Tokyo, April 27, 2026 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) has launched an initiative to strengthen collaboration with African startups and address social challenges such as agriculture and food security. The newly established "Africa Corporate Innovation Program" is in addition to NEC’s existing global startup accelerator, the "NEC Innovation Challenge", and is designed to further strengthen partnerships with startups. The program will be jointly designed and implemented by the UK-based Shell Foundation charity (Note 1) and the Double Feather Partners (Note 2, hereafter DFP) venture capital firm.

NEC has been working to achieve sustainable agriculture and stronger food security in Africa by combining its advanced technological capabilities with practical insights gained from global business operations, including the provision of data-driven farming solutions.

NEC has hosted the NEC Innovation Challenge since 2022 to promote co-creation with global startups. In 2024 and 2025, NEC also participated in Project NINJA (Note 3) for building startup ecosystems for innovation creation in developing countries, led by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) (Note 4), further advancing open innovation globally.

Building on these initiatives, NEC began implementing the Africa Corporate Innovation Program this April in collaboration with Shell Foundation, the UK registered charity empowering underserved customers to raise their incomes while lowering emissions with funding by the UK Government via the Research on Infrastructure in Developing Economies (RIDE) program and DFP, which has strong capabilities in local co-creation design and business scaling support in Africa.

Through this program, startups capable of addressing key challenges in Africa will be selected and will collaborate with NEC and partners to conduct proof-of-concept (PoC) demonstration projects that leverage the strengths of each party. Based on the outcomes of these projects, the initiative will also explore mid- to long-term business development and strategic partnerships, aiming to establish sustainable co-creation models.

Program Overview

The program leverages NEC’s ICT platform "CropScope" to build agricultural technologies, including farm to market logistics solutions, while conducting proof-of-concept (PoC) trials with African startups to establish evidence for longer-term commercial partnerships and expansion across African markets.

Schedule

Masayuki Furukawa

Director, Private Sector Development Group
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

"JICA has been continuously conducting cooperation in collaboration with private-sector partners with the aim of strengthening startup ecosystems in Africa and enhancing collaboration between African and Japanese companies.

"This initiative holds significant value where it leverages the experience and knowledge accumulated through the Next Innovation with Japan (NINJA) project promoted by JICA, with the expectation of contributing further to Africa’s economic development. JICA supports the idea that private companies take the lead in addressing social challenges in Africa and building mutually beneficial relationships.

"Furthermore, JICA hopes that this initiative will encourage more Japanese companies to participate in similar efforts, thereby further expanding collaboration between startups in Japan and Africa. JICA will continue its cooperation through Project NINJA and will support promoting initiatives of this kind going forward."

Jonathan Berman

CEO
Shell Foundation

"Raising incomes for people on low incomes while supporting a low carbon pathway requires more than good ideas – it requires partnerships that bring together capital, technology and local entrepreneurial expertise. Through the Africa Corporate Innovation Program, Shell Foundation is using catalytic funding to reduce the risk of collaboration and, together with our partner Double Feather Partners, help global corporates like NEC work alongside African startups to test, learn and build solutions that can scale and evolve into sustainable business partnerships. Our role is to make these partnerships possible, prove what works in practice and help unlock much larger flows of capital into inclusive, climate-smart markets."

Kohei Muto

Representative Director & CEO
Double Feather Partners

"Social challenges in Africa should no longer be viewed merely as development issues; they represent the frontier of one of the world’s fastest-evolving innovation markets. This program serves as an implementation platform that connects the technological strengths of Japanese companies with the field-driven innovation capabilities of African startups.

"DFP will design and support mechanisms that connect PoC initiatives to investment opportunities and business scale-up, maximizing NEC’s business expansion and social impact creation in Africa. In collaboration with the Shell Foundation, DFP will also support the development of sustainable business models from the perspectives of impact investment and blended finance.

"Through this initiative, we aim to build a new co-creation model between Japan and Africa, enabling a seamless pathway from demonstration projects to capital linkage and ultimately to business value creation."


NEC is scheduled to present background on this project at the "SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026" innovation conference, held from April 27th (Monday) to 29th (Wednesday), 2026. Please see below for details.

Title: Beyond Capital: Building Japan–Africa Innovation Through Co-Creation and Investment
Date and Time: April 27th (Monday), 5:05PM-5:50PM
Location: Investor’s Stage, West 3-4 Hall 4F (Upper Floor), Tokyo Big Sight
Participating Companies:
Double Feather Partners, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Shell Foundation, NEC, Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa (IDC), and Absa Bank

Under the key message "The future is ours to shape," NEC drives "NEC Open Innovation" (Note 5) in new business development through diverse co-creation with startups and partner companies. The Africa Corporate Innovation Program is part of that effort, and by combining cutting-edge technologies with cross-sector collaboration, NEC continues to generate new social value and shape the future.

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Notes

About NEC
The NEC Group leverages technology to create social value and promote a more sustainable world where everyone has the chance to reach their full potential. NEC Corporation was established in 1899. Today, the NEC Group’s approximately 110,000 employees utilize world-leading AI, security, and communications technologies to solve the most pressing needs of customers and society.

For more information, please visit https://www.nec.com, and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube.