Cities are facing unprecedented demographic, environmental, economic, social and spatial challenges. There has been a phenomenal shift towards urbanization, with 6 out of every 10 people in the world expected to reside in urban areas by 2030. Over 90 per cent of this growth will take place in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. These challenges were the driving factor towards the Innovate County Challenge.

For the Innovate County challenge we partnered with the County Government of Mombasa, Swahili Box a hub for a community of innovators and UN Habitat the United Nations agency for human settlement and sustainable urban development.  The key activities for the Innovate County project included a Stakeholder workshop and an Innovate County Challenge.

The Challenge consisted of a two day hackathon and a 200 hour training and incubation program.

The hackathon that took place on 20th and 21st May of 2017 was oversubscribed with 107 people wishing to attend. Out of the selected participants 71% expressed that they had never been to a hackathon before but were passionate about solving Mombasa’s challenges. Six teams were selected as winners and go on to the next phase of training and incubation to make their ideas a reality.