The 2022 AAG aims to promote digital skills for inclusion & employment, encourage entrepreneurship and startups through legislation
Several top players in Africa’s innovation ecosystem have pledged their commitments to be part of the 7th AfriLabs Annual Gathering (AAG), scheduled to take place in Lusaka, Zambia from the 26th to the 28th of October, 2022 with the theme, “Intra-Africa Connectivity, Collaboration and Innovation”.
These partners include: Mozilla, AfreximBank, GIZ Make-IT, Africa Union, GIZ-AU, International Trade Centre (ITC), Venture Capitalists for Africa (VC4A), Wylde International, Zanaco Plc., Flourish Ventures, Briter Bridges, Africa Business Heroes (ABH) and GIZ-PAU. Others include Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD), Accelerated Growth for SMEs (AGS), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Intel, Emirates Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Meta (Facebook) and Brienze and Lloyds Aviation. The mass media is not left behind as TechCabal and Radio Phoenix have also signed up as press partners.
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According to AfriLabs Executive Director, Anna Ekelodo, “Africa’s innovation ecosystem is at a critical stage of development and in order to facilitate the progression into the next stage, relevant stakeholders need to be deliberate and strategic with collaborative efforts within and across the continent. At AfriLabs, we are always delighted to work with new and existing partners in our commitment to enabling a thriving innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa, powered by our community.”
Matthias Rehfeld, Head of program, Make-IT in Africa stated the following about their participation at this year’s AAG, “Only collective action and joint investment can challenge the gaps, barriers and protectionism that stand in the way of African innovation. Make-IT in Africa is delighted to collaborate with partners like AfriLabs who believe in the power and work towards truly interconnected pan-African innovation ecosystems. With our support to this year’s Gathering, we wish to underline the central role of women in strengthening environments where innovation can thrive – not only, but especially when it comes to leadership – and advocate for intra-Africa collaboration and connectivity that taps into the female powerhouse.”
Also, Chris Odongo, CEO Wylde International stated that, “Wylde International ltd is very glad to be here to participate in the AfriLabs Annual Gathering in Lusaka, Zambia. We are delighted to share with hubs across Africa a data backed process that they can use to achieve entrepreneurship support success. The process is called “SCALE” and has been used by organisations all over the world delivering growth to the enterprises connected to their hubs.”
The AAG is the flagship event of AfriLabs, the largest network of technology and innovation hubs in Africa, and this year, will feature panel sessions, an ecosystem tour and a MetGala night among other activities. All these are geared towards sparking connectivity and collaboration among key innovation leaders from all over the continent. AfriLabs will also be launching several new initiatives birthed from the network. As a thought leadership organisation and a convening platform to accelerate innovation in Africa, AfriLabs has successfully put together a white paper that outlines ten innovation policy areas for African Governments to contemplate. The proposed policy pathways which will be launched during the 2022 AAG aims to promote digital skills for inclusion & employment, encourage entrepreneurship and startups through legislation, and create an enabling environment to attract investments among other objectives. The AfriLabs Policy Pathways highlight the voices of innovators, entrepreneurs, hubs and other stakeholders across Africa on what innovation policy priorities should be.
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Furthermore, AfriLabs has reached new heights on the journey of digital transformation. Based on its 10-year growth and transformation strategy, AfriLabs has created a digital platform that unites all the stakeholders in Africa’s innovation ecosystem under one umbrella. The platform, AfriConnect, will be one place with the ability for Startups, Hubs, Corporates, Government Agencies, NGOs and other ecosystem stakeholders to connect, network, collaborate, learn, share and transact. In the future, this will transform into a marketplace, intending to bridge the divide between African communities, the technology & innovation ecosystem, and trade & research while fostering accredited information sharing.
Arjuna Costa, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures commented, “We are thrilled to be sponsoring such a distinguished and influential event in the African tech space. AfriLabs, which focuses on building a community and empowering tech founders and entrepreneurs across all of the rapidly emerging tech hubs in Africa, fits perfectly with the ideology of our new Africa-focused pre-seed investment program. We appreciate the role that institutions such as AfriLabs play in encouraging innovative solutions to boost Africa’s burgeoning entrepreneurial spirit, and we are looking forward to partnering and helping accelerate AfriLabs‘ ongoing impact.”
Alice Munyua, Senior Director, Africa Innovation and public policy program – Mozilla, stated that, “At Mozilla, our mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the web, ensuring that the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. We are excited to be part of the AfriLabs Gathering as we connect with startups, entrepreneurs, and other players within the tech ecosystem on the continent. Through one of our programmes, Lean Data Practices, we will be exploring privacy and good data management with the aim of boosting startup and entrepreneurs’ capacity on security and data governance.”
Commenting on partnering with AfriLabs, Zanaco Plc Head Client Solutions, Marketing and Corporate Communications Chanda Katongo said, “Zanaco Plc is pleased to partner with AfriLabs at this year’s Annual Gathering. As an organisation driving a digital first strategy, we believe that partnerships such as this and our presence at the Afrilabs Annual Gathering will support in accelerating our digital drive”.
Milou Van Bruggen, Associate Programme Officer (JPO) – Tech Sector Development Africa, International Trade Centre – United Nations stated that, “ITC is excited to participate in the 2022 AfriLabs Annual Gathering at Lusaka. Under the FastTrackTech Africa project, which now falls under ITC’s new Switch ON initiative, ITC has done a lot of work supporting the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in 7 Sub-saharan African countries – one of which is Zambia – over the past few years. In our work, we partner with and assist many business support organisations with a focus on tech hubs as they are the spill of the tech entrepreneurship ecosystems in Africa. We are supporting tech hub managers from Ghana, Ethiopia, Senegal and Uganda to come to Lusaka for the Gathering and host a workshop on the Tech Entrepreneurship ecosystem drivers in Zambia. We are looking forward to being part of this great impactful event!”
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