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A lot of literature has been generated showing the high unemployment rate in Africa and especially among the youth aged between 18 and 35 years. This glaring state of unemployment among the youth, including many educated graduates, has led them, in the course of time to despair, disillusionment, and consequent susceptibility to their involvement in anti-social behaviour including crime. For instance, the infamous radicalisation of the youth and great insecurity threats that come with this as currently being experienced in Libya, Mali, Nigeria, the Lake Chad Basin, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo as advanced by Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and affiliates are all related to unemployment challenges. Additionally, the Arab Spring in North Africa experienced in 2010, as well as the xenophobic insurgences in South Africa, South Sudan, Nigeria, and in other countries across the continent, have all been attributed to youth unemployment and disillusionment. As a way of intervention, the African Union declared a decade of youth empowerment between 2008 and 2019 which set the tempo for countries, organisations, and agencies across the continent in coming up with mitigation measures. Motivated by this spirit of assisting the youth towards a mindset change to be job and wealth creators and not job-seekers, Mount Kenya University (MKU) established the Graduate Enterprise Academy (GEA) in 2013. This chapter showcases the double-pronged approach adopted by MKU, an ISO 9001:2015 certified university in East Africa, towards promotion of entrepreneurial mindset among the youth in Africa through the GEA. More specifically, in collaboration with leading indigenous institutions and agencies in Kenya, the GEA was established in MKU in 2013 with a clear mandate of promoting youth-driven enterprises throughout the country and across the continent. More recently, since 2017, in collaboration with the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO, Leuphana University of Germany, and other stakeholders, MKU has embraced the Students Training for Entrepreneurial Promotion (STEP). STEP has thus been rolled out by MKU as a co-curriculum activity for undergraduate students as well as for training youth outside universities at various counties in Kenya. The STEP and GEA initiatives at MKU are presented in this chapter as a case study in terms of their implementation, strengths, challenges, and recommendations for possible replication and up-scaling to cover the entire continent.

The rise of the digital economy has led to a focus on how to manage big data and business intelligence for entrepreneurial purposes. The aim of this chapter is to discuss how to plan for open innovative ecosystems that harness the potential of new data analytics techniques in order to progress society. This means concentrating on the increasingly complex world of data analytics in order to derive information about potential entrepreneurial opportunities. The role of knowledge management in influencing an open innovation ecosystem predicated on big data and computing acumen is stated. This helps to understand how the future of the global economy relies on an open data policy that encourages the sharing and dissemination of information. Implications for managers are also suggested that emphasize the role of innovation ecosystems, data and government.

This chapter integrates organization design and sustainability concepts to describe an accelerated transformational change at the Fairview Medical Group (United States).

A case study of the transformation at Fairview Medical Group’s primary care clinics was developed from interviews and first-person accounts of the change. Objective data regarding outcomes was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the redesign process.

The Fairview Medical Group developed an innovation and change capability to transform 35 primary care clinics in six months. All of the clinics were certified by the state of Minnesota as complying with their healthcare standards. Clinical outcomes, costs, and employee and physician engagement also increased. All of the improved measures are sustained.

Healthcare reform in the United States struggles because the organization design challenges are great and the change difficulties even greater. Fairview’s experience provides important evidence and lessons that can help advance our understanding of effective healthcare and create more sustainable healthcare systems. This chapter provides healthcare system administrators evidence and alternatives in the pursuit of implementation.

Introduction: In recent years, fresh big data ideas and concepts have emerged to address the massive increase in data volumes in several commercial areas. Meanwhile, the phenomenal development of internet use and social media has not only added to the enormous volumes of data available but has also posed new hurdles to traditional data processing methods. For example, the insurance industry is known for being data-driven, as it generates massive volumes of accumulated material, both structured and unstructured, that typical data processing techniques can’t handle.

Purpose: In this study, the authors compare the benefits of big data technologies to the needs for insurance data processing and decision-making. There is also a case study evaluation concentrating on the primary use cases of big data in the insurance business.

Methodology: This chapter examines the essential big data technologies and tools from the insurance industry’s perspective. The study also included an analytical analysis that supported several gains made by insurance companies, such as more efficient processing of large, heterogeneous data sets or better decision-making support. In addition, the study examines in depth the top seven use cases of big data in insurance and justifying their use and adding value. Finally, it also reviewed contemporary big data technologies and tools, concentrating on their key concepts and recommended applications in the insurance business through examples.

Findings: The study has demonstrated the value of implementing big data technologies and tools, which enable the development of powerful new business models, allowing insurance to advance from ‘understand and protect’ to ‘predict and prevent’.

This study assess how governments can nurture innovation activities by supporting the research of individual companies, establishing new networks for innovation activities, and by contributing to the general contextual factors supporting innovative behavior.

This chapter analyzes alternative possibilities for the governance of innovation support and develops a framework to evaluate the governance of innovation support activities provided by a national innovation agency.

The framework is developed by analyzing how the governance principles in various national innovation systems have emerged when the countries have pursued low-carbon innovation strategies.

This chapter empirically shows a need to broaden the perspective on what can be expected from an adaptive innovation system, as well as the new types of arrangements facing public-private innovation collaboration.

This chapter explores new opportunities for the research community to further the understanding of how to apply various governance mechanisms in different contexts of innovation support especially relating to multi-level governance and co-governing.