Our Center for Innovation & Design
The Mbale Center for Innovation and Design exists in the rural, fragile ecological zone of the Mt. Elgon region where subject matter experts, NGOs, and others can meet with local youth to co-design and test solutions to challenges including clean water, clean energy, recycling, reforestation, local manufacturing, and livelihood development.
Innovation Center Goals
Bring experts, youth, and community members together to co-create solutions that meet real needs.
Develop networks that encourage interactions and collaboration.
Facilitate entrepreneurship to convert designs and services into income generating and employment opportunities for post-secondary Ugandan youth.
Improve the quality of life in Mbale and Eastern Uganda by investing in economic, cultural, and social amenities.
Preserve the natural environment of the Mt. Elgon region while providing a model for replication in similar ecological zones around the world.
How the Center Works
We have established the Center for Innovation and Design in the town of Mbale, Uganda, where MAPLE Uganda’s headquarters are located. This Center serves several complementary functions for post-secondary youth aged 18-28:
A maker space equipped with tools to prototype and manufacture physical products.
An assembly and distribution center for Institutional Energy Solutions (IES), an institutional cookstove manufacturing company, where participants will be hired assemble stoves with maker space tools, then distribute them to customers in MAPLE’s network of village and institutional partners, all while learning manufacturing and sales skills.
A Creative Capacity Building Curriculum and training program (developed at M.I.T. but tailed by MAPLE to fit the experience of local Ugandans) to empower participants as successful entrepreneurs and creative thinkers. By providing hands-on experiences and practical tools (physical, intellectual, and social), our initiative will empower creative design thinking and community action related to environmental preservation and economic agency.
A microbusiness incubator where young entrepreneurs and villagers can co-create ways to meet local demand for affordable, low-tech, sustainable resources that improve lives while regenerating biodiversity and preserving sacred natural sites.
Innovation Center Roadmap
Why Rural Uganda?
Currently Uganda has the second youngest – and fasting growing – population in the world. Over 50% of its 47 million citizens are 15 years of age or younger. 850,000 Ugandans turn 18 years old each year, and despite a 67% unemployment rate in Kampala (even higher for young women), many youth move to the capital from rural areas due to even poorer livelihood development options in rural and village settings, draining talent from these communities. In addition, 90% of the country relies on wood fuel for their water treatment and household cooking needs, leading to 23,000 premature deaths every year due to the unhealthy smoke from traditional three-stone fires. As a result, Uganda also experiences high deforestation rates, and the population is expected to triple over the next 30 years – further increasing pressure on the country’s natural resources.
While out-migration of youth to urban centers is becoming increasingly common and education and skills-building initiatives are taking hold in Kampala, 85% of Ugandans still live in rural and peri-urban areas. Currently, no center for innovation exists in a rural, fragile ecological zone such as the Mt. Elgon region where engineers, NGOs, and others can meet with villagers to co-design and test solutions to problems. In addition, solutions developed in the sprawling urban center of Kampala are disconnected from the experience of local people who need to sustain those solutions. Existing urban centers also focus primarily on high-tech solutions, which are inaccessible to many individuals and institutions who do not have the means to purchase and maintain expensive technologies. By involving young adults and other residents of rural villages in the design process, we intend to change this.