Eldohub founder Magdaline Chepkemoi has been elected chairperson of the Association of Countrywide Innovation Hubs (ACIH) for a period of two years.
Chepkemoi who takes over from David Ogiga has pledged to create 50, 000 jobs and grow 8, 000 tech startups in the country, through capacity building, collaborations, fund raising, networking and linkages.
“The goal is to take ACIH to the next level by increasing its publicity and impacts both locally and regionally. To achieve this I will leverage existing partnerships and creating new ones, on-boarding new members from across the country,"Chepkemoi
The association also plans to create a programme that supplements the efforts of ecosystem players in fostering innovation, technology and entrepreneurship while tapping and nurturing talent, creating job opportunities and opening up the market for Startup and MSMES to contribute to the national GDP, Chepkemoi added.
Since inception in 2019, ACIH has kept a track record of spotlighting innovation hubs across the country, with a keen focus on the Hubs located outside Nairobi.
Besides the increase of membership from the 15 founding Hubs to the current 36 member Hubs, ACIH has played a central role in the shaping of the Startup Bill,initiation and execution of the Great Covid 19 Innovation Challenge co-hosted with Konza Technopolis.
The initiative attracted over 300 innovations and has nurtured 15 of them to incorporated startups
ACIH has also worked in partnerships with the US Embassy, UNDP, Thunderbird Global School of Management, Oracle, GiZ, among others, and has strategic MoUs with ASSEK, KeNIC and Liquid Telekom.
Others elected include Aly Salim (vice chairperson) Mohamood Abdinoor(secretary general, Jeremy Riro(treasurer), Martin Oloo(legal and membership), Alice Wambui(technical and training) and Brizan Were(resource mobilization.)
“We will work with the new team to execute the ACIH Strategy that includes growing our membership to 100 and equipping over 10, 000 youth on Skills development,” she added.
Latest statistics from the association indicates that despite the Covid-19 pandemic, Kenyan tech startups still managed to raise Sh21.4 billion in funding in 2020, taking the top spot in the continent.
