Research collaboration in Lusaka, Zambia
In 2021, fieldwork starts online in Lusaka, Zambia. The research collaborators are BongoHive Technology & Innovation Hub and Futurice.
The data collection will be guided by Participatory Action Research and Ethnography. As a part of the research:
I ask the Lusaka startup ecosystem actors about their views on the local Startup Culture
together with BongoHive, we analyse the impact of startup culture through the analysis of support activities such as the startup community or incubators
together with BongoHive and Futurice, we co-create an experiment to see how Startup Culture transfers from one cultural context to the next using design methods.
Read more about the research here.
Research questions
What is Startup Culture?
What startup culture exists in the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Lusaka?
What is the impact of Startup Culture?
How do the activities fostering startup culture enable or hinder the birth and growth of technology-
enabled startups?
How is Startup Culture transferred?
How can methods and practices in startup entrepreneurship support be transferred from a different cultural context? What localizations are needed?
Online data collection
Due to the ongoing circumstances caused by COVID-19, the data collection starts online. BongoHive organizes an online incubator programme for female business owners in technology in partnership with Standard Chartered, SC Women in Tech, and this will be a one of the cornerstones for the research.
Interested participants are invited to contact me for a chance to share their view by filling in an online survey or by being interviewed. I am mainly interested in adults working and living in Lusaka, Zambia, who are an active member of the Startup Ecosystem.
To honour all University guidelines on ethical data collection, all participants have to sign a Participant Information Sheet and a Consent Form in order to qualify as a participant. If you are interested in participating, do get in touch to receive the necessary documents.
Hello from Helsinki! Video greeting to Zambian research participants
Experimenting Lean Service Creation in Lusaka
Futurice is a leading agency on digital services and innovation culture in Finland with offices also in the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden. In their work, Futurice has supported hundreds of companies in creating digital products people love and building an innovation culture that excites employees. In the process, Futurice created an open-source tool-kit, Lean Service Creation (LSC) that has been developed on the basic principles of Lean Startup, Design Thinking and Agile methodology. This tool-kit can be used to support corporates and startups alike in developing new solutions to pressing challenges.
As a part of the research, Futurice will share the background to this tool-kit and train BongoHive staff in using it when coaching early-stage technology startups. We will co-create an experiment using the LSC in the local context in Lusaka. How can current practices be improved? How does the Northern-developed tool translate in the South? What localisations are needed?
If we learn more about how to improve the methods in startup coaching, we can improve the way startups are supported in the entrepreneurship ecosystems in emerging markets. We can transfer practices with respect to the local context.
Know who I should talk to?
I will be reaching out to selected startup ecosystem actors who work and live in Lusaka City with a deep understanding of the local culture and context to fill in a survey or be interviewed. Participants must be over 18 years old.
The people relevant to my study are:
early-stage technology entrepreneurs
startup founders who are further along on their startup journey
investors who invest in early-stage startups especially
mentors and trainers of technology startups
entrepreneurship educators
policymakers and city officials
other ecosystem actors.
Dr Ida Telalbasic, Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Programme Director at the Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University London
Supervisors
The Principal Investigator and Primary Supervisor for my PhD Research is Dr Ida Telalbasic (PH.D., FHEA).
Dr Telalbasic is a Lecturer at the Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University London and Programme Director for Entrepreneurial Design Management. She contributes to research, teaching and enterprise activities in the area of Service Design Innovation and Strategy. Her current research focuses on the design of service ecosystems for entrepreneurship with a focus on acceleration and incubation activities.
Dr Telalbasic’s enterprise activities include developing scaling-up methodologies for social enterprises (The Young Foundation, NESTA, Social Innovation Exchange), creating toolkits for building impact case studies (World Bank), mentoring start-ups (FFWD), and organizing Global Service Jams for both academia and industry.
She is a visiting lecturer at Central Saint Martin’s College (Innovation Management) and a teaching assistant for the MBA, Säid Business School, Oxford University.
Main fields of work:
Design research / service design & strategy / co-design facilitation / start-up mentorship / design thinking / incubation programme design.
Read more about the Special Issue on design-driven entrepreneurship Dr Telalbasic is editing.
Furthermore, the supervising team includes Dr Roy Meriton, Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Professor Mikko Koria, Institute Director, Institute for Design Innovation, Loughborough University London.
Connected since 2017
The BongoHive team and I connected in 2017 through a partnership around the SAIS Programme.
The shared passion to support early-stage entrepreneurship and technology innovations brought us together to collaborate on my PhD research conducted at Loughborough University London. This collaboration is driven by the pursuit of knowledge and the improvement of practices - neither party is accepting payment for the partnership.
The research is funded by a study grant from Liikesivistysrahasto (Foundation for Economic Education, Finland) with a travel grant from Hans Bang Stiftelsen (Finland).
In this photo by BongoHive (from left to right): Simunza Muyangana, George Mutale, myself, Kateule Nakazwe and Lukonga Lindunda. Ms Nakazwe is holding in her hand the event production manual published by SAIS Programme and Connected Hubs: Creating vibrant Entrepreneurship Ecosystems - A Practical Guide to Successful Event Production.