PDPTanzania

The Product Development Partnership Forum is a virtual centre for product development hosted at Ifakara Health Institute as part of an initiative to foster innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Tanzania. PDP Forum is driven by the energy of enhancing Tanzania's capability to innovate its own products up to the commercialization stage. We aim to create a broad pipeline of innovators and entrepreneurs to invent affordable technologies and use the design studios and makerspaces currently existing in the PDP consortium. The PDP Forum intends to enhance collaboration between local and international actors to support transfer of knowledge, technologies and entrepreneurship skills to Tanzania by leveraging on the opportunities created in the country to prototype and produce marketable innovations. It was realized that by maximizing existing physical facilities and expertise that support the innovation ecosystem in the country could spearhead joint projects and ownership among partners This initiative is funded by Fondation Botnar and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) acting through the Embassy of Switzerland to Tanzania. Presently the founding partners of the PDP forum are; Ifakara Health Institute, Bongo Tech and Research Labs, Robotech Lab and Ifakara Innovation Hub as local members. International members are; Villgro Africa from Kenya and the Essential Tech Centre of EPFL from Switzerland.