On 1 March Injini – the first EdTech dedicated incubator on the African continent – will open its second round of applications.
Having taken in its first cohort – 8 companies from 5 different African countries – in October, Injini is again looking for 8 EdTech innovations that can change education across Africa. Each company selected will receive $50k direct funding and a 5 month EdTech dedicated incubation programme.
Injini will hold events in Lagos (6 March), Accra (13 March), Nairobi (14 March), Dar es Salaam (19 March), Kampala (26 March) and Cape Town (28 March) to promote applications and meet EdTech entrepreneurs from across the continent.
Injini’s cohort 2 programme will include:
Direct funding of $50k or R600k per company
Workshops and mentoring dedicated to developing great education technology products and building a business that can expand across Africa
Events with EdTech funds and institutions from across Africa and the wider world
The Injini team, who act as a consultancy to help the teams on bespoke projects to help them grow
Office space, accommodation and flights to Cape Town and a stipend
Injini’s first cohort, selected in October, has made fantastic progress. For example:
Our South Sudanese company – Yo Books – who believe spreading reading via e-books and an online store can help heal a nation divided by civil war, have expanded into Uganda since Joining Injini;
Uthini – a team of young South Africans who are teaching Zulu and Xhosa via an app which cuts tutoring costs by 90% – have won a contract with Wits University to train medical students in Zulu
Mtabe – A Tanzanian team in their early 20s who have built an offline artificial intelligence search engine for students without internet access – are on the brink of a deal with a major telco which could see them reach one million students;
Syafunda, who provide audio and video content to students in STEM and technology without great teachers, have won deals to reach more schools across South Africa
The Injini programme is a partnership between Jamie Martin – a former Special Adviser to UK Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove – and the Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative, the oldest tech incubator on the African continent. It has the support of both the Western Cape Government, the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, and UBS.
Speaking ahead of the launch, Injini co-founder Jamie Martin said
“Our first cohort was the manifestation of a big argument about the future of education in Africa – that though business as usual has failed and the system is badly broken, young entrepreneurs from across the continent can bring big ideas to scale that can change education and allow Africa to realize its huge potential for growth in the twenty first century”
“In our second cohort we will aim to improve on the first – refining our programme, increasing our funding and utilising our bigger network to bring both cohort 2 and cohort 1 companies to scale across the continent.
“We are expecting hundreds of applications from nearly every country in Africa – big ideas from talented entrepreneurs right across education stages that will change the future not just of education but of a whole continent”
The CEO of CiTi, Ian Merrington, said
“Following the launch of Injini in 2017 – and building on the success of the CapaCiTi Tech Job Readiness programme – CiTi has consolidated its work in skills and education into an overarching education and skills cluster, a division that has as its core focus stimulating and initiating projects that equip all South Africans with the skills that they need for a digital industrial revolution. This is an objective so essential that not working towards this goal would be the death knell in a country that has been suffering a skills and education crisis for decades. We believe that Injini cohort 1 is proving that agile, tech savvy entrepreneurs are likely to be the best antidote to a stodgy outmoded education system and supporting more of them is the key to unlocking and supporting these emerging solutions.”
