First ‘sandpit’ events in Africa from the ‘Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management 4’ project – making a difference by collaborating across boundaries
Kenyatta University and University of Nairobi, Kenya
In January, 60 participants, including several ISBE members, attended the latest ‘sandpit’ event on the Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management 4 project. Based at Kenyatta University, it took place in Africa for the first time.
For a week, seconded researchers from Europe, Korea and Chile spent time with participants from local universities, learning, sharing and innovating around the project’s research workstreams. Starting with an award-winning choir and dance group, the ‘sandpit’ embraced the value of multidisciplinarity with visits to the National Phytotherapeutics Research Centre, an artist patenting unique pigments produced from local plants and the Chandaria Business Innovation & Incubation Centre on Kenyatta Campus, opened by Barack Obama in 2015.
Accompanied by a local NGO, secondees visited Nairobi’s Kibera slum, the biggest in Africa, where they met entrepreneurs operating in the most challenging circumstances. On the Dandora dumpsite, secondees witnessed firsthand where our waste really ends up and how people there subsist on it. The Flipflopi Project on Lamu Island has built a dhow made from recycled single-use plastic they collect and manufacture and are now building their product range made from this unique material (https://www.theflipflopi.com/flipflopi-designs). Secondees spent a day there investigating collaboration opportunities. The project will be back in Nairobi in July.
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