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The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has announced the regional finalists of the 2024 ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW), the prestigious international accelerator of hardware-led social innovation. Seven social ventures from throughout Africa will pitch their innovative solutions and participate in an extensive design and engineering review with judges beginning Wednesday, June 19, at the Hyatt Regency Nairobi Westlands in Kenya. Three regional winners will be selected to join the 2024 ASME ISHOW cohort and will be announced at an invitation-only* awards ceremony on Thursday, June 20, at 6 p.m. East Africa Time.
The ISHOW Kenya finalists, whose innovations provide affordable, sustainable hardware technology solutions to agricultural, building, energy, healthcare, transportation, and waste challenges, will vie for a share of $30,000 in grant awards and technical support to help bring their impactful innovations to market.
The regional finalists are:
- Adumu Limited (Kisii County, Kenya) for its “Biodiesel-fueled Institutional Cooking System” – which allows institutions such as schools to transition from using traditional biomass as a cooking fuel to a modern clean alternative that saves up to 50% on cooking time, 78% on emissions, and 40% on operating costs
- Afya Lead (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) for its “Mkanda Salama” innovation – a patented, non-invasive, affordable device designed to address postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), a leading cause of maternal mortality globally
- Che Innovations (Kampala, Uganda) for its “NeoNest” solution – a low-cost warming device for preventing neonatal hypothermia during ambulance transportation of premature babies from rural villages hours away from hospitals
- Megagas Alternative Energy Enterprise Limited (Nairobi, Kenya) for its “Community Kitchens Powered by Renewable Energy” – The company converts plastic waste into clean cooking gas via a patented process and distributes it through women entrepreneurs. Its community kitchens offer affordable, eco-friendly cooking solutions at $0.02 per hour, serving as social hubs for low-income households.
- MeSADA PCL (Berekuso, Ghana) for its “MeSADA iNtensifier Precision Seeder” – a five-row staple grain precision seeder with tailored performance for small and medium-scale farms
- Neosave Technologies Limited (Mbarara, Uganda) for its “Autothermo” solution – a wearable medical device designed for clinicians to continuously monitor sick newborns admitted to care, particularly in regions including Uganda with limited human resources for health
- Yaaka Investment Limited (Kitwe, Zambia) for its “Yaaka Portable Incinerator Bin” – a non-emission, portable, one-cubic-meter bin that works to reduce harmful waste that often leads to illnesses such as dysentery and Cholera especially in the rainy season, while it recycles CO2and ash for use in concrete design for circular economy advancement.
The 2024 ISHOW cohort will be invited to the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the winter to receive an extensive and customized design and engineering review by experts curated to guide them as they scale to market. They will also have a chance to earn a second round of seed grants from ASME. They become part of the ISHOW alumni network, an international community of hardware innovators and stakeholders with exclusive access to experts and resources.
“Through the vision and creativity of these talented entrepreneurs and the guidance of expert mentors, ASME ISHOW and IDEA LAB are transforming groundbreaking ideas into market-ready products that improve lives,” said ASME Executive Director/CEO, Tom Costabile. “These programmes are key components of ASME’s sustainability and climate strategy, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.”
The application deadline is June 1 for social entrepreneurs in the Americas seeking consideration for ISHOW USA, a virtual event scheduled for July 23-25. ISHOW India winners were announced April 25 in Chennai. Three ventures selected at each event will join the ISHOW 2024 cohort.
The prestigious ASME ISHOW hardware accelerator is open to individuals and organizations taking physical products to market that will have a positive social and environmental impact and that improve the quality of life around the world. ASME ISHOW annually matches up to 21 carefully selected innovators with appropriate experts to ensure that the proposed hardware solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. To date, ISHOW has enabled over 230 startups from more than 35 countries to solve critical quality-of-life challenges for vulnerable populations worldwide. ISHOW alumni have developed affordable devices to address issues including clean combustion, crop threshing, fetal health, food waste prevention, health diagnostics, safe drinking water, and many more that address the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
ASME ISHOW judges and facilitators include experts in research, sustainability, mechanical engineering and product design, manufacturing, startup financing, supply chain, and business strategy, representing organizations including Gearbox, Sun King, Villgro Africa,,ZOLA Electric, and several ISHOW alumni. These subject matter experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s five key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, implementation strategy, and impact.
ASME is grateful to The Lemelson Foundation for its continued support of the ISHOW with a multi-year strategic investment in the ASME and Engineering for Change ecosystem and to ISHOW implementation partners around the globe.
