LAUNCH & UNIVERSITY ACTIVATIONS

MK-Africa, a marketing and sustainability-consulting firm dedicated to helping companies connect their brand success to social good, launched the #MyLittleBigThing Universities Sustainability Innovation Challenge in 2017 in partnership with KPMG and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership South Africa.

Inspired by Nobel laureate, the late Wangari Maathai’s ‘Little Thing’ of planting trees, the competition aims at encouraging the development of ideas that will help us to find the best home-grown solutions to Africa’s sustainability issues. The launch event was widely covered by print and broadcast media as well as various university blogs.

On social media, tweets with #MyLittleBigThing were seen close to 1 million times with the hashtag trending a number of times. Post-launch we had university activations where sponsors such as P&G engaged with the students alongside the campaign ambassador, Eric Omondi.

BUSINESS SKILLS TRAINING & JUDGING

Competition registration was on www.mylittlebigthing.com with close to 3,000 views and 150 valid registrations being received at the submission deadline. The judging was moderated by KPMG. 15 finalists from USIU Africa, Maseno, University of Eldoret, Strathmore, JKUAT, University of Nairobi, Kenyatta & Egerton University were short- listed.

They then pitched their projects to a high-level panel of judges including the UK High Commissioner and others from Kenya Climate Innovation Center, IFC – World Bank, New Faces New Voices, The Children’s Investment Fund, Clinton Health Access Initiative, Omidyar Network Endeavour Africa Ltd & Vision 2030 Council of Governors who selected the final seven.

VOTING

These seven went through a public online voting process. Close to sixty thousand (60,000) votes were cast on the campaign website with three (3) clear winners emerging.

WINNERS IN SOUTH AFRICA

In August, the winners attended a program by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership South Africa, visited the P&G zero-waste plant and toured Johannesburg before returning to the country for 3-months paid internship at top companies in the country.

WINNERS EXPERIENCE IN SOUTH AFRICA

AMOS NJIRAINI - USIU-AFRICA UNIVERSITY

WINFRED ABUYABO - MASENO UNIVERSITY