“At the cusp of a significant shift in how economies are organised around digital and green transitions, innovation is now more crucial than ever. Emerging countries risk being left behind unless they pay attention to how to create and drive local innovations and capture the leapfrog opportunities that these new developments present” He said.
The launch themed ‘Enhancing industry-academia partnerships through open innovation’ saw panel discussions from various industry stakeholders take centre stage on emphasising the value of creating buy-in from industry and academia.
The platform seeks to drive productivity and increase the participating companies’ competitiveness in the market via the development of products. iTATU will achieve this by facilitating innovation challenges the participating companies pose and are carried out by cross-disciplinary student teams in different colleges.
“…. iTATU is the clinic that Kenyan MSMEs can refer to when they want to tackle challenges. These can be the pain points an organisation is experiencing, wants to see what is on the horizon and thus prepare better for the future, help companies test how they can deploy new technologies, say, Industry 4.0 technologies and also help companies identify talent…,”
Stated by the iTATU Team Lead, Julius Gatune.
Students can register for the various challenges on the iTATU website at www.iTATU.net