Establishing a Maker Space Co-Creation Program in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Sophie Mower of The Centre for Global Equality in the United Kingdom will establish a collaborative program for technology students at Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia using expertise and support from a number of other centers in Africa and beyond to provide training and financial resources for them to research and develop their own innovative solutions to local challenges. Students at the university work on creative solutions such as mapping applications particularly in areas of agriculture and health. However, advancing their ideas is limited by the lack of professional networks and material resources. They will provide a dedicated space at the university and work with the Centre for Global Equality (CGE) and companies in the Cambridge Cluster, both in the United Kingdom, and an African innovation hub. Together, they will provide training for 30 students on co-creating their solutions with end-users to increase their impact. They will also hold an ideation hackathon to generate design ideas, and award $2000 to the six most competitive projects. These will be supported through to prototype development using methods from an incubator approach established at the CGE.