User:Ayobami18/sandbox/Obichi Obiajunwa

(Young Innovation Leaders (YIL) Fellowship



The Young Innovation Leaders (YIL) Fellowship is a platform founded in Nigeria in 2018 by Dr. Obichi Obiajunwa and is an initiative of Hutzpa Innovations-- a social enterprise aimed at promoting innovation in communities around the world. The YIL Fellowship is a platform for training and mentoring young professionals in innovation leadership. It is an annual 4–6-month intensive training program that targets talented individuals across Africa. Training at YIL is based on a dynamic project-based learning approach in which participants gain deep knowledge and skills in innovation by working in teams to explore, investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex real-world question, problem, or challenge under expert supervision. YIL is dedicated to equipping young professionals with the soft skills they need to become innovation leaders and to rightly position themselves for the future of work. YIL Fellowship is the first indigenous innovation leadership fellowship in Africa.

YIL Fellowship runs mainly in Nigeria and in Ghana. It is one of the reputable national youth programs in both countries.

It is reputed for its ability to convene academically outstanding and brilliant graduates every year in a demanding fellowship through a rigorous selection process. For some years, the best graduating students at the University of Ibadan have received a convocation award to participate in the YIL Fellowship. The winners of the annual national essay competition of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Nigeria are awarded scholarships to the YIL Fellowship. YIL is recognized by the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) as a model youth development program. Apart from the Fellowship certificate, graduates of YIL also gain a diploma in innovation management from the African University of Science and Technology. YIL Fellowship thrives through collaboration with strategic partners. It runs its programs by collaborating with prominent local institutions and international organizations. For example, in East Africa, YIL is in partnership with the East Africa Science and Technology Commission (EASTECO) and the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, Rwanda. Since 2020, YIL has been coordinating the Innovation Fellowship for Aspiring Inventors and Researchers (I-FAIR), an initiative of the Israeli Embassy in Nigeria and the Office of the Vice President of Nigeria focused on raising a generation of innovators, inventors, and researchers in Nigeria by providing them a workspace, equipment, and mentoring, to enable them to transform their idea into inventions, innovations into solutions and prototypes, ready for industrial uptake.

The YIL Fellowship uses design thinking to solve developmental challenges. The program teaches participants methods to create solutions out of problems and the training program explores the science of solution creation. The identified problems are approached and categorized based on their source; the two tracks used to categorize problems are the Organizational (institutional track) and the Community (Inventive track). The selected participants of the program solve the problems of their choice and this choice is made based on acquired skills and interests. YIL has engaged multilateral organizations the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Nigeria, and organizations such as hospitals and universities in solving their practical challenges.