Nurturing Talent

The national Innovation Hub will bring together people from all backgrounds, with a wide range of skills and education. We want to foster an atmosphere of networking and knowledge-sharing, so that these groups can benefit and learn from one another other. Whether you are a student, a developer, an entrepreneur, or part of small business, at these Hubs, you might make the connection that turns an idea into a thriving and profitable business. Setting up of spaces to nurture critical thinking and active problem solving. The first of these hubs is opened in Bo, another will open in Freetown in the next 3 months. Our goal is to establish these spaces in all the 4 major cities in 2 years.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation competition

Our team of diverse individuals have the knowledge and know how in Organising and managing entrepreneurship and Innovation competitions. Entrepreneurship and innovation competition are the strongest strategies of citizens engagements in which young people from Sierra Leone will not only tackle challenges in their communities but will start seeing opportunities in the problems they face. Finalists from these competitions will attend workshops, receive funding, and are paired with mentors who give them feedback and advice on their business ideas. The teams with the best ideas/prototype go through first an incubation phase and later accelerating phase where they refine their projects further as they move towards scaling them. Winners from these well organised competitions are selected from the finalists to receive funding and support to scale their ideas.

Startup Incubation and Accelerato

PROJECTS 1835 believes that building responsible entrepreneurs and businesses through the support of professionals and experts is the way of building innovative solutions to social problems. Therefore, we strive to design programs that support entrepreneurs and innovators, challenging them to reimagine their communities. Through our incubation and acceleration program, we foster and nurture the community of problem solvers. Since 2020, PROJECTS 1835 has supported the growth of the entrepreneurial and Innovation ecosystem starting with the national digital entrepreneurship mapping. Through this effort, we were able to identify who was doing what and what the entrepreneurship interests’ areas were. We have first-hand experience pointing to the interest of citizens both and home and abroad that lots of ways technology, innovation and entrepreneurship can be leveraged for problem-solving. Our utmost priority is to continue to support individuals/companies to ideate, build prototypes and products to life. Some of the wats we have approached this is through the incubation and acceleration Unit. To date, we have worked with more than 20 people, startups and businesses. We have a community of more than 15 mentors, facilitators for our programs.

Events and Training

We train and organise events to build and strengthen the community of problem-solvers in Sierra Leone. Our trainings include, but not limited to leadership training, coaching mainly focusing on empathetic leadership.  We also provide business development services for young people focusing on vulnerable groups (women and youths.

For events, we organise hackathons, maker faire and other inspirational events for women and youth problem solvers. Our hackathons are focused on technology startups, encouraging tech related businesses to grow and thrive. The makerfaire is to encourage hardware engineering businesses and prototypes to demonstrate the country’s readiness to Innovate.

Innovation Consulting

PROJECTS 1835 support individuals and organisations to use innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology to solve social problems. We facilitate the design and creative thinking methodology to promote the art of problem-solving using technology for kids and young people. Our knowledge of delivering innovation through a human-centered design approach combined with our expertise in turning ideas into products, and then sustainable organizations is at the core of our engagements.

Hackathon

PROJECTS 1835 believes that the best way to mobilise critical thinkers is through hackathon.  Our goal is to continue to organise and lead these hackathons as part of our active problem-solving journey in selected cities and district, thereby encouraging these ethical hackers to create meaningful solutions for their communities. During these Hackathons, potential participants would have access to prototyping tools to encourage and assist the development of prototypes and startups.  Over the last 1 year, PROJECTS 1835 has taken bold strides to fill the talent gap and have renewed the hopes of young makers, exposing them to national and international opportunities and networks that have contributed to their growth. 

Demo/Maker Fair

To expand our reach and strengthen the innovation pipeline, PROJECTS 1835 plans to launch a 3-day annual National Maker Faire in Freetown where people all across the country would be invited to present their innovative ideas and exhibit their prototypes. This National Maker Faire hopes to identify promising ideas and support few scalable ideas and businesses to be deployed within the Sierra Leone market. The winning ideas must have huge potential to create jobs in Sierra Leone as a sustainable strategy to recover from the Ebola crisis. Prior to the National Maker Faire,

WHY WE BELIEVE THIS IS IMPORTANT

Our approach

To achieve economic prosperity, it is important that we play a role in supporting individuals & institutions understand in practical terms what innovation is, why it is important and how to innovate.

If you are looking for a partner to help you conceptualise and apply new ideas to address the challenges your organisation is facing, contact us via
info@PROJECTS1835.org