The recently launched Boris Bison Youth Empowerment Business Incubator (‘BB Incubator’) in Douala, Cameroon, together with pan-African video game publishing company Ludique Works and Finnish tech learning accelerator network Start North have announced an MoU to introduce their technologically advanced learning environments or ‘5G Mokki Tech Spaces’ across Africa.

The new partnership comes just weeks after Boris Bison Youth Empowerment Business Incubator’s opening ceremony in Douala, during which Cameroon’s Minister for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts Bassilekin III Achille offered founder and CEO Boris Ngala his congratulations and personal support.

According to a statement released to the media, Ngala returned to his home country of Cameroon with a vision to reduce poverty through technology-driven solutions, entrepreneurial training and business advice.

BB Incubator provides office facilities, computer equipment services, internet connectivity, entrepreneurial training and business advisory services to promising local start-up companies and young entrepreneurs.

5G Mokki Tech Spaces

5G Mokki Tech Spaces is described as a high-tech learning and communication environment in the shape of a small cottage.

Ngala said, “Our aim is a Pan-African tech space network that connects the African continent to Europe and the rest of the world, promoting the learning and adoption of technology, remote work, and entrepreneurship. In addition to promoting education, jobs, and the economic development of the regions, the network also aims to curb climate change by utilising the latest technology.”

‘Mokki’ is derived from the Finnish word ‘mökki’, meaning ‘cottage’.

According to BB Incubator and its start-ups, the resource can be used, among other things, “to develop software applications that require ultra-fast internet connections, to render immersive, three-dimensional (3D), virtual-reality (VR) and augmented-reality (AR) learning experiences, as well as to deliver innovation services and remote work to corporations around the globe.”0

Ludique Works is deploying the cottages in Kenya and South Africa and is committed to building a network of 5G Mokki Tech Spaces in other African countries as well.

Douglas Ogeto, Co-Founder and CEO of Ludique Works, said, “The 5G Mokki Tech Space network has the ability to serve international and local companies, to provide creative-economy and technology based jobs and promote entrepreneurship based on the learning of the latest technology and hands-on projects that serve local conditions. Furthermore, this is supported by extensive national and international collaboration with universities and companies.”

Powerhouse potential

“The 5G Mokki Tech Spaces aim to hit several birds with one stone: to provide the technology that enables advanced learning environments with remote connectivity, as well as to offer learning solution content, starting in the fields of technology and entrepreneurship.

The 5G Mokki Tech Spaces are being developed by Start North, a Finnish accelerator network that aims to promote the learning and application of new technologies to meet the challenges of global sustainable development. The concept was pioneered by leading Finnish universities,” reads part of the statement.

One of those is Aalto University, which is among the world’s top institutions in research and education of 5G technologies. As part of a co-innovation process with Nokia, the mobile communications technology giant, Aalto launched its Summer School in 2019 to involve students in creating real-life 5G applications. The Summer School produced the 5G Mökki with input from Start North, who were subsequently tasked to take the concept abroad.

As part of a collaboration programme between Start North and Ludique Works in Africa, over 250 young people from across the continent applied for the 5G Summer School.

More than 60 participants successfully completed the programme with a number of them earning ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits.

Aalto is in talks with several business schools and universities in Africa, including the African School of Economics with campuses in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Benin, and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.

Furthermore, a project is underway to set up a 5G Mokki in a rural area in Zambia, powered by solar energy, to provide immersive learning and research in the field of agriculture.

Tapping into Africa’s talent

At the launch event of the 5G Mökki network at Häme University in Finland, in October 2021, Dr Mark Nelson, founder and Director of Innovation at the Stanford Peace Innovation Lab, drew parallels between the high-tech cottage, the invention of the microscope in biology and the telescope in space research, allowing the exploration of social interaction and society without people having to travel from one place to another.

Without innovative approaches to training and job creation, traditional degree-based education falls short of creating sufficient employment opportunities.

To illustrate this point, approximately half a million students graduate from Cameroon’s universities every year, but only three thousand of these graduates tend to find employment.

Stakeholders said the expansion of the 5G Mokki Tech Spaces network in Africa is in part facilitated by financial instruments developed jointly by the African Union and the European Union, aimed at improving connectivity, know-how, and sustainable social and economic development.

“The 5G Mokki Tech Spaces network provides an opportunity for international corporations to tap into highly skilled, young African talent, not only to render remote work but also to spur innovation. Companies can, for example, submit a technology challenge to one of the 5G Mökki Summer Schools, or assign a fully-fledged development project,” they added.