Stakeholders in the product design and production said builders across Africa have to localise their solutions for their product to thrive in the marketplace.
Tina Mbachu, executive director, Innovate Africa Foundation, said builders have to focus on designing local solutions that address unique needs within their communities. She said products that are designed for the African market must address the problems at the grassroots level.
“So, we have to really get into that mindset of how we make sure that we’re building those solutions for our community. If we’re building a solution for a farmer in Jos, we can’t think the way a product person in Toronto would think because they don’t have the same understanding of what that problem is; they don’t have the same understanding of who the end user is,” Mbachu said during the 2025 World Product Day, organised by Innovate Africa Fund in Lagos.
According to her, World Product Day Lagos is about supporting young entrepreneurs to find problems within their communities, build solutions for those problems, and scale those solutions. “At Innovate Africa Foundation, our work is really about building the innovation ecosystem across the continent.”
Olu Adebiyi, head of products at Moniepoint, said the day is important because it helps product managers, CEOs to understand what is happening within their ecosystem. According to him, World Product Day helps in showcasing new trends happening around product design and development across Africa.
“So, instead of you staying in your bubble, you can see how other companies are also evolving and you can learn one or two from them,” Adebiyi said, disclosing that builders have to figure out the pain they are trying to solve for the consumers.
As part of efforts to deepen and promote innovation in the product space, finalists in the hackathon competition were given 5-minute launch pitches to highlight problems and solicit funding to scale their ideas.
“We look at getting the $100,000 for this hackathon in supporting our solution because we believe everyone needs a good healthcare system, a drug that they can trust and use. And that is why we believe this opportunity could help us achieve that purpose and vision,” Damilola Ogunniyi, lead, Team 9, who are out to address counterfeiting of drugs in Nigeria.
Ogunniyi, who operates out of Lagos, disclosed that the team participated in the Hackathon because of the need to reach wider consumers with its VerimedAI, which leverages artificial intelligence and blockchain in addressing counterfeit drugs.
However, Team 3:from South Africa won the $100, 000 prize money with their pitched solution: AddressMe, a web app that formalises non-traditional settlements by getting them accurately located on Google Maps, to cut traveling time and costs of acquiring a legitimate proof of residence by 100 percent.
Team members are Lucy Kgware (team leader/researcher), Thina Mathebula (partnership lead/engineer), Phumla Makhoba (designer), Sicelo Shange (communication lead), and Lerato Masanga (tech lead).
The day also included a workshop on customer discovery by Nkem Nweke, focused on hands-on customer discovery and best practices for product operators. Also, product managers’ roundtable focused on ‘Exploring the challenges and opportunities with product driven development in this ecosystem’ anchored by Sefunmi Osinaike and James Nelson.
