The ACIH (Association of Countrywide Hubs) Innovation week is an annual event that celebrates local and statewide innovations enhancing both innovation initiatives and entrepreneurship. Magharibi Innovation Hub Partnered with key sponsors, i.e. ACIH, The United Nations Development Programme, Segal Family Foundation, Kenya National Innovation Agency (KENIA) and Innovate UK to aid in executing the programme.

The event commenced on November 29th, 2022 and ended on 30th November 2022. Day 1 began with keynote speakers who were also the judges of the event presenting a cybersecurity themed talk and issuing advice on the same along with extensive practical sessions which most of the participants undertook and enjoyed well.

The talks however, did not only involve technical security concepts but also Entrepreneurship as well, John Okello, one of the judges gave a profound talk on Intellectual property. At the start of the cybersecurity talks, the members and attendees were a bit skeptical due to the technicality of the subject but later became more and more engaged to the point of increase pro-activity later in the session through interactive discussions and practically executing commands instructed by both the judges on this topic, Harriet Tsinale and James Ominde.

All the participants will agree that at the end of the cybersecurity talks, a rather funny but misinterpreted concept of ‘phising’ which in cybersecurity would imply an attack that attempts to steal personal information while pretending to be completely legitimate, was on everyone’s mind for ‘obvious’ reasons. The Intellectual property talk detailed all information on creation, naming and rights to a business, business name and the creators. The session was highly recommended as it touched on early unknown and unclear topics such as patenting, business registration, naming and interesting laws that protect both a business and founders.

On the day that followed, there were presentations from all previously accepted competitors. The three major innovations however, were; Anesthesia prediction system, Point2Point Parcels and Software security and Recovery Systems. The Anesthesia system was an AI based medical related software that utilized machine learning models to train data (patient medical records) and based on this make accurate predictions on the proper amount of anesthesia required to administer to a patient without being too little to have an effect and cause the patient extreme pain or discomfort during an operation or being too high that a patient completely loses consciousness defeating its initial purpose. The ultimate goal was just the proper amount regardless of the procedure but all on previously acquired training set.

Point2Point Parcels looked to act as a middleman between clients and couriers, therefore enabling couriers to get products sent to them and still move products between places using the app all while maintaining the same structure and model. The system also offered digital product signage, real time tracking of parcels and direct communication between the client and the courier.

Last, software security and recovery system, was aimed and providing a solution to protect and recover previously breached or vulnerable applications, accounts, services and clusters in general. The proposed idea was a centralized secure service with ability to restore user/clients data and provide mitigation services, security strategy and prevent future security breaches.

The aforementioned judges led in the selection based on different metrics and the Anesthesia prediction system was the ultimate winner, with 2^nd runners up being Point2Point Parcels and Software security and recovery system taking 3^rd place. The three innovators were each awarded with certificates, marking the end of the 2-day event. Recommendation and closing remarks made at the end pointed out that target market for any innovation was as paramount as its development and that an innovation with an already identified/ set market target would find it easier to sell and make future profit as opposed to a less targeted innovation.