Join the Youth Innovation Playbook Workshop Series, a focused programme supporting the Africa Europe Innovation Platform by translating shared priorities into practical, youth-led innovation outcomes.
Programme Overview
Within this framework, The Youth Café has developed the Youth Innovation Playbook, a practical and action-oriented toolkit designed to empower young innovators, facilitators, and institutions to co-create, implement, and scale solutions.
There will be a minimum of four workshops happening between January 14, 2026 to February 7, 2026 targeting young people, the civil society, and start ups.
The pilot workshops of the Youth Innovation Playbook are built around seven interconnected themes that guide participants through a holistic and outcome-driven innovation journey. They emphasise the importance of collaboration and peer learning to build durable cross-regional partnerships, while equipping youth with practical knowledge on intellectual property and idea protection.
By strengthening access to resources, the workshops connect participants to funding instruments, training opportunities, and innovation support mechanisms that enable concepts to move towards implementation. At the same time, they support participants to engage with policy processes, ensuring that youth-led innovation is embedded in enabling regulatory and institutional environments.
Focus on Practical Skills & Sustainability
Practical skill-building is central, with sessions designed to build the capacity to innovate and foster resilience through iterative experimentation, where ideas are tested, refined, and adapted. Finally, the workshops prioritise sustainability and measurable impact, guiding participants to design solutions that deliver long-term benefits for communities and ecosystems across Africa and Europe.
Workshop Themes
This special edition focuses on co-creating and piloting the Youth Innovation Playbook across Africa and Europe to drive:
climate resilience & adaptation
sustainable energy & green transitions
health & wellbeing
food systems & agriculture
digital transformation & inclusive innovation
Registration Information
Register for the Youth Innovation Playbook workshops to:
Participate in a structured learning and co-creation process. Through facilitated sessions, gain practical skills that go beyond theory, with hands-on tools to design, test, and refine solutions.
Strengthen your innovation capacity and strategic positioning. Build practical knowledge aligned with climate resilience, clean energy transitions, and the AU–EU Innovation Agenda, while gaining insight into funding calls and innovation opportunities.
Build your network. Connect with youth innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, and policymakers from across Africa and Europe through collaborative sessions and peer exchange.
Increase visibility and recognition. Showcase your innovations to relevant organisations and stakeholders, and be recognised as part of the pilot cohort shaping the future of the Playbook.
Registration Details
Deadline: Tuesday, 14 January 2026 (2.00 pm CET)
Format: Online only (hybrid options will be available in future editions)
Cost: Free of charge
Eligibility: Open to all stakeholders across Africa, Europe, and beyond.
Background
The AU–EU Innovation Agenda, a 10-year strategic plan (2023–2033), is designed to strengthen Africa–Europe cooperation in science, technology, and innovation. It focuses on public health, green transition, innovation & technology, and research capacities, aiming to drive sustainable development, job creation, and poverty reduction.
The Youth Café is working within the AEIP to understand how these high-level frameworks can inspire action and how young people at different levels can better access, engage with, and draw value from the Agenda.
About the Youth Innovation Playbook
The Youth Innovation Playbook is a flagship resource developed under the AEIP to strengthen youth-led innovation ecosystems across Africa and Europe. The Playbook offers an accessible and actionable instrument to translate youth innovation ambition into practical guidance on how its principles can be applied to solve youth sector challenges like unemployment and poverty. More than a guide for creativity, it is a tool that equips young people with the skills to transform ideas into opportunities.
Specifically intended for young entrepreneurs, business support organisations, and youth-led organisations, it helps users assess and expand their awareness of innovative challenges, identify opportunities for improvement in youth empowerment systems, and contributes both directly and indirectly to job creation among youth by fostering innovation.
The Playbook allows for transversal assessments and interventions across civil society and is usable as an encompassing approach to organisational strategies for innovation.
Rooted in the principles of inclusivity, collaboration, and sustainability, this Playbook draws on insights from youth innovators, ecosystem actors, and research publications to address the systemic challenges hindering youth entrepreneurship and innovation.
It aligns with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024), both of which recognise innovation as a key driver for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and accelerating socio-economic transformation on the continent.
In joint action, it reflects the EU’s global approach to research and innovation and the AU–EU Innovation Agenda, which emphasises equitable partnerships, mutual learning, and joint action in fostering inclusive, sustainable innovation across both continents.
The Youth Innovation Playbook pilot workshops represent a crucial step in validating and refining a practical toolkit designed to empower young innovators across Africa and Europe using a human-centred approach. These workshops are structured around seven interconnected themes that ensure participants not only gain knowledge but also actively shape the Playbook into a resource that reflects their realities and aspirations.