Centre d'innovation Lubumbashi ASBL (cinolu)

"African talent, high-potential innovations, and startups will not succeed as long-term competitive businesses if an effective economic support function does not exist."

The DR-Congo and Africa are facing a rapid and uncontrolled urban transition ("homos urbanus"). This urbanization creates immense pressure on infrastructure, employment, basic services, and the environment, exacerbating poverty (SDGs 1 and 8) and inequality (SDG 5). At the heart of this transition, innovators and entrepreneurs are the key leveraging actors capable of transforming these urbanization challenges into socio-economic opportunities.

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However, we believe that African talent, high-potential innovations, and startups will not succeed as long-term competitive businesses if an effective economic support function does not exist."

Our intervention is therefore necessary to build and be this support function.

This intervention is structured around the construction of quality innovation and knowledge infrastructures as a catalyst for sustainable change, focusing mainly on capacity building through training, coaching and mentoring; the construction of a supportive ecosystem conducive to their emergence through advocacy, partnerships and networking; and the design and implementation of catalytic development projects.

Over time, Cinolu has managed to build a basiline entrepreneurial ecosystem made up of reliable partners including AfriLabs, Impact Hub network, and private foundations briging the hope a of brigther future for the youth and women in our community.

But this isn't enough , albeit our effort, it's just a few that thave access to our model. We want to scale our work, presence and impact where it is needed the most with partners and ambassadors carrying and bold enough to see from our lences the brighter and smarter futur we're building with and for our community.

Vision - Our Ultimate Goal (Impact):

By 2050, cities and communities in the DRC and Central Africa will have become smart, sustainable, inclusive and resilient socio-economic hubs (SDG 11) by reducing poverty through the creation of decent jobs (SDG 1, 8), by becoming competitive, diversified local economic ecosystems that fully integrate innovation and technology (SDG 9) in an inclusive manner, including gender, as an economic reality (SDG 5).

It goes without saying that our mission is to train, equip and support change agents (entrepreneurs and innovators) with the skills, resources and network so that they succeed as successful, competitive and ethical businesses.

To achieve this, (our model) we provide our expertise, our vibrant global network, our infrastructure, and projects focused on a lean, agile, and internationally recognized support methodology based on co-creation., intensive and iterative action, l'intelligence collectiveto empower our beneficiaries and build bridges between the most vibrant ecosystems in Africa and around the world and overcome the most pressing challenges of our society.

This has led us, for almost 10 years, to support our impact, build resilience, strengthen our expertise, and accelerate our pace. We have trained and supported more than 10,000 beneficiaries on our diverse events and programs, and co-created and organized more than 5 major activities and gatherings connecting our beneficiaries with corporates,philantropists through hackathon, Speed dating, Pitch sessions...

In short, it is: Our model produces effects but we want to go further, refine it and scale it up, taking into account the criticality of the challenges and issues related to poverty, economic insecurity, conflicts and environmental risks in our cities.

About us : The centre d'innovation de Lubumbashi , "Cinolu" is a Lubumbashi multipurpose innovation center.Founded in 2015, it offers a range of one-stop-shop services and programs to support young entrepreneurs and innovators facing the most pressing challenges of our society.