Building on the learnings from previous cohorts – where entrepreneurs consistently showed strong ideas and pitching skills, but struggled with the technical implementation of their solutions – TECHgrow has evolved. In coordination with GIZ, we decided to intervene earlier in the process, engaging with young innovators already at the idea-generation stage rather than after a startup idea has already taken shape.

The new approach brings motivated young innovators face-to-face with real problems identified by local market experts. Using Design Thinking methods, participants iterate on possible solutions together with both technical experts and market experts, refining their ideas from both a feasibility and a market perspective. The three strongest ideas then move into a three-month incubation phase, during which teams each build a working prototype. Prototype and business model are pitched to partners and investors at the Final Event in Nairobi in early October, where a winning team is selected to receive a grant from the project.

The Retreat

TECHgrow 2026 kicked off with a successful retreat bringing together a strong mix of students, recent graduates and young professionals, selected based on their submitted profiles and grouped into teams on day one. After time to get to know each other, participants worked closely with their coaches over the following days to explore real-world problems within one of two thematic tracks. Through iterative rounds of ideation and testing, each team developed a promising startup idea. With so many strong ideas on the table, choosing just three was no easy task – in the end, MedX, HaptiQ, and OxyTrack were selected to advance into the incubation phase.

TECHgrow offers participating startups from East Africa valuable technical support and promotes long-term cooperation between Africa and Germany in the field of sustainable innovation.

In March 2025, TECHgrow entered a new phase, continuing its cooperation with East African startups. Following an intensive selection process involving more than 200 applications, 13 startups from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda, among others, from the GreenTech, Smart Manufacturing, HealthTech, and AgriTech sectors have been accepted into the program. TECHgrow is a module of the TECH4Transition project and focuses on strengthening the link between research, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

The four winning teams of Phase 1 – LumiGuard, Zuripacks, Altruistech, and Che Innovations – spent a week at KIT, where they advanced their prototypes, refined their pitch decks, and connected with the German innovation ecosystem. A key part of the program was close one-on-one mentoring: each team worked directly with technical experts who reviewed their PCB designs, helped identify strengths and hidden issues, and mapped out concrete next steps for further development. Alongside the technical work, the week also included opportunities for cultural exchange, giving participants further insight into the region around Karlsruhe.

The two-phase module started in spring 2023. With the help of the partner institution Arab Academy with the Rally Startup Accelerator, TECHgrow was able to identify and specifically address the Egyptian startup scene. 225 Egyptian startups then applied for the program, and the best 60 were invited - 10 each from the areas of GreenTech, Smart Manufacturing, HealthTech, Supply Chain, AgriTech and FinTech.

In the first phase, TECHgrow offered the selected startups lectures from renowned experts. The focus here was particularly on the identification and further development of business models in terms of sustainability, understanding customers and achieving product-market fit, raising awareness of internationalization, growth processes, relevant key figures and the view of investors on startups.