NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The Clayton Christensen Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank based in Boston and Silicon Valley in the United States, has announced a collaboration with the MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship aimed at empowering early-stage entrepreneurs in seven African countries to create new economic growth engines. The new collaboration, called Market-creating Innovation (MCI) Bootcamp, aims to bridge the gap between emerging market entrepreneurs and market-creating innovation opportunities.

The bootcamp is designed as an eight-session workshop to be hosted in Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda, according to a statement sent to Financial Nigeria by the Christensen Institute, which has an editorial partnership with this publication to promote market innovation. The sessions will take place virtually during 2021 until it is safe to host them in-person.

The Institute said empowering innovators in an economy to develop market-creating innovations or MCIs will unleash an entrepreneurial wave that has the potential to change the economic trajectory of the nation. The bootcamp curriculum is anchored on the ideas championed by the late Harvard Business School (HBS) professor, Clayton Christensen, in his last book, The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty, co-authored by Efosa Ojomo, senior research fellow at the Christensen Institute. The book highlights the power of MCIs to create inclusive prosperity for organisations and society.

Photo courtesy of NESA by Makers.