Building open innovation platforms – what works for Africa - lessons from Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda

The importance of Innovation – the attempt to try out new or improved products, processes or ways to do things]as  a driver of economy has had wide acceptance. This then underscores the importance of effectiveness of platform for innovation partenrships. While there are successful platforms/Partnerships in many countries e.g. Brainport partnership in Netherlands we are yet to see a strong platforms emerge in Africa.  To get a better understanding of the potential of a Triple Helix Partenrship that seek to bring industry, academia and government closer together  to drive innovation in Africa we carried out two case studies in Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia to assess the readiness ‘for Triple Helix Partnership . We found that elements of Triple Helix are in place. Although collaborations across the key actors are happening, these collaborations tend to be mostly bilateral as opposed to a Triple Helix construct. Governments are seeing innovation as central to their development strategy and have created institutions to drive innovation. However, these institutions remain underfunded and lack an entrepreneurial-innovation focus. Entrepreneurial universities are also emerging; however, we see a lack of quality education and skills required for upgrading industries. Industries rely less on the innovative power of the universities and are the most unprepared. Based on these results and secondary literature review it can be concluded that in developing countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, the triple helix construct can drive innovation. In general, it is important that government and development partners focus on the readiness of all the THM actors.