Beyond Hackathons : 5 ingredients to build infrastructures for open innovation in Africa

Thanks to the digital and internet revolution, knowledge is becoming a less and less expensive and exclusive good in most parts of the world. Becoming a market leader is today not really a question of accumulating knowledge but knowing how to create and to use it. The most innovative and economically thriving regions in the world, such as Silicon Valley are those, where stakeholders are the most interconnected and open for collaboration.

the good old question of long-term investment

As economic progress cannot go without solving some key structural social issues, open innovation has made it on the agendas of institutions and companies in africa. It most often takes the form of hackathons (a design sprint event originating from the tech-scene) organised by big organisations, such as Orange or even the International Monetary Fund, in order to design innovative products and services for their business.

Can we just do this 'opening thing' for a day or two ?

Indeed, it sometimes seems as if all these hackathons are like a one-shot moment (a quite expensive one) that is isolated from a long-term strategy of opening up and collective innovation. So, the question is not whether or not hackathons are a good thing, but whether they are designed as part of a long-term vision and as a starting point for something bigger.

At makesense, we have spent the last 7 years experimenting and developing models to develop social innovation infrastructures around the world : by connecting collective intelligence methods with our community-organising expertise.

Here are our five ingredients to build infrastructures for open innovation that make_sense

1- See Open Innovation as a collective learning journey - not as a one-shot experiment

To bring a real transition of industries, open innovation must be a long-term and collective process based on long-term, instead of only short-term objectives of its stakeholders. This is why hackathons should not be the end, but one of the means to achieve open innovation. A key question to answer here is your very own WHY behind open innovation initiatives and whether the way you allocate ressources to them is justified by the results expected

Are punctual innovation events the right means to create the more collaborative and connected sectors and industries to develop my business in the future or do we need to go further ? Hiring a junior full-time staff over a year to develop your open innovation activities might be more cost-effective and impactful than organising one hackathon a year.

Next to global programs with suez, edf or axa, makesense develops the CoLAB, a regional open innovation program in West-Africa with the support of the French Foreign Ministry, and in partnership with the International Research Institute (IRD) and Bond’Innov.

In the past 6 months, 180 stakeholders from the agri-food sector in Senegal, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast - from institutions to start-ups or researchers participated in 20 workshops in the 3 countries, identified and understood the need for innovation in their agricultural sectors and realised their potential and interest for collaboration, whilst conceiving over 10 concrete projects.

This did not happen over night : we have been setting the ground-work for this innovation hub over the past two years, identifying strategic stakeholders and innovators and building relationships. (click here to see the report of our pilot project)

2- Diversify your stakeholders

African markets are often fragmented with concentrated pockets of expertise and power, which impede innovation. Real structural challenges, such as food security, waste management, social security or health need structural and transverse solutions that mobilise all stakeholders - including end-users and citizens. The more diversity of players you have in your activities, the more you accelerate an open mindset and the learning curve for lean and agile working of the actors you want to engage with.

For example, we forget that despite the sometimes debatable impact of development aid on an economic scale, socially the nonprofits count for a considerable part of the daily interactions of poor populations. Hence, non-profits' large infrastructure, funds and user-connections are indispensable and a huge potential to roll out and scale innovations and private sector solutions solving social issues.

Thanks to the CoLAB, the World Food Programme, an NGO and a local start-up collaborate to deploy new platforms for food distribution in Ivory Coast, whilst in Senegal, a bunch of entrepreneurs, a member of the national assembly and NGOs joint forces to set up a purchasing center for natural local products and lobby for an official label "Bio in Senegal".

3- Inspire through entrepreneurship

Start-ups and entrepreneurs come with an excellent toolbox to address questions of development and collaboration : User centricity, testing and looking for win-win situations are key assets to constantly remain adapted to one’s environment and market. Design Thinking is an excellent method to practice these values. Especially for non-profits, large multinationals and institutions, placing dynamic entrepreneurs at the heart of your open innovation movement can move mountains. (more on how makesense uses Design Thinking to trigger such mindset shifts with end-users)

4. Make sure to create tangible outcomes

Even though hackathons alone dont strike the deal - it is important to choose moments to create concrete solutions with a visible impact to be credible and attract interest. As you are engaging in a long-term design of your infrastructure of open innovation, you should know your stakeholders and quickly be able to identify relevant connections yourself - you can thus make sure to design the conditions for concrete collaborations to happen and create concrete projects or innovations for your organisation and between stakeholders.

5- Empower stakeholders to co-build your infrastructure

If we are in this for the long run, the most important elements to your infrastructure are its stakeholders. By focusing on a small circle of early adopters that are building your open innovation infrastructure with you, you will set the ground for a permanent launch-pad for open innovation around your organisation.

Trust is key : It is important to realise that actors are not only there to serve your goals, but also to serve theirs and to create connections and results that might not be directly relevant for you. Thinking of a strategy to provide such opportunities and valuing stakeholders creates a give-and-take dynamic : Very soon these actors will play in your favour, you'd be surprised !

After 6 months of the CoLAB, a government representative is today chatting via whatsApp with a small local agri-preneur and a researcher is connecting with a big multi-national to exchange on what it means to build a movement. Together with 10 other individuals, they are following a training program in entrepreneurship, innovation and engagement tools to boost the consolidation of the CoLAB in their countries : they are the early adopters that will be key in shaping the open innovation infrastructure in the long-run.

Want to find out more on how we create innovation communities, such as the CoLAB ? Sign up to our Community Building Training in Paris or contact [email protected] to find out more on our work.