Insights from Past I4A Winner, Team Starlight, on How to Adapt your Idea to COVID-19 and Participate in the Initiative
By Ariane Umuringa, Co-Founder of Starlight, Past I4A Winner
Ariane Umuringa, co-founder Starlight (Source: Canada’s International Development – Global Affairs Canada)
About Starlight
I am the 2nd place winner of the 2018 ideas for action competition. My winning project Starlight, addresses the problem of affordable access to clean energy and STEM education in Rwanda. Our first product, the “Build your own Star kit” is a build your own solar lantern kit that introduces young people to basic electronics and provides a clean source of lighting to families.
Our COVID19 response and advice on how past I4A applicants can adapt their previous proposals to the current situation.
Before the pandemic, we used to run STEM workshops in different schools across Rwanda. We faced a big challenge on how to reach our beneficiaries because all students have been dismissed from schools, they are disconnected and can’t access online materials. We decided to tackle this issue through an offline approach by creating an experiential learning book that students can explore at home.
A few tips on how you can adapt your project to the current situation:
You don’t need to pivot the whole idea or change your mission/vision, maybe what you need to do is to change your distribution channel, revenue model or build new partnerships
.Identify where other solutions are falling short and if you might be able collaborate with them.
Test your assumptions by engaging your beneficiary group / communities as you pivot to understand how the changes to your idea might affect them.
Identify who has a reason to pay or who already pays the financial cost of the social problem you’re addressing.
Avoid procrastinating and waiting too much to start implementing your solution and new strategy. Be authentic and transparent.
Join the I4A Africa Covid19 Challenge by Submitting your new proposal and obtain a unique opportunity of getting feedback, active support and mentorship from World Bank professionals and professors from remarkable universities alongside networking opportunities.
Co-creating value by teaming: Finding a teammate in Africa and outside Africa
Collaboration and Partnership is the best way to expand in Africa especially when you don’t have enough or a lot of capital. Getting the right teammate can be very impactful, you co-create more value together, you minimize the use of your resources, you share resources and you save time.
Key things you should consider when looking for a teammate within Africa or outside Africa
First, identify what you’re looking for in a teammate, in terms of skills, resources and so on
Having the same vision is key. Clarify your vision and look for someone who matches your vision. This will help you build a long and sustainable relationship.
It is highly recommendable to join efforts, team or collaborate with someone who is working on the same idea or tackling the same problem.
Clarify the tasks and time your teammate will need to invest.
Challenges local social entrepreneurs face and Expertise they mostly look for:
Business experts, to help convert ideas into successful business models.
Fundraising experts, to help build strong investment cases. Due to the lack of African investment ecosystem, local entrepreneurs face a big challenge in communicating with foreign investors, there is a lack of trust and less understanding of investor languages.
Partnership experts, to help close deals with organizations that tackle the same social problem.
Things you need to consider when developing your proposal to address a social problem in Africa.
Market research, this is the core of every successful initiative. You need to spend enough time to understand the problem, if your solution is really adding value and who will pay for your service or product. Most initiatives fail due to making a lot of assumptions that weren’t proven first and spending so much time developing a solution for a problem that already has a solution and your solution doesn’t add value to what already exists. Spending enough time doing market research will help you avoid making imaginary assumptions.
Do not run your initiative remotely. To save your time and resources, team up with a local person on the ground. This will help you be more effective.
The biggest opportunity is: You don’t need a lot of resources to run an initiative in Africa. You can make a huge impact with less resources. Challenges that most African countries face are similar, you can easily scale your solution to many more countries.