The Ifakara Innovation Hub (IIH) marked Innovation Week Tanzania (IWTz2022) in Ifakara from May 12-13, 2022. As a player in the innovation ecosystem, the hub organized activities and events which complimented this year’s IWTz2022 theme “Innovation for Sustainable Development.” At the national level, the the week is concluded today in Dodoma with a series of events.

A major event planned by IIH to kick off the IWTz2022 was a children’s computer literacy training program held on May 12. The training provided participating primary school children from Kilombero District the opportunity to learn and familiarize themselves with the program for skills development. Other activities during the two-day event were innovation and entrepreneurship presentations and dialogues, training workshops and exhibitions.

The innovation week main event held on May 13 at the Tanzania Training Center for International Health (TTCIH) grounds in Ifakara, brought together innovators, corporate, the public sector, clusters, development partners and the community of Kilombero valley. This event provided the participants the opportunity to engage and learn first-hand, about the impact made by the IIH.

Attending the event as a key special guest was the Kilombero District Commissioner, Hanji Godigodi. In her remarks, Godigodi praised IIH efforts in involving and educating the community on how to tackle various challenges through innovation and in particular agricultural challenges faced by farmers in Kilombero District.

She said, “By choosing to focus your work in Kilombero, your hub has supported our community especially the youth and women and has contributed massive developments in both the financial and health sectors.”
Godigodi also expressed her delight after hearing from the exhibitors about the impact of ongoing programs.

She said, “I had the pleasure of visiting exhibitors at today’s event who are some of the beneficiaries of IIH programs and services. I was pleased to hear about Kilimo Ajira project and how the youth and women engaging in agricultural activities were able to work together to find solutions that enhanced the production process.”

Referring to the government’s efforts, Godigodi said, “Our government fully supports the idea of innovation for sustainable development and joins forces with the UN and the world in striving to reach this goal by 2030. Already, the government has setup strategies that will contribute to reaching this goal as highlighted by the UN.”

This year’s Innovation Week Tanzania, was jointly organized by the UNDP Tanzania through the Funguo Innovation Programme (FUNGUO) and Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST). The climax of IWTz2022 was held in Dodoma from May 15 to May 20, 2022.

Additionally, the final event marked the climax of the National Science, Technology and Innovation Competition (also known as MAKISATU). MAKISATU is now in its third year after being established back in 2019 by the MoEST and other collaborators. The platform provides opportunities to grassroot innovators across the country to showcase their innovations with a chance to win awards and be supported to develop their prototypes further.

About Innovation Week Tanzania
Innovation Week Tanzania is a free platform which hosts a week-long series of collaborative events and exhibitions in Tanzania aimed at providing space to innovators, policy makers, corporate entities, development partners, researchers, and other players in the innovation ecosystem to share what they have been working on, learn from and inspire each other, collaborate across sectors, and transform Tanzania through the scaling of innovation.

About Ifakara Innovation Hub
Ifakara Innovation Hub is a community of inspiration, ideation and collaboration for solution development. It expands the innovation ecosystem to rural Tanzania by looking realistically at the trade-offs between knowledge exploration i.e., research and exploitation of technological innovation (development and testing products) and establishing innovations compatible with the existing social, economic and administrative systems.