2022 was a very busy year at HiiL supporting justice innovators at different stages of development across the continent.
1. 2022 Demo Day
This year on February 16th, HiiL held the Annual Demo Day forum that celebrated start-ups that had undergone the HiiL Justice Accelerator programme in 2021. The Demo Day is a global event that brings together justice leaders, policymakers, entrepreneurs, and other players in the justice sector to showcase different start-ups around the globe as well as highlight opportunities available that make justice accessible.
We had five teams representing the East African region: KYR Africa, Vindex Systems, Upesy World, and We Are More. Though our teams gave their best pitches, the annual €20,000 prize was won by THR Media, a social enterprise from Nigeria that uses new media and technology solutions to help women and girls break free, find shelter, and recover from sexual and gender-based violence. Altogether, the forum created a people-centred justice initiative whose mission is to achieve equal access to justice for all through innovation.
2. The HiiL Justice Accelerator
Over the past decade, HiiL has supported over 154 justice start-ups globally. They have created solutions for preventing and resolving justice problems in the workplace, for small businesses, between neighbours, for crime prevention, and much more. These solutions have been able to empower people to take action themselves to achieve people-centred justice.
This year, we onboarded six start-ups from East Africa to the programme, four from Kenya and two from Rwanda. We are almost at the tail end of the HiiL Justice Accelerator programme and wish these teams the very best as they prepare for Demo Day in February 2023!
3. The Justice Entrepreneurship School
This year HiiL launched a six-week incubation programme for entrepreneurs in Kenya, Rwanda, and Somalia that seeks to train entrepreneurs with a functioning innovative solution to a pressing justice problem. This programme accepts entrepreneurs across the East African region with a minimum viable product and provides them with an opportunity to test and validate the product in different markets over a period of six weeks.
Twenty-one start-ups were selected to join the programme in Kenya, Rwanda, and Somalia, and participated in our one-week bootcamp as well as user testing their products for the weeks that followed.
4. The Justice Innovation Circles 2022
This year HiiL hosted the Justice Innovation Circles in Kenya and Rwanda in September, then Somaliland in November, in an effort to meet and engage with innovators and stakeholders in the justice sectors. Both editions in Kenya and Rwanda also served as pitch events for the three start-ups that emerged during the Justice Entrepreneurship School (JES) Bootcamp. The JIC event in Somalia marked not only the end for the JES participants but also the Jenga Haki Ideation Programme.
5. Jenga Haki 2022
This year HiiL received 130 applications from Kenya, Rwanda, and the Somali region to join our Jenga Haki Ideation Programme, which is our 4-week programme, designed to explore solutions for a specific justice problem while using technology. It is an idea meant for innovators to build a solution, and form a team to build a startup around that solution. This year’s theme was how to use technology to build solutions around family justice issues.
After 4 weeks, the programme eventually ended with the Jenga Haki Festival that was held on November 24th in Rwanda, November 26th in Kenya, and November 30th in the Somali region. During the festival, we had 13 teams in Kenya, 13 in Rwanda and 7 in Somalia pitch in order to claim up to 1000 Euros for Kenya and Rwanda, and 1000 USD for the Somali region. Did you miss out on this? We have more programmes coming up in the new year so be on the lookout and follow us on our Social media platforms to receive our updates.
