Country Ambassador Program – Insights from Kenya

The UBI Global Country Ambassador Program (CAP) provides business incubators and accelerators the unique opportunity to understand, explore, and visualize the state and impact of their country’s incubation ecosystem in a more efficient way.  

Ambassadors are local experts representing and connecting their ecosystem in order to:

• Share global incubation best practices and insights
• Increase operational knowledge
• Show economic impact
• Enable international relations
• Nurture a network within their own ecosystem

We would love you to meet all UBI Ambassadors.
They are extraordinary and such an incredible source of knowledge!

…let’s go in order and let’s introduce the first of our ambassadors:

 Edward Mungai, from Kenya

The entrepreneurship space in Kenya is growing at a very good rate, bringing about the emergence of a high number of incubators in the country. Proof of this is the fact that Kenya is ranked 27th in the Economist’s 2016 Social Innovation Index, which assesses countries’ capacity to enable social innovation.

Edward Mungai, UBI country ambassador for Kenya & CEO of the Kenya Climate Innovation Center, works to provide incubation, capacity building services, and financing to Kenyan entrepreneurs that are developing innovative solutions in the fields of energy, water, and agribusiness in order to address the challenges resulting from climate change.

Let’s discover the Kenyan incubators’ ecosystem through the words of our ambassador Edward Mungai:

“As can be imagined, incubation is still a new concept in the East African region and, hence, there is a lot of learning going on among the incubators. This said, incubators still continue to face major challenges, which include the definition of their business models and how they should reach sustainability, how to incubate businesses, the tools to be used, and incubator financing as well as ensuring effective and efficient processes.”

How do you see the development happening in the country?

“For development to happen there is the need to reinforce the effort being made in the startup economy and build an ecosystem that helps shape startups. Incubators will be a component of this movement. By strengthening the incubators, we can help achieve our sustainable development goals and bring Africa to the next level. For the value of the incubators to be tapped in this regard there is the need for better collaboration and knowledge sharing among the incubators.

Some of the East African incubators have participated in the UBI study and more need to participate. Once they take part, there will be need to have round table meetings with the leaders of the incubators to discuss the results of the survey with the aim of improving the performances of the incubator in the region.”

You were recently appointed to be the UBI Ambassador for Kenya. How did you react?

“I see myself as a catalyst to make changes happen and this will be done by using my convening power to have the incubators come to a roundtable to discuss how to make the ecosystem robust as well as improve their performance. By being part of the World Benchmark Study, the incubators in East Africa will be able to learn more from other incubators globally as well as see how well they are doing in regards to the various parameters to be measured under the benchmark”.

Follow our blog, you will discover more about the UBI Global Country Ambassador Program and our Ambassadors in the upcoming weeks!

Who is a leading actor in your country?
Who would you recommend to be the national leading actor for your ecosystem?
Please contact [email protected] for all inquiries about the UBI Global Country Ambassador Program 2017 – 2018.