Internationalised Industry-Linked University Innovation Incubation for the sub-Sahara African Economies

Ekpo, Sunday ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9219-3759, Oluwatayo, Isaac and Mosolodi, Tshitso (2024) Internationalised Industry-Linked University Innovation Incubation for the sub-Sahara African Economies. In: Developing University Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Scientific Publishing, London. ISBN 9789819800513 (In Press)

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Abstract

Unemployment is a global challenge. Low internationalised innovation incubation and employment rate need a holistic global industry-academe partnership to overcome them. Graduates have enormous potentials to become job-creating assets rather than salary-takers/negotiators in a crowded labour market. How do we educate future employers? How do we translate and/or transform our students from job-seeking/seekers to job-creators/creating? How do we design our curricula to deliver job-creating learning and/or graduate outcomes? The concept of inclusive industry-linked Business Innovation and Incubation Centre (BIIC) has been developed to offer a means through which students can become technopreneurs by converting their innovative ideas to commercially viable and sustainable start-ups and hence, offer job opportunities for themselves and/or to their peers. In this research work, the Manchester Met University (UK) worked with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) (South Africa) and the Snake Nation (South Africa) to develop a sustainable adaptable industry-linked innovation incubation, technopreneurship and professionalised curriculum for the higher education institutions in the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The research work investigated the problem of low enterprise creation in South Africa. Our research findings have generated sustainable project impacts for the largest Student Union in Africa spanning 54 supranational countries. A Pareto analysis of the students reveals that “20% of the unemployment causes contribute to 80% of the young graduates’ problems.” For the academics, “20% of the non-entrepreneurship causes contribute to 80% of the innovation incubation problems.”