hardwork and mentorship were swept away in the wave of the pandemic. I saw a critical need to virtually deliver programming and meaningfully equip youth with digital skills needed to build resilient technology-based businesses and decided to launch IGL Digital Transformation this summer.

Growing up in a village in Nigeria, I experienced the economic struggles that millions of poor Africans face daily.

I sold bread and pure water sachets on the street as a child, suffered the back-breaking toil of growing cassava in the farms as a teenager. My father was unemployed and my mother was a petty trader with no formal education so it was the only way my family could afford enough food and buy me schoolbooks. 

Years later, as a young adult, I started EverGlow to fill an unmet need in Nigeria by creating a superior non-toxic, plant-derived liquid soap. Lacking the expertise to get the business off the ground, I sought guidance from MicroMentor and was connected with a mentor with experience in sales, marketing, and logistics. Within six months, he helped me gain a competitive advantage locally and begin exporting to Zambia. EverGlow grew rapidly and was eventually acquired. Without my mentor’s help, however, it would have certainly flopped

For me, poverty, unemployment, and failing small businesses are personal. But, I believe teaching practical entrepreneurship and business skills to people returns power where poverty threatens to take it away (if it hasn’t already). This is what motivates me

I believe my entrepreneurship track record, professional experiences, and education uniquely position me to deliver IGL Digital Transformation and empathize with its target beneficiaries. 

Entrepreneurship: At 25, I started and ran a CPG company (EverGlow) that employed 10 permanent staff, and a salesforce of 150 women before it was acquired in 2015. I then founded and led a food processing company Kadosh  (KPC) for four years that improved the living standards of 500 female smallholder farmers. In 2018, I left to launch my current nonprofit, Inspire Africa, and to date, under my leadership, Inspire Africa has trained over 3,000 youth in Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, funded 120 business ventures, and created over 300 jobs. 

Experience: Outside Inspire Africa, I currently freelance for Ashoka as a Global Facilitator and Changemaker. Previously, I worked as the Head of Operations for Vetsark, a Nigerian data science technology firm that helps livestock farmers and veterinarians digitize their animal healthcare records to predict and detect pests and diseases via machine learning. 

Education: I am blessed to be able to bring a range of topical knowledge to this project given my previous YALI and Global Good Foundation fellowships and my MSc in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management. These topics include marketing for entrepreneurship, design thinking for innovation, strategic management, venture capital and growth finance, and more. 

I always endeavor to utilize all the knowledge, skills, networks, and social capital available to me to make an impact and I do not intend to make this project an exception.

In 2018, as I sought funding for another Inspire Africa's Ignite summit project, I attended the  U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) Youth Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi and learned about an upcoming grant opportunity. I was excited to apply, but as I began my application, I was met with one of the most insidious challenges in the international development space.

I was contacted by a Nigerian USADF intern who said he was responsible for receiving local grant applications and promised to guarantee my application’s success if I gave him a 10% cut of the $50,000 grant winnings. I was offended, but, sadly, not surprised. Yes, fundraising is sometimes difficult, but why would I risk years of hard work and relationship-building for dirty money? I always stay true to my values and refuse to let anything affect that. I adamantly rejected the offer, despite his persistence, and tried to discourage him, but the young man dismissed me, determined to try other applicants. Immediately, I reported the situation to a USADF employee I trusted. USADF investigated the matter, terminated the intern, and sent a notice to all applicants emphasizing their strict anti-corruption policies. 

Ultimately, we won the grant.

Three years ago, I was living in Sapele, a small suburban community in the Niger-Delta. Year after year, I’d observed how--faced with limited economic opportunities--many young people went unemployed, underemployed or online trying to defraud unsuspecting victims across the globe. Pained by what I saw, I wanted to equip these youth with skills to pursue legal sources of income. I decided to organize an Ignite Summit, where newly-minted trainers from a recent Dartmouth-backed Inspire Africa Train-the-Trainers program could deliver practical entrepreneurship skills and multiply our impact. 

Determined, I began work to secure the necessary resources and buy-in. I leveraged support from my networks, winning support from government officials, churches, the US Consulate to Nigeria, and the local community. I even persuaded Carrie Rich, CEO of the Global Good Fund to travel to Nigeria to be a distinguished guest speaker. 

