At 20 years old, Emmanuel Njovu is thinking about solutions to curb the growth of digital fraud. 

Mobile money has transformed how many Africans transact and do business. Cross-border and informal traders, business owners, farmers, and urban, peri-urban, and rural communities increasingly depend on it to move money fluidly through economies. But this shift has also created new vulnerabilities. Rising rates of digital scams have left thousands of people exposed, with many losing hard-earned income to cybercriminals. 

Emmanuel began hearing these stories while still in school. He became increasingly concerned about how easily people could be defrauded and started thinking about detection systems and about what security could look like if it were proactive. 

His answer is ZED Shield, an AI-powered security system designed to detect digital threats and strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure. At first, he saw it as a small solution. However, that perspective shifted after spending time at the Mukuba University Innovation Pod (UniPod). “Being here broadened how I see it,” he says. 

From Lusaka Province, he applied to join the UniPod’s RootLab Ignite programme and made his way to the Copperbelt for the week-long bootcamp focused on turning early-stage ideas into scalable products. His perspective began to be shaped by exposure to a more structured innovation environment where he developed his idea technically and examined in terms of their scalability and real-world application. 

Many strong ideas rarely scale on clarity alone, they need structure and support for refinement – this is where the Mukuba UniPod enters the picture. Through initiatives like RootLab Ignite, the innovation pod strengthens the skills of young innovators like Emmanuel by connecting them to mentors, peer innovators, and world-class equipment to prototype, test, and refine solutions for scale.