“Without change there is no innovation or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable,”- William Pollard.
The Kenya Climate Innovation Center provides a holistic, country-driven support to accelerate the development, deployment and transfer of locally relevant climate and clean energy technologies. It provides incubation, capacity building services and financing to Kenyan entrepreneurs and new ventures that are developing innovative solutions in energy, water and agribusiness to address climate change challenges.
It’s an initiative supported by the World Bank’s infoDev and is the first in a global network of Climate Innovation Centres being launched by infoDev’s Climate Technology Program (CTP). The Kenya CIC is funded by the United Kingdom’s UKaid and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was started in 2012 with support from the World Bank but since then to 2015, it has been on academic excellence with the sole mind of helping entrepreneurs with getting ideas that will transform the businesses, water and renewable energy with the purpose of making an impact to entrepreneurs.
In order to achieve this, measures have been put in place regarding innovative products and services provided to businesses. Mr. Edward Mungai, the CEO Kenya Climate Innovation Centre conveys that, “When selecting an idea so that we get on board we look at Innovation from the sense of something you can be able to address, in a nutshell; are they innovative and are these businesses going to scale up?”
Green growth innovations
Is our population aware about climate change and do we for instance know about the indoor house pollution? Innovators like KCIC are coming up with even more contemporary financing models that will enable farmers to acquire solar systems and biogas systems by having structures such as pay as you go model that will enable them to actually purchase items.
The policy is not for green products and they still need to work towards legitimate acts in this country. They have a strategy implementation policy which is aimed at helping these centers to be able to grow farmers. Kenya Climate Innovation Centre has taken its own mandate to be able to create awareness to the public case in point, publishing initiatives such as “miss match payee” targeting people between the age of 15 and 50. Another initiative they are coming up with is “program better non paid vanilla solution” where for instance they have more than 10 companies they have supported in pay as you go business finance. KCIC is working with the Ministry of Environment, Treasury and Agriculture to try and come up with more fitting policies.
Are Kenyans ready to embrace a new brand?
“I think Kenyans are ready for a difference. I did a study and there was one question asking what Kenyan public think about this board and climate change. 75% of the interviewees said that it markets and in future they will only buy from sustainable countries,” Mr. Mungai discloses. This is a wakeup call for all people in this business. They need to understand that Kenyans are rear in this issue and are expected to figure out better ways of reducing and consuming.
It’s time for business to save time for startup actions in order to thrive because only a meager is triumphing. The mandate of KCIC is to help starters to move to the next level. The challenges that starters are facing is that they lack capacity level, information, financing and sufficient facilities. KCIC is putting initiatives together to be able to increase on their success unit from 50% to 75%. They are doing technological initiatives and what they need is more people supporting the startup eco systems in this country. Once that is achieved then success will follow up.
KCIC’s notable practices and road ahead
Some of the conspicuous practices of KCIC include the five ecosystem firms that they started with about sh. 1.2 billion. The other mile that they have seen is Kenya’s changes in regulation which are enabling great businesses to grow officially. In spite of that, KCIC has created 2500 new jobs and more than 300,000 firms are using solutions which are made by KCIC.
They are looking at the years 2021 to 2027 where they want to have supported and scaled up more than 500 businesses. This way, they hope to make Kenya a more fitting place and offer a better life for future generations to live in an improved world. Mr. Mungai concludes by saying that, “We must invest and show the young generation why it’s important to have a way of consuming and a way of producing. We need to change the way we are doing our things and everyone has a role to play.”
Collaboration is important not just because it is a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. Learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem solving, innovation and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy.