The Symbiotic Relationship between Hubs and Tertiary Institutions

Study.com defines symbiosis as 'a close, long-term interaction between two different species' and 'a cooperative relationship (as between two persons or groups).'



There are many types of symbiotic relationships that occur in nature. In many cases, both species benefit from the interaction.

With innovation hubs spreading across the country, some of these hubs tend to grow at an amazing rate, while others die within the first six months.

There are various reasons why some of these hubs succeed and fail; some might be because of the location, others fail because the founders get it wrong from the inception. You might have the perfect location to start a hub and you would still fail.

In this article, I am going to be sharing tips and tricks on how hubs can form a mutualistic symbiotic relationship with tertiary institutions so you can have a vibrant and innovative hub.

1. Money shouldn't be your ultimate goal in the beginning:

Using nHub as a case study, Interns and students from various institution across the continent come here to get world-class training for free by the best developers. This internship could last 3 or 6 months or 1 year.

As a hub owner or founder, your focus in the beginning of the relationship should how you can provide these students with valuable skills they can use to transform their lives and community and like Ralph Waldo Emerson said "You cannot sincerely try to help another without helping yourself", by helping these students because valuable, you increase the value of your hub to their tertiary institutions and communities.

2. Encourage creativity in the hub

Creativity is the use of one's own imagination or idea to create something. As a hub owner of founder, this should be your focal point. This can be achieved by having the interns work on real life projects that can solve real life problems in their institutions and communities.

3. Organize mini-hackathons

To stimulate their minds and have them think, you can organize hackathons for them to compete among themselves . This would go a long way in encouraging deep thinking and creativity.

4. Reward Excellence

Always reward interns that brings unique solutions to problems you face in the communities, institutions or the hub in general. This will encourage other interns to work harder and be more creative.

5. Allow the best Interns to accelerate new Interns.

This works in two ways, first it would spark an interest in the new interns when they see their mates doing amazing stuffs. Secondly, it would help save valuable time by letting your team concentrate on other projects in the hub.

6. Be open to criticism 

Critics help us do better. By opening your mind to criticism, you learn new and better ways of doing the same things in the hub.

Here at nhub, we are trying to build the best ecosystem in Africa and we understand that this can only be done by listening to advice that can make us become better. We have a very interactive relationship with our interns as we are always engaging them on how we can make things better.

By adhering to the tips above, you get exposed to the following advantages:


1. You have access to the best minds from these institutions.
2. You create value by helping the interns become valuable.
3. You create brand ambassadors(these interns will tell your story).
4. They leave with your core objectives and values
5. They could become future staffs of the hub(they already know and live your objectives and values).
6. Access to tons of solutions from different minds.
7. Unlimited traffic.

As a community manager at nHub, I must say the above tips have help us become better and I am certain they can help you too.

A version of this article first appeared on Bashir Sheidu's Blog and has been posted here by the permission of the author.