Deadline: 30-Nov-22
The National Technology Business Centre (NTBC) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Accelerator Lab invites innovators to submit proposals for innovative solutions to solve challenges.
NII is aimed at mapping out the existing innovations across Zambian communities with a view of supporting the most promising initiatives with the highest potential impact. The overall objective of the national innovation initiative (NII) is to scout for innovative solutions for identified challenges in the different parts of the country.
Objectives
- Identification and mapping of innovations especially among the youths, women, differently abled and other marginalised groups across the country in selected thematic areas for experimentation, commercialisation and scale up.
- Recognize and support promising youth and women-led innovations and start-ups based on their innovativeness and potential for commercialisation
- Promote technical assessment/experimentation in the development process of innovative ideas/solutions to generate evidence that can be used to support funding opportunities or scaling up.
- Provide innovators with technical and business development support with the view of enhancing their abilities and commercialisation of their innovations.
- Identify and support local home-grown solutions from innovations that exist within communities.
- Provide the UNDP Solutions Atlas and partners’ databases for innovations to be showcased for matchmaking and partnerships with potential off takers.
- Contribute to the acceleration of the country’s trajectory towards 2030 on selected SDG indicators.
Thematic Areas
- As part of the groundwork, the implementing and collaborating partners work with provincial partners (Government and Private) to identify/formulate challenges in the respective provinces. It is these challenges that innovators will be responding to in the call for applications. For 2022, the following are the areas that the innovations/technologies/solutions need to address in responding to the challenges from the ten provinces:
- Waste Management: Efficient and sustainable innovations/technologies/solutions for recycling solid waste with focus on waste plastics, and tyres
- Agriculture: a) Innovations/technologies/solutions aimed at increasing production and productivity in agriculture. b) Agriculture value chains/value addition technologies for processing agro products (sunflower/soya beans)
- Mining: Sustainable artisanal/small-scale mining innovations/technologies/solutions, and
- Energy: Renewable and other alternative energy technologies to mitigate deforestation.
Benefits
- Besides being recognized, the innovative solutions will receive support for further commercialization.
- The awarded innovations will be provided with support to develop, refine, and pilot the innovations in collaboration with the challenge owners, and the relevant support institutions, i.e., research and development institutions, financiers, and regulatory agencies.
Target Group
- The focus of the call is to support new or improved products/services/process that can assist to overcome societal challenge(s) and as such, the call will be open to any individual, business, or consortiums. The applicant should develop a prototype/product aligned to address the identified challenge within defined timeframe.
- This NII Challenge Call will provide financial grants for market validation and user testing projects (with a new user group or geographic location) of a product, service/ or process in the respective province of the identified challenge. More specifically, one grant shall be provided for one project in each province.
Eligibility Criteria
- The NII call is open to all Zambian institutions and individuals. The general eligibility is that the qualifying solution should be one that will primarily facilitate technology development, transfer, adaptation, adoption, and commercialization. The proposal should demonstrate evidence of innovativeness and competitiveness. The eligibility criteria for projects will be prioritized to products/ processes/ services that:
- have potential for employment and wealth creation
- are in value addition to available local raw materials
- have potential for export
- are a direct or indirect intervention to an identified societal challenge
- have potential to contribute to import substitution
- are innovative projects with high growth potential
- demonstrate some commercial value
For more information, visit https://nii.ntbc.co.zm/