“No one but us will develop Africa”. – Tony Elumelu
One of the major goals of The Innovation and Design Thinking Academy (TIDA) is to foster the creation of human centered design among young people in Africa.
Africa as a continent is faced with a wide range of challenges across various sectors and on the other hand an enthusiastic population of young people determined to drive innovative changes in the continent. As such, young people in Africa have to be empowered to develop human-centered, culturally sensitive and environmentally friendly solutions that address the problems in Africa and better position Africa as an industrial hub in the global markets.
As an innovative hub, one of our major goals is to train young people to think all around the box and approach the challenges we face in Africa in new and creative ways better suited to our cultural climate.
TIDA has over 4 years of operations in health systems, SDGs, gender equity, and climate change interventions. We have successfully trained over 500 young people in design thinking, facilitated more than 10 design thinking and innovation designations and programs.
Some of these young people have gone on to achieve remarkable milestones. One of them, Emmanuel Ajayi, emerged as the first-place winner at the National Finals of the Digital for All Challenge 2.0, a competition organized by Tech4Dev in partnership with NITDA Nigeria and funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). This achievement shows how TIDA builds the capacity of young people in problem-solving using human-centered design.
Amongst these young people, many have gone on to launch their social enterprises and tech startups, making impact, winning seed funding and getting recognized locally and internationally. Come January 2026, TIDA is creating a new opportunity for young people who are enthusiastic about learning how to create innovative solutions to problems and improving themselves in design thinking, prototyping, business development and preparing a winning pitch through Our Design Thinking Fellowship.
The fellowship is set to be an intensive 2 months program, including weekend training sessions and fellow up tasks that take you step by step in building an innovative initiative or startups that solve the problems in Africa.
Our curriculum includes subject matters like pitch writing using storytelling (because what’s a good idea without being able to pitch it well), prototyping, empathy driven research, and critical thinking skills. These fellows will be given access to a strong network of problem solvers and innovators in Nigeria and beyond, access to mentorship, resources and support from facilitators and experts with experience.
We are super excited to announce this 2 months intensive fellowship and we can’t wait to see you join us.
Hurry to our website to look through what we have for you and you can also access the payment options for both undergraduates and graduates and those residing outside Nigeria.
There are also opportunities to sponsor a young innovator. This involves covering the registration fee of an undergraduate or a young graduate interested in joining the design thinking fellowship. To do that, you can Chat Onyinye on WhatsApp via +2348069969851 or fill the sponsorship survey.
Written by: Halimah Awofeso
