NAILAB: East Africa’s Incubation Space
Last night (Tuesday night here in Nairobi, Kenya) I had the great pleasure of presenting at a local meetup at Nairobi’s incubation laboratory, NAILAB. More on my presentation later.
As someone who has grown up in the western world, and more specifically in the bustling high tech city of Toronto, trying to imagine a similar space in a “third world” country was difficult. However, Nairobi is a city that is thriving with people creating cool and new innovative tech products and services. So, coming across a space like NAILAB was exciting and surprising.
Similar to spaces in Toronto, the NAILAB offers an incubation platform that promises to assist young entrepreneurs in building a business structure around their innovations without the burden of high initial investment.
The lab also offers advice on business development, legal and copyright, tech assistance, market research, venture capital acquisition, and marketing startegies.
Maria Witila is the founder of Aseka Beads: “The NAILAB is providing me with a platform to sell KEnyan beadwork and curios online. Through e-commerce, I have a bigger market and because of the NAILAB, I have a livelihood courtesy of online commerce.”
For more information on one of Nairobi’s “smart spaces” visit www.ilab.co.ke.
