Our Up Accelerate innovation programme seeks to explore new and engaging ways to tackle pressing sexual and reproductive health challenges in Uganda, while promoting social entrepreneurship among young people.
This year’s call for new brilliant ideas, led to the birth of the outbox innovation champion program. Innovation champions will support Outbox to build local community Innovation communities known as Outbox Fundi Circles. They will be subjected to a coherent quarterly professional development module where they will be equipped with the 21st Century skills for community and workforce readiness. The communities are holistically focused on youth empowerment, starting with the Up Accelerate initiative. We believe exposing the youth to holistic empowerment initiatives will allow them to create synergies and drive cross-pollination between SRHR and GBV and other approaches.
The Innovation Champion Program will have two main goals; development of Outbox Fundi Circles through supporting community youth and peer to peer mentorship based on the champions’ experience supporting and or implementing business ideas in the field of innovation.
For the community youth to demonstrate a good understanding of innovation in leadership and entrepreneurship whilst developing solutions for SRHR/GBV, we need an agent who is holistically empowered to enforce this goal- the Outbox Innovation Champion.
An Outbox Innovation champion will be equipped with know-how about the programme, digital tools that include the virtual mentorship platform to support the sourcing and support process of the Up Accelerate initiative. The Virtual mentorship platform will be utilised for teams already in the incubator and any youth initiatives on SRHR/GBV. They will be matched with fellow peers and experts in the field for mentorship support. Further to that, our innovation champions will enable other young people with ideas to apply to the social innovation incubator call for applications and thereafter the UNFPA Stage platform.
To support the Innovation champions is a virtual mentorship and community platform. This is a platform originally developed with support from UNFPA ESARO. It will be utilised to have youth groups list their active social enterprises and initiatives, with details on their needs. The Innovation champions will be instrumental in growing this community online. They will be matched with partners, mentors and tools on how to further improve their initiatives.
One might ask, what are the benefits of being an Innovation Champion. So we would like to highlight these benefits below:
Opportunity for personal development through access to free tools and mentors;
First preference to access to a range of networking events and workshops whether virtual or not;
Access to national networks to share learning and experiences and make new connections; and
First preference for new opportunities via the Outbox ecosystem and partners that might include opportunities for funding, referrals for work-related opportunities
To be eligible for the position:
You must be a resident of the district within which you would like to be an Innovation Champion
You must speak and write English well
Be at University or have a University Degree
Be comfortable with using a computer and can browse the internet
Be willing to work on a volunteer basis.
Commit at-least 15 hours per week to supporting your local community circle and the Up Accelerate WAY initiative
An innovation champion will serve for up to two (2) years renewable based on good performance. The IC will be expected to commit at-least 15 hours per week to support the local community circle and the Up Accelerate WAY initiative
To apply, fill in this form and send a motivation letter and recommendation letter from your area LC1 to bob.oganga@outbox.co.ug with the subject: UpAccelerate WAY Innovation Champion Application-Madi-Okollo.
The deadline for application is 16th September 2020.
Note: Women and Persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply!
