 Pushing boundaries and developing the world we live in, innovation is essential for progress. Boosting local economies and employment, innovation in sub-Saharan Africa is key. But how does it unfold and flourish? Tilburg University, Radboud University Naimehen, in collaboration with African academic institutes, conducted research into innovation realities within manufacturing enterprises. Let's take a look at a soy-of-food enterprise in Uganda, a video game business in Ghana, and a textile manufacturer in Kenya to illustrate some of the findings. Uganda is one of the four media countries that brings soy in Africa. Soy can make many, many, many products. However, there was limited usage of the soybeans for one reason that it has a bad smell. So originally, when I was introduced to soybeans, a little bit scared, but later on with research, we managed to do always the bad smell and today soy smells greatly. Nice smell. The technology I use is not advanced, but it's going to take us to great heights. They can use a system called deodorization to remove the bean flavor, but that's a very expensive technology. So here, I just combine a few, you know, ingredients to work on that, you know, flavor, to neutralize it. We do have research involvement. Otherwise, how could we come up with such innovations? It may not be very well organized, but we do have the R&D and come up with different products and also commercialize them. It's been quite a challenge and I'm proud of that. In a Western context, innovation is often understood as high-tech and measured in terms of research and development. But as we can see through Soya Limited, innovation is not necessarily defined by one big groundbreaking invention, but rather by an accumulation of small insights and adaptations to existing technologies that can create substantial value for a company. Now to a video business in Ghana who might work in technology but whose innovation derives more from their underlying concept. Letty Arts is a video game development company that is using storytelling to change the African narrative by creating a series of comics and video games based on historical heroes, African heroes, brought into the 21st century reality. The gaming industry is the biggest in the West and the sort of revenues that we see, Africa doesn't contribute to that and that was the basis of our frustration, my frustration actually, to solve that, to make Africa part of the global pie. Africa has so many stories that are undocumented. So there's a need for Africa to preserve its stories in an exciting form. So that's the niche that we are serving. Our villains represent issues. So we have greedy presidents, corrupt religious leaders. We use these characters to tell stories. My greatest motivation is retelling our stories in modern engaging and interactive forms because we kill our African stories. It's a niche market, it's an untapped market and Africa could become the biggest continent producing three times those revenues. Letty Arts innovation is not so much about creating a new video game but more importantly about advancing the culturally specific African identity. The research shows that companies like Letty Arts, who combine African tradition and identity with modern technology, have the potential to change the status quo of the gaming industry market. Let's take a look at a clothes company in Kenya whose innovation comes from including the design step, not normally the case for the African textile industry delivering to Western clients. Basically the Kikoi, it came about in the Kenyan market. It's mainly a Swahili product. It started by Swahili women doing it with a hand loom and this was used by mostly the coastal region, the fishermen used to wear it as everyday clothing item. The current Kikoi, it's been redesigned from that in the sense that it has different color combinations and from there, from the same fabric, different products, the Kikoi towel, some bags, the Kikoi cases for computers and iPad. Basically what we did is create new colors, new designs and exported, provided the Kikoi directly from Kenya, which wasn't the case before. Our main clients are based in Europe. We have also exported to South America, Japan. We are trying to get into USA now. The design step is important because it's a fashion item so every year we have to change the colors according to the fashion market in Europe especially. In addition to original designs as ongoing product innovations, the Kikoi company is changing the way of marketing by directly selling to international buyers. There's no middleman and African products are competing in their own right on the international stage, which is an example of a marketing innovation. Through the three cases, we've seen a glimpse of evidence of the different types of innovation and how it can flourish. One important conclusion highlighted in the research is that innovation in the African context is not necessarily about high technology, but rather being creative, original and resourceful in combining existing technology and learning by doing. Soya Limited, Letty Arts and Kikoi are just three examples of entrepreneurial energy and commitment, which may amongst others contribute to holding the tendency of young ambitious Africans to leave the continent and find a future elsewhere. These examples of innovative businesses assure local economic development and an outlook on prosperity.