JICA jointly organized a kick-off event of “Kosen Open Innovation – Challenges from Africa 2024 –” with Nagaoka University of Technology

On June 4, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Nagaoka University of Technology (NUT, President: Shigeharu Kamado) jointly held a kick-off event of “Kosen Open Innovation -Challenges from Africa 2024-” (hereinafter referred to as KOI), a hackathon aiming to solve social development issues in Africa with ideas from Japanese national technical college students. The kick-off event was held at Nagaoka University of Technology.

This time, in anticipation of the 9th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD 9) to be held in August next year, JICA teamed up with NUT to organize KOI.

In addition to Mr. Toshiyuki Nakamura, Special Advisor to the President of JICA, and Dr. Kamado, President of Nagaoka University of Technology, the kick-off event was attended by H.E. Koji Abe, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Madagascar and Comoros, as Madagascar was selected for this year's target country of KOI. Also, a former Nagaoka National College of Technology student and participant of a past KOI (now a student of NUT) joined as one of the speakers to share his KOI experiences and lessons learned.

In his opening remarks, President Kamado emphasized that “NUT is engaged in producing the whole region, solving issues ranging from local governments to the global scale, and we would like to promote this project while utilizing the university's resources. Ambassador Abe expressed his expectations for KOI, saying, “This is a wonderful cooperation that is typical of Japan, in which we do not simply provide money, but also tackle development issues in Africa by having technical college students actually visit the site and solve social issues.”.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Nakamura, Special Advisor to the President of JICA, mentioned: “It is getting more appropriate to think “with Africa” and “from Africa”, where we will walk with Africa and learn from Africa, than to think “for Africa”. In that sense, KOI is a project that embodies the times”.

Since 2019, KOI has been held four times, with a total of 203 participants from 13 Japanese national colleges of technology.

In the past KOIs, students were sent to countries such as Kenya (Nagaoka National College of Technology: development of fertilizer and fodder for American watermilfoil), Rwanda (Kitakyushu National College of Technology and Miyakonojo National College of Technology: development of automatic sugar content measurement device for coffee beans, Ube National College of Technology: development of nutrition and health improvement guidance application with game function), and Nigeria (Sasebo National College of Technology and Kitakyushu National College of Technology: development of self-powered water meter).

The ultimate goal of the project is to apply the solutions (devised by technical college students who have conducted demonstration tests in Africa) to local issues in Japan (reverse innovation). The fertilizer/animal feed project of the American watermilfoil is in fact being put to practical use in Japan after demonstration tests in Africa.

The fertilizer and animal feed production business of the American watermilfoil is now being commercialized in Japan after demonstration experiments in Africa. In recognition of its attempt to combine reverse innovation with efforts to address social development issues in Africa, KOI was awarded the Grand Prize (Prime Minister's Prize) of the 2023 Japan Open Innovation Awards (Organized by the Cabinet Office).