Dickson (in the middle)at Nailab, leading his team in brainstorming session

Sanivation was selected among the only four Pan African start ups to participate in the Reversed Innovation Battle of Start Me Up Africa, which was organized by the Dutch Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, in close cooperation with 1% Club, Crosswise Works and African Hubs. The challenge brought together a total of eight startups; four from Africa; Sanivation (Kenya), Banana Pasta (Uganda), TactiVR (Nigeria), Mobile charger and Solar home System Kit (Ethiopia) and the other four from Netherlands; Kukua Weather, MedxCare, Smart Water Solutions, and Twende.

The thrilling startup-event took place on the Wednesday, October 26 in the Caballero-fabriek in The Hague. Sanivation was represented by Dickson who participated in the 'battle' through a live stream from a local work station, Nailab in Nairobi. The goal of the event was to bring together the Dutch and Pan-African startups to work together, share knowledge and create sustainable partnerships. This was achieved by having the four Dutch and four African startups participate in a ‘battle’ where they worked on each other’s business challenges and make a presentation to a team of jury at the end of the day. In this case, Sanivation partnered MedxCare, a Dutch start up that is looking into introducing digital healthcare services in Africa to increase accessibility and efficiency in medicare. MedxCare business wanted help from Sanivation on how to stimulate patients in Africa to see technology as a way to healthcare solution while Sanivation’s wanted to learn on how to create a framework of engagement with government (municipalities) in building Public Private Partnership in meeting onsite and waste management demand Both teams came up with a list of ideas for each other’s challenges, which were very helpful with an opportunity for further engagements.

The challenge had a strong group of start-ups but when the winners had been chosen, Kukua Weather and Sanivation won the battle and opportunity to pitch at Get in the Ring in Nairobi during the High Level Meeting (30 November - 1 December 2016). Overall the experience from the battle was amazing ‘battle’ was amazing with a lot of knowledge sharing from both the participants and the panelists.

Sanivation would like to thank VIA Water through Titia(who also graced the event at the Hague) for proposing Sanivation to take part in the event.

Sanivation is also looking forward to the upcoming VIA Water Sharing Skills seminar from 28-30th November 2016. See you in Maanzoni, Kenya.