Tackling Open Innovation Challenges in Africa
It promises to be one of the hottest tickets in open innovation, a chance for innovators to create and seize opportunities that will boost Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
When the Open Innovation Africa Summit rolls into Nairobi, Kenya at the end of this month thought leaders, policy makers and innovators from more than 25 countries are expected to be in attendance. They’ll be focusing their brainpower on how to harness the opportunities that lie ahead for the continent.
The summit’s theme is Leadership for innovation and will zero in on four key areas:
• Technology/Innovation Financing
• The Mobile Information Society
• eTransformation
• The Ecosystem for Innovation
As part of the pre-summit buzz a competition was launched, the Open Innovation Africa Ideas Challenge (OIAS2 from Ideas to Innovation). This mass brainstorm on the IdeasProject crowdsourcing platform asked participants to come up with a method, tool or practice to help turn ideas in Africa into successful businesses.
The global contest is sponsored by Nokia, infoDev and Capgemini and ideas are currently being assessed. The three best ideators will be invited to the summit on May 28-30 to present their ideas.
Open Innovation Momentum
The conference will build on the success of the inaugural Open Innovation Africa Summit, organized in December 2010, by continuing to promote the benefits of collaboration and to celebrate and develop African innovation leadership models.
For many African countries such as Kenya, the conference comes at an important time, as they set about transforming into knowledge-based economies. For example, this is an aspiration recognised in Kenya’s development blueprint, Kenya Vision 2030.
Reader Comments
Please, are you taking innovative ideas in the sector of energy? I have a great world changing Idea/Concept, new-of-its-kind.
Posted by Joseph Sambu on May 10, 2012
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