The British Council has announced Nigeria’s Job Oyebisi and Malawi’s mHub as overall joint winners of its inaugural global #IdeasChangeLives innovation challenge.

Ghana’s Joseph Sam came out as a runner-up with his innovation, a police assistance app called DigiCop.

The challenge sought to find hyper-innovative ideas that can help solve any of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The joint winners will each receive GBP 20,000 and mentoring to take their products live.

The proposal from Ghana, DigiCop, was highly commended and will receive GBP10,000 to develop a business plan to use AI technology to improve access to police for Ghana's 19 million mobile phone users.

Ghana’s police to citizen ratio is 1:848 compared to the UN’s recommendation of 1:500.

The three proposals were drawn from over 2000 entries from people and organisations around the world.

#IdeasChangeLives is part of a series of initiatives led by the British Council to support creativity and innovation among young people. The two winners get support to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

If the MVP is successful, the British Council will work with the winners to seek partnerships to help scale-up the MVP across its network, in more than 100 countries. #IdeasChangeLiveswas judged by a panel of international business leaders.

They selected proposals that have promise for life-changing solutions and has the potential to improve hundreds of thousands of lives through digital engagement.

Sir Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive, British Council commented: “Technology, and the rapid increase in connected devices worldwide, offers new opportunities to tackle world problems. This competition has highlighted both the resourcefulness of digitally capable people around the globe and their desire to solve the issues in their regions.

“The British Council is proud to enable the development of these winning ideas, and their potential to improve lives.”

Vikas Shah, Judge, and Chief Executive, Swiscot Group said, “Policing is not only done with the consent, but with collaboration and DigiCop enables the latter with innovation, and great consideration of the needs of police and citizens alike; this idea could revolutionise communities.”