The Presidential Innovation Challenge and Award (PIA) Youth Category (Out of School) award ceremony to recognize innovations from youths who are out of school across various counties in the country.
Twenty-eight innovators from twenty-eight different counties emerged as winners after innovation pitches were conducted earlier in the year. Having been selected from a pool of 86 talented participants representing diverse regions and sectors, finalists have showcased solutions that tackle some of Kenya’s most pressing challenges.
The winners’ ceremony recognizes outstanding achievements across five pivotal thematic areas:
1. Food security and agriculture.
2. Digital transformation.
3. Healthcare.
4. Climate action and green energy.
5. Entertainment and Gaming.
The twenty-eight winners got the following:
1. A grant of Five Hundred Thousand Kenyan Shillings (KES 500,000) to help them in scaling up their innovations.
2. Will be onboarded on the Presidential Innovation Accelerator Program for coaching and mentorship on scaling their ventures and ensuring sustainability. The acceleration programme will run for 8 weeks.
The CEO of KeNIA, Dr. Tonny Omwansa (PhD), urged the innovators to make good use of the provided grant and keep looking for opportunities to scale their management skills to ensure their ventures are well-managed and thus sustainable.
During the ceremony, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK), Eng. Margaret Ogai, in her speech, recognized the role that KeNIA is playing in pushing initiatives to push innovations that create employment not just for the innovators, but also the team they work with.
At the end of the ceremony, each innovator signed a binding contract between their ventures and the Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA), which guides the regulation and utilization of the funds provided to ensure accountability.