Bosun Tijani has visited Rwanda on several occasions and has observed the impressive growth the country has registered over the years.

This observation gave him an idea that he decided to embark on; the creation of a design lab.

Bosun, a Nigerian national, is the Chief Executive Officer of Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB), a social innovation centre based in Nigeria with plans to expand into other markets across the world, including Rwanda.

His idea is to build a design lab in Rwanda is taking shape, with the official launch expected early next month. Bosun is trying to advance the idea of social capital to achieve economic prosperity.

"The Design Lab functions in line with Co-creation Hub’s overall vision to innovate for a better society and accelerate the application of social capital, technology and design for economic prosperity in Africa,” he said.

According to him, the lab is the hub’s research and development unit where multi-disciplinary team of product designers and engineers will collaborate with scientists and stakeholders globally to co-create breakthrough solutions to major social challenges.

Bosun told The New Times that they are working to solve systemic problems in health, education, governance and private sector in Africa.

"In education, our focus would be on improving learning outcomes and student participation in STEM, with attention being paid to teaching methods and use of creative content - for example digital laboratories - to drive uptake,” he said.

In public health, another sector they plan to disrupt, advances in medical technology are already changing medicine by giving healthcare workers more information as well as specific data to improve the health and overall well-being of the populace.

He indicated that their immediate focus areas are digital epidemiology - working with scientists to accelerate the adoption of locally-created digital epidemiology solutions as well as poverty-related diseases, highlighting management of tuberculosis and improving adherence to treatment.

"There are many opportunities where human-centred design and technology can help improve the quality of health services and enhance societal well-being as a whole,” Bosun noted.

In Nigeria where they are working, their lab has built NimCure, an end-to-end Tuberculosis management system, to improve patient adherence to treatment and support patient management by caregivers.

Bosun says the solution has been created and is currently part of the medical trial with 40 TB patients with plans for a large scale trial at a state teaching hospital.

Bosun’s hub has also introduced inquiry learning and digital labs to enhance learning and STEM education while developing the capacity of teachers across Africa. It is being implemented in Nigeria, Benin and Kenya.

In Rwanda, in the area of governance, they say they will work around bridging the gap between government and citizens and supporting government to apply technology smartly to improve the delivery of public goods and services.

Over the next five year, the plan is to invest around $11 million (about Rwf9.7 billion) in Rwanda.

Bosun said that they collaborate with organisations that do not have the capacity to design, build and innovate as quick as leaner startups would.

"We see challenges as opportunities and collaboration is critical to how we approach problem-solving. From a multidisciplinary point of view, we will convene global stakeholders in catalytic projects to co-design solutions that create exponential value,” he noted.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw