BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

Background

iHub is a coworking space whose objective is to catalyze the growth of Kenya's tech community. The idea of developing an urban tech ecosystem in Africa inspired many people, and many public and private grants supported the space's launch. Shortly after it opened, iHub started renting the space for events and offering design and engineering consulting services. Seventy percent of iHub's budget comes from internally generated revenue. Currently, the space is reinventing itself. iHub's team is moving to a new building and will launch three product lines that focus on locally relevant technical training, corporate co-location, and investments in entrepreneurs.

In Essence

iHub praises its engineers' serendipity and builds upon its space expertise. The space has corporate partners, grant funding, and its own revenue generation models through consulting services offered via the iHub UX Lab, iHub Research, and iHub Consulting initiatives. The iHub UX Lab's mission is to develop a design-thinking culture and a user-centered approach in solving problems. The UX Lab helps start-ups, social entrepreneurs, not-for-profits, and business corporations put people at the center of all products and processes. Its services include user research, ideation sessions, graphic design, usability testing, user experience and/or design-thinking training, wireframing, prototyping, interaction design, and more. iHub Research conducts qualitative studies on technology innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as on the intersection between governance and technology in Africa.

Impact

iHub is a general space that aims to catalyze a tech innovation ecosystem and contributes to entrepreneurial communities building and urban regeneration. The space's investments in identifying and harvesting local tech talent have created a diverse and skilled community. iHub fosters a number of start-ups and organizes vibrant networking activities through meetings, events, and presentations to connect start-ups with each other as well as with investors. iHub's urban regeneration impact is evident in the transformation of the Bishop Magua Center into the new heart of Nairobi's tech ecosystem. When iHub was launched in 2010, the center consisted predominantly of retail shops, but within a few years the building became a desirable location for techies. The presence of iHub has attracted other tech spaces to the Bishop Magua Center (m:lab, Savannah Fund, the GSM Association's regional headquarters for East Africa, and more), catalyzing synergies and filling the building with the elements essential to the tech ecosystem: collaboration spaces, start-ups, labs, incubators, accelerators, tech firms, industry associations, and venture capitalists.

In Practice

Project in Focus

iHub supported the Kids Comp Camp (http://www.kidscompcamp.com), a project that helps young learners in marginalized communities gain a competitive edge in today's digital driven society. Enrollment in the project is 500 students; it covers 12 counties at the moment and the numbers keep growing. iHub gave Kids Comp Camp the opportunity to collaborate with other start-ups based in the space and to benefit from those associations. For example, LiveLuvo and Y-Kusudi have helped Kids Comp Camp grow their volunteer numbers and build their profile.