Interswitch is expanding its Discovery Series program to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in African universities. The series will next visit Cosmopolitan University in Abuja after successful events at Babcock and Landmark Universities. The program includes workshops, design thinking sessions, and a pitch competition, offering students opportunities to develop and incubate their ideas. The initiative is part of Interswitch’s #SwitchAFuture program and reinforces its commitment to building tech capacity in Africa
Designed as part of Interswitch Group’s #SwitchAFuture initiative, the Interswitch Discovery Series, targeted at tertiary institutions of learning in Africa complements existing initiatives such as the InterswitchSPAK National Science Competition and sit within the education pillar of the Group’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Interventions, geared towards creating shared value in terms of building critically required technology and innovation capacity within the society in which Interswitch operates as a business.
As outlined by Interswitch Group’s Innovation and Ventures Team champion the Discovery Series, key elements of the program include Entrepreneurship Workshops, designed to build entrepreneurial mindsets in students and empower them to take charge of the future; Design Thinking Sessions & Masterclasses geared towards imparting the capacity to solve problems creatively and collaboratively; and the Grand Pitch, which showcases the respective ideas and innovations of the participating students/groups and offers noteworthy and relevant prizes and incentives including opportunities to incubate the most promising ideas with Interswitch’s recently launched Innovation Lab and Incubator.
The destination of the next edition in the series has been unveiled as Cosmopolitan University, in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), taking place from February 26th through 28th.
According to the company, which is one of Africa’s pioneering Technology Unicorns, The Interswitch Discovery Series remains committed to sparking innovation, sharing essential knowledge through engaging workshops, dynamic pitch opportunities, and interactive experiences to empower participants with the tools to transform their ideas into meaningful solutions to make a lasting difference in their communities and beyond.
Tertiary academic institutions who are desirous of joining the series and collaborating with Interswitch’s Innovation and Ventures Hub to spark innovative ideation and enterprise on their campuses are invited to interface with Interswitch through innovation@interswitchgroup.com
Interswitch is a leading technology-driven company focused on the digitization of payments and commerce across Africa. Founded in Nigeria in 2002, Interswitch disrupted the traditional cash-based payments value chain in Nigeria by supporting the introduction of electronic payments processing and switching services, and also launched Verve, Africa’s premier and leading domestic EMV-standard chip and pin payments card scheme.
Today, Interswitch is a leading player with critical mass across Africa’s developing financial ecosystem and is active across the payments value chain, providing a full suite of omni-channel payment solutions. Interswitch’s vision is to make payments a seamless part of everyday life in Africa, and its mission is to create transaction solutions that enable individuals and communities to prosper across Africa. Interswitch’s broad network and robust payments platform have been instrumental to the development of the Nigerian payments ecosystem and provide Interswitch with the infrastructure to expand across Africa.