Gov’t launches co-created SDG Accelerator Lab - KBC

The government has launched a co-created SDG Accelerator Lab as a strategic development platform to inspire future action and support the Big Four agenda.

ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru says innovation and technology is at the heart of job creation, the manufacturing sector, guaranteeing food security and ensuring universal healthcare.

The launched co-created Sustainable Development Goals Accelerator Lab is expected to leverage on the recently initiated UNDP Accelerator Lab Network, as a strategic development platform for Kenya.

It is expected to bring together the government, private sector, civil society, philanthropy, academia, and young people to reimagine development for the 21st century.

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At the heart of the Accelerator Lab is to re-imagine development, promote a culture of innovation and experimentation.

Mucheru says Kenya takes pride in the space that the country has provided to tech start-up communities, who have gone ahead to build some of the most amazing apps and systems.

He says the new partnership with Center for Effective Global Action at the University of California, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United Nations will harness the ongoing initiatives in the local tech community to accelerate the actualization of the National Development goals.

The Kenya SDGs Accelerator Lab aims to leverage and advance knowledge from the global network to enrich developmental thinking and implementation through exploration of multiple possible ideas to find contextualized solutions that can be deployed rapidly and sustainably.

The SDGs Accelerator is expected to build on and complement government led initiatives such as the Ajira Digital Program, Digitalent Innovation Program and the Whitebox Platform to harness the power of tech-innovation in empowering the youth to become solution oriented and employment creators.

In collaboration with local actors such as the Private Sector and the Academia, the SDGs Accelerator Lab endeavors to identify and harnessing homegrown solutions that have proof of concept, with the aim of bringing them to scale, while creating an enabling environment for young innovators to conceptualize, test and deliver interventions that best work for their communities.