The summit was a success. Over 400 young people attended and feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, earlier this year one participant spoke at a recent Inspire Africa event, and shared how the summit empowered him to leave his attempted internet fraud behind and launch a legitimate digital business instead. We are currently working with him to grow his startup.  

Our solution is a unique way of approaching youth unemployment and high SME failure rates. It galvanizes young people to learn digital skills and business know-how and apply them towards solving issues that affect Africa and the world. The IGL Digital Transformation takes simple, yet powerful, tools like human-centered design-thinking and business technology, but builds a pan-african digital learning experience around them. It feels different, and so it has more impact. Participants aren’t simply ingesting one-way information, or executing without guidance. With the support of facilitators trained and experienced in social entrepreneurship, they are ideating, debating, collaborating, communicating, problem-solving, and more. As a result, more than the typical MOOC, the IGL Digital Transformation becomes an incubator, a hackathon, a mixer, a virtual watering hole for Africa’s future young leaders. With incubators (e.g. MEST) in Africa and in many of the entrepreneurship prizes (e.g. The Anzisha Prize), contestants already have their ideas formulated and businesses running. By running a digital program which brings new would-be entrepreneurs together, we are not only able to teach participants a valuable lesson in digital and cross-cultural collaboration, but also to draw upon the diversity of the continent to hopefully effect positive change that has wider impact.

Inspire Africa’s Ignite Innovate Lab Digital Transformation activities comprise three main stages: Preparing, Problem-Solving, and Pitching. During the first stage, we are first tasked with marketing our programming and identifying young people across the continent who would engage and benefit meaningfully from it. Once we have achieved this, our goal is to provide practical lessons on a diverse range of skills that digital social entrepreneurs in Africa need in order to succeed. These include design thinking, product innovation, prototyping, digital transformation, digital marketing, customer acquisition, entrepreneurial finance, and more. The next stage is an opportunity for participants to contextually apply their knowledge by trying to solve a real-life problem in light with the Sustainable Development Goals as part of the experiential Design Thinking challenge. Finally, students pitch their solutions for the opportunity to win prizes and business mentorship as they prototype their ideas. 

Cooperative and experiential learning methods have been shown to improve students’ content mastery, intrinsic motivation, interpersonal relationships, and expectations for success. And so, the immediate output of these activities is a close-knit pan-African cohort of entrepreneurially-minded and digitally-competent young leaders, armed with potential business solutions to problems they have identified around them, and backed by a supportive network of peers and mentors to try and bring them to life. 

The longer term outcomes of the IGL Digital Transformation activities are even more numerous and notable. Youth unemployment is directly targeted by the IGL. Alumni who choose to seek formal employment will have more opportunities available to them due to their new digital skills, and their employers will be more productive for it. Those that choose to start a business, will be more likely to succeed because of their learnings and, therefore, break cycles of unemployment--not only for themselves, but for others as research shows that startup hiring consistently outpaces that of established businesses (EY Job Creation Survey). Increases in employment will decrease socioeconomic inequality and contribute to economic productivity at national and regional levels, and IGL alunni will be better positioned to contribute and benefit from greater African economic integration, having collaborated across borders during the program.

Inspire Africa has trained over 3,000 youth through its past in-person Ignite Innovation Lab programming. This month we will welcome an initial IGL Digital Transformation cohort of 500. In a year, we will be able to serve 1,000 young Africans. In five years, we expect to serve 5,000.

By the end of 2021, our goal is to reach and serve 1000 young people across the African continent. In line with this,  we want to help establish at least 20 new technology-enabled business ventures through co-creation. This will involve helping these entrepreneurs establish their startups digitally, secure some financing in addition to the funds provided by Inspire Africa. In doing so, we hope these businesses can begin to create jobs and serve customers.

Financing - In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of donor resources are naturally being directed to healthcare interventions, and so, we will need to be ingenuitive to identify funding sources focused on solidifying and preserving livelihoods as well. We continue to revisit the model and ask ourselves: 

How much should we spend on operational costs? What additional skill-sets do we need on our team? Which technological products, portals, and platforms make the most sense to use in our context? As we approach funders, the main question we are asking ourselves in this arena is: How can we formulate and communicate our projected ROI (financial and social) to potential partners in the private, public, and non-profit sectors? Which granting organizations (ie. public sector entities) will our model appeal to most?

We are addressing our financing and finalizing partnerships problems in three main ways.

• First, we are creating as accurate a picture of the anticipated expenses to run our pilot program. We currently have a team of MBAs conducting budgetary analysis and constructing financial models to help us estimate exactly what our projected costs will be during the pilot and beyond. 

• Second, we are exploring all cost-saving measures. For example, in one of our other Inspire Africa programs, we revised our model to incorporate a need-based system that we used to identify the students whom we would actually have to supply with a laptop and internet package and are approaching companies who might be willing to donate these learning materials as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives. 

• Finally, we are casting a wide net as far as fundraising and partnership opportunities are concerned. We are first approaching our existing donors (for our other programs) but also looking beyond that to new opportunities, like this MIT Elevate Challenge, and more. Our hope is that the IGL Digital Transformation solution speaks for itself, but that the success of our prior programs help establish confidence in our ability to execute youth development interventions that create lasting impact.

Inspire Africa’s current partners include:

1. U.S. Embassy Nigeria: Provided some funding for our original in-person Ignite Innovation Lab programming. With their support, we are now directing the small portion of that funding that was left over towards piloting our IGL Digital Transformation programming 

2. Vetsark Limited: Donating some laptops and providing temporary technology solutions to help resulting startups

3. Connak Foundation - The foundation is interested in having us run a round of the IGL Digital Transformation in partnership with them. We have in the past provided programming to their 250 beneficiaries, 40 of the businesses received funding, and this would be an extension of that partnership, but under the new context of the social distancing requirements of the pandemic.  Connak Foundation will provide the startup funds to run their business and new laptops to meet their digital needs.

We are also in conversations with other potential partners and hope to finalize agreements soon.  

4. Google Digital Skills for Africa, Lagos Team - We are using Google Classroom for our digital learning platform Google Applied digital skills lessons for digital literacy, and so, have engaged the Google team in Lagos that leads the Google digital skills for Africa initiative. We hope they can provide our participants with full access to the Google suite and/or provide training, among other things.

Our key activities for the Ignite Innovation Lab (IGL) Digital Transformation involve running an online entrepreneurship program that teaches human centered design-thinking and digital business skills. We identify and prepare participants with a virtual summit, place them in teams for a facilitated design thinking challenge, and evaluate and reward pitches for promising entrepreneurial ventures. 

The value proposition of this programming is that it helps youth catalyze their entrepreneurial ambitions and start viable businesses that create jobs and income. In doing so, it helps young people meet their immediate needs, but also provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose as they grow their startups.

The target beneficiaries for this proposition are African youth aged 19-28, many of whom are unemployed or underemployed, and, therefore, interested in entrepreneurial opportunities. In the past, we have delivered our services via in-person workshops, but the primary channel for the IGL Digital Transformation is online. This is done deliberately in light of the requirements of social distancing, but also so that we can incorporate digital fluency practice into the programming, while reaching more individuals than would be possible with a physical workshop. 

Our main costs are made up of the technology, staff, and lean operations it takes to execute on our mission. Currently, our key revenue stream is donor funding, but we are also exploring opportunities to deliver our programming for a small premium to organizations (private, non-profit, and public) interested in building digital and entrepreneurial capacities among their beneficiaries, students, employees, etc. 

To date, Inspire Africa has relied primarily on donor funding. As a young organization, however, we have at times struggled to garner as much funding as we believed possible because we were too “new on the scene.” Now that we are approaching the 5-year mark and have a proven model, we have begun to invest in our fundraising and donor management efforts in order to create a portfolio of regular donors, with whom we have been building strong impact-driven relationships. We have also simultaneously begun to broaden our fundraising pipeline, pursuing international grant opportunities like MIT Elevate in addition to seeking out local corporate donors. Finally, as mentioned above, we are also exploring opportunities to deliver our programming for a small premium to organizations (private, non-profit, and public) interested in building digital and entrepreneurial capacities among their beneficiaries, students, employees, etc. So far we have been approached by other local nonprofits and hope to finalize MOUs soon.

In late 2018, Inspire Africa secured a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to run a series of Ignite Innovation Labs for women entrepreneurs. Those funds have since been used up. With support from the embassy, we redirected the small portion leftover from that program towards planning IGL Digital Transformation because of the constraints of social distancing, and will be applying for additional funding from the U.S. Embassy.

My goal is to raise $250,000 in grant funding by June 2021 to cover the costs of technology, staff, and operational expenses for our 2020-2021 fiscal year, during which we will be running the first wave of IGL Digital Transformation sessions (July 2020 to June 2021). Our anticipated technology and operational costs are higher because we will be conducting the labs online for a greater audience and at increased frequency. I hope to raise approximately half of these funds by the end of the 2020 calendar year.

Our total estimated costs for July 1, 2020 until December 31, 2020 are $111,522. This amount comprises six months of running the IGL Digital Transformation at a monthly cost of approximately $18,600, broken down as follows. 

Technology Expenses: $2,837

• Digital management platform: $2,317

• Website development/maintenance: $71

• Website hosting & domain name subscription: $345

• Zoom Pro: $20

• G-Suite for Education: $12

• Startup software support: $417

Staff Expenses: $4,925

• Executive Director: $791

• Program Management/Curriculum Development: $500

• Chief Technology Officer: $500

• Chief Financial Officer: $500

• Executive Assistance: $378

• Strategic Marketing & Content Management: $378 

• Graphics Design & Video Editing: $ 378

• Industry Mentors: $0

• Volunteer Stipends: $300

• Faculty/Virtual Guest Speakers: $1,200

Operational Expenses: $10,825 

• Marketing/Paid Ads: $235

• Shipping/Transportation: $265

• Internet Data: $120

• Communication & Calls: $205

• Startup Cash Prizes: $5,000

• Laptops for Prizes: $5,000

We are at an inflection point. Our past programming has already seen significant impact, and we are in the unique and privileged position to empower more youth. However, given the new challenges presented by COVID-19, we recognize that we would benefit greatly from support as we enter this new phase of digitized programming in order to broaden and deepen our impact. 

We want to know the best technology-enabled teaching methods, and strategies and MIT Elevate has a wide network of potential partners from which we can learn best practices when it comes to digital entrepreneurship, running hackathons, and more. With the funds from the prize, we would be able to deliver a best-in-class digital experience, serve more young people, and prototype more solutions. We are also hopeful that Elevate will increase our exposure across the continent, helping us reach more youth and make connections with leading philanthropists, funding organizations, and corporate donors. We especially look forward to connecting with like-minded funders and advisors who can support us financially and help us fine-tune our model and strengthen our infrastructure.

IAs we prepare to scale and digitize, sustainability is top of mind, both in terms of a sustainable financial model as well as sustainable problem-solution fit and execution. Therefore, our top needs are improving our funding and revenue model, recruiting talent,  and developing a marketing, media, and exposure plan. We believe that these needs are intimately connected. Board members and advisors can help us refine our model and also support our fundraising and partnership efforts, while talent will help us implement and execute on our plan. Furthermore, developing a robust marketing, media, and exposure plan will allow us to reach more youth, attract more support and demonstrate the social impact of our programming. Finally, securing support with our solution technology will help us build our digital learning platform in order to provide a more seamless user experience for participants to create product innovations.

Organizations: Our program centers on teaching students topics ranging from design thinking, digital transformation, digital skills, customer acquisition, entrepreneurial finance. We currently use Google Classroom, but want to be able to set-up our own lab platform similar to Cartedo or Unleash Labguide.org in the future. As such, we would like to partner with edtech companies that might help us establish and customize our learning management platform. 

MIT Faculty or Initiatives: We would like to partner with MIT faculty experts from the Teaching and Learning Lab to help us design effective impact evaluation tools that isolate exogenous factors and identify how our program intervention affects skills-acquisition, job placement, and youth unemployment outcomes. We would also like to participate in an MIT Curriculum Design Workshop to learn best practices for utilizing educational technology/online tools. Finally, we believe that our organization along with the most high-potential solutions developed by our participants would benefit greatly from the learnings and resources at the MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.