Stop Calling It Innovation If Young People Aren’t Leading It
BADU GLOBAL 30 followers August 14, 2025 When most people hear “innovation,” they imagine start-ups, apps, or engineers pitching to investors. When they hear “community,” they think grassroots programmes, youth clubs, or cultural events.
Rarely do we put the two together. And that’s the problem. It reinforces the idea that innovation is only for the “qualified” or the “resourced.” Not for the young person experimenting with friends on a football pitch.
At BADU , we see it differently. Real innovation starts with people—and sport becomes a powerful vehicle to ignite it. Our weekly sport development workshops are more than just activities. They are safe, consistent spaces where young people build trust, grow networks, and start to see possibilities beyond the limits of their environment. The missing piece in youth development isn’t more resources or technology it’s a place to dream, experiment, and lead. Sport provides all of this: structure, rules, teamwork, and freedom all at once. As Dr Nana Badu often says, “When you are closer to the problem, you are closer to the solution.”
This is social innovation—ideas built and owned by the people living the challenge every day. And for many, it begins on the pitch. Look around the world, and young people are already proving it works. In Southern Africa, Grassroot Soccer uses football to co-create HIV and wellbeing campaigns with young people leading the way. streetfootballworld operates globally, designing projects that tackle unemployment, inclusion, and gender equality.
In Kibera, Kenya, CFK Africa’s TechCraft DigiHub has turned football pitches into coding and digital media labs, where young people learn entrepreneurship while playing the game. In Kenya and Uganda, Soccer Without Borders blends football hubs with literacy, trauma support, and life skills for displaced communities. Sport becomes more than a game—it becomes a laboratory for ideas, leadership, and community change.
West Africa, particularly, the Government of Ghana is starting to recognise the power of youth-led innovation. Policy alone cannot work in silo. What young people need are trusted spaces where they can experiment, make mistakes, and lead. That’s what BADU provides. Through weekly sport sessions, mentoring, and workshops, we give young people the tools—and the confidence—to test ideas, take risks, and imagine futures that are otherwise invisible. Innovation always starts with people. The examples above prove it: it doesn’t wait for labs, funding, or boardrooms. It happens where young people spot challenges first, co-create solutions, and build leadership and skills inside their own communities. Sport is the vehicle, but the young people are the drivers. Safe spaces, consistent engagement, and mentorship turn curiosity into leadership, potential into action, and the pitch into a launchpad for ideas that can transform communities. That’s why, week in and week out, over 130 young people aged 10 to 18 show up.
A local workforce of community leaders are already there to spot potential in every single athlete, bridging gaps that resources alone cannot fix. All it takes is trust,
space, and guidance—and suddenly, the next generation of innovators is already on the field, ready to change the world. When we start with people, innovation isn’t a luxury. It’s inevitable. And when youth are trusted to lead, there are no limits to what they can imagine, build, or achieve—whether locally, across West Africa, or anywhere in the world. Trust young people, give them space, and they’ll turn the game into the future.
