Invitation to Global Ideas Exchange: Enhancing Innovative Resilience in Africa – 19 to 29 October 2020, Online

Register here.

The Global Ideas Exchange Series is the first in a series of new activities designed to respond to the impact of Covid-19 and support resilience and recovery in African innovation ecosystems. We hope to encourage sharing and learning and aim to showcase the latest ideas and best practice in innovation.

Who should attend?

This event series is an inclusive platform for innovators, innovation enablers, investors, industry leaders, academia, the public sector and global innovation community to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and enable inclusive, multi-scalar approaches to resilience.

We have partnered with AfriLabs, CcHub, and the South African Technology and Innovation Agency, while also reaching out to other international partners to collect experience data, case studies and best practice from 23 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa.

What are our aims?

• To share the findings of our rapid analysis and provide inclusive platforms to drive constructive discussions around key findings and clearer information around public sector offerings
• To ensure participation from diverse innovation stakeholders in the UK, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and from around the world in building frameworks for future cooperation
• To launch inclusive communities of practice that can actively support more robust and effective investment pipelines in Africa
• To improve visibility of existing connections and develop new avenues for communication between policy makers and innovation enablers

 Networking opportunities

We will provide excellent networking opportunities from the 19th-25th and also the 26th October outside of the webinar times where you will be able to register for 1-to-1 meetings scheduled by the Meeting Mojo partnering platform.

About the KTN Global Alliance Africa Project

KTN’s Global Alliance Africa is a six-year project co-funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), and with the strategic partnership of Innovate UK, to drive networking activities that can help foster long-lasting, strategic partnerships between Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, the UK and across sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so, it aims to accelerate innovations that promote economic growth and job creation. As Covid-19 rapidly started sweeping the globe, KTN’s Global Alliance Africa project quickly shifted its activities to track and map the innovation response to the pandemic in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. KTN’s Global Ideas Exchange event series is our way of responding to these calls.

Fireside Chats – Monday 26 – Wednesday 28 October 2020

Africa has some of the fastest-growing technology ecosystems in the world. One of the core drivers of the accelerated increase in the number of technology-enabled companies is the proliferation of early-stage capital providers deploying catalytic funding. These early-stage investors play a critical role in the ecosystem and provide the boost these businesses need to attract growth and expansion capital. However, there are many obstacles faced by these investors in deploying capital.

We have curated a series of fireside chats aimed at discussing some of these challenges and hopefully, unearthing implementable solutions. The fireside chats will focus on early-stage investments and later-stage investors from Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa covering potential areas of collaboration between the early-stage and later-stage investors and the current challenges experienced by the later stage investors in making investments in companies that had previously received funding from the early-stage investors.

Enhancing Innovative Resilience in Africa Summit – Thursday 29 October 2020

The Global Ