- Throughout the week, the youth will be interacting with experts in the technology sector both physically and online.
- The Pwani Innovation Week provides young innovators and entrepreneurs to showcase their ideas and creativity to the world.
Image: LABAN WALLOGA
The fourth edition of the Pwani Innovation Week kicked off on Monday with a registration of over 1,300 people.
The weeklong tech fair which is being hosted at the Swahilipot Hub Foundation and has attracted over 70 innovators from the region.
Swahilipot Hub founder, Mahmoud Noor said apart from showcasing different innovations, the event also seeks to change the perception of the youth at the coast.
“For quite sometime now, the region has been highlighted in bad faith as a place of crime, violence and drug abuse, but we are changing that. We are telling the world that Mombasa and the coastal region as a whole has space for innovation,” he said.
“Our youth have for long decried unemployment, but we are here to show the world that we can employ ourselves through innovation and businesses.”
The theme for this year is, ‘Sailing Beyond Borders: Empowering Youth in the Digital Economy for a Sustainable Future.’
Noor said the innovation week will connect the youth with different people including government agencies and the private sector.
Some of the agencies represented in the fair are the Youth Enterprise Fund, Kenya Innovation Agency among others.
“For our youth to actualize their innovations, we must connect them to people with the expertise to develop their innovations and also show them how to get funding to develop themselves,” he said.
“We are also helping them to package themselves to sell and get market online to access the wider global markets.”
Some of the tech experts the youth will interact with at the fair are from Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Noor said that they are also working closely with the Communication Authority of Kenya to get the youth to participate in the recently launched cyber security initiative.
He said the initiative will help prevent youths with tech skills from cybercrimes.
“But we must tell the youth that even if they do not have jobs, it is not good to use the skills to commit crimes," Noor said.
"It is good to be patient and come to these expos to get connections to jobs or seed capital to start their own businesses."
Shehe Ahmed, founder of the Rubber Embroidery Kofia challenged his fellow youth to be more creative in generating jobs.
He said he founded the company in 2009 and uses rubber to make hats.
Ahmed said the business has grown and is now making products that are meant to preserve the Swahili culture.
“I am here to show the youth that they do not have to be employed, they can create their own employment by looking at what the community wants and give them the services,” he said.
Some of the products he make are makuti hand-held fans, Arabic wall hangings, Swahili beds among others.
“I have also invented different food menus using silicon material that can be used instead of a menu in hotels to showcase the different kinds of foods being offered,” Ahmed said.
The Pwani Innovation Week he said provides young innovators and entrepreneurs like him to showcase their ideas and creativity to the world.