Our 2022 Highlights

Here at HiiL, 2022 has been quite busy as we interacted with various justice innovators at different stages. Here are some of our favourite highlights for the year:

2022 Demo Day

The 2021 HJA East Africa Cohort during Demo Day. Photo | HiiL Innovation Hub East Africa

This year on 16th February, HiiL held the Annual Demo day forum that celebrated startups that had undergone the HiiL Justice Accelerator programme in 2021. The Demo day is a global event that brings together justice leaders, policy makers, entrepreneurs and many other players in the justice sector to showcase different startups around the globe as well as highlighting opportunities available that make justice accessible.

We had 5 teams representing the East African region: KYR Africa, Vindex Systems, Upesy World and We Are More. Though our teams gave their best pitches, the annual €20000 prize was won by THR Media, a social enterprise from Nigeria that uses new media and technology solutions to help women and girls break free, find shelter and recover from Sexual and Gender-Based Violence. Altogether, the forum created a people-centred justice initiative whose mission is to achieve equal access to justice for all, through innovation.

The HiiL Justice Accelerator

The HJA East Africa Cohort. Photo | HiiL Innovation Hub East Africa

Over the past decade, HiiL has supported over 154 justice startups globally. They have brought forth solutions for preventing and resolving justice problems in the workplace, for small businesses, between neighbours, for crime prevention and much more. These Solutions have been able to empower people to take action themselves to achieve people-centred justice.

This year, we onboarded 6 startups from East Africa to the Programme, 4 from Kenya and 2 from Rwanda. We are almost at the tail end of the HiiL Justice Accelerator programme and wish these teams the very best as they prepare for Demo day in February 2023!

The Justice Entrepreneurship School

The Regional Justice Entrepreneurship School teams. Photo | HiiL Innovation Hub East Africa

This year we launched a 6 week incubation programme for entrepreneurs in Kenya, Rwanda and Somalia that seeks to train entrepreneurs with a functioning innovative solution to a pressing justice problem. This programme accepts entrepreneurs across the East African region with a minimum viable product, and provides them with an opportunity to test and validate the product to different markets over a period of 6 weeks.

21 startups were selected to join the programme in Kenya, Rwanda and Somalia, and participated in our 1 week bootcamp as well as user testing their products for the weeks that followed.

The Justice Innovation Circles 2022

Eric Mwangi, Hub Head- HiiL Innovation Hub East Africa during the Justice Innovation Circles in Septemver 2022. Photo | HiiL Innovation Hub East Africa.

This year we hosted the Justice Innovation Circles in Kenya and in Rwanda in the month of September, and finally Somaliland in November, in an effort to meet and engage with innovators and stakeholders in the justice sector. Both editions in Kenya and Rwanda also served as pitch events for the 3 startups that emerged top during the Justice Entrepreneurship School Bootcamp. The JIC event in Somalia not only marked the end for the JES participants, but also the Jenga Haki Ideation programme.

Jenga Haki 2022

The Jenga Haki Festival Participants and attendees. Photo | HiiL Innovation Hub East Africa

This year we received 130 applications from Kenya, Rwanda and the Somali region to join our Jenga Haki Ideation Programme, which is our 4 week programme, designed to explore solutions for a specific justice problem while using technology. It is an idea meant for innovators to build a solution, and form a team to build a startup around that solution. This year’s theme was how to use technology to build solutions around family justice issues.

After 4 weeks, the programme eventually ended with the Jenga Haki Festival that was held on the 24th of November in Rwanda, 26th November in Kenya and 30th November in the Somali region. During the festival we had 13 teams in Kenya, 13 in Rwanda and 7 in Somalia pitch in order to claim up to 1000 Euros for Kenya and Rwanda, and 1000 USD for the Somali region. Did you miss out on this? We have more programmes coming up in the new year so be on the lookout and follow us on our Social media platforms to receive our updates.

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HiiL Justice Accelerator East Africa

HiiL (The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law) is a social enterprise devoted to user-friendly justice i.e accessible, easy to understand, and affordable.