The Africa Innovation Summit (AIS) has announced the innovators from across the continent that had been selected to exhibit their solutions at the forum.
The AIS which serves as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and a catalyst for coalition and action towards building robust innovation ecosystems in Africa, will this year focus on innovation as a tool to address Africa’s most pressing challenges.
“An important aspect of AIS 2018 will focus on profiling and supporting solutions that are already examples of how Africa is addressing her challenges with new and innovative thinking. As such, AIS 2018 Innovation Track and Exhibition is an integral part of the Summit,” AIS said.
The exhibition will not only showcase innovations but home-grown innovations on the continent.
“It is heartwarming to see so many Africans engaged in trying to find solutions to the pressing challenges facing the continent. The hope which we have is to build the AIS into a platform that will support innovators, refine the ideas and scale them up across Africa and the World,” director of the AIS, Dr Olugbenga Adesida said.
“Also important, we need all Africans, especially those with the power to act, to actively engage in building innovation-driven societies in Africa.”
Over 600 innovation submissions were received from 44 African countries this including Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Gambia, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Congo, Comoros, Mozambique, Lesotho and Namibia, to name a few, with the majority being submitted from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ghana and Tanzania.
The AIS partnered with transformation consultancy Enterpriseroom who specialises in starting, sustaining and accelerating enterprises, to drive the sourcing and selection process.
“The evaluation process was extremely thorough, and we are grateful for the valuable support of a panel of 25 leading African experts from across all sectors and regions, who served as evaluators in the review process. We ensured that we had French speaking sector experts vetting the francophone countries to ensure that every application received an equal chance in the process,” Enterpriseroom CEO, Tracey Webster said.
Other sponsors of the Innovation Summit include the Government of Rwanda, Government of Cabo Verde, the European Union, Luxembourg, African Development Bank, Development Bank of Southern Africa, NEPAD, United Nations Development Programme and Accenture.
The Summit will take place from 6 to 8 June 2018. (via African News Agency)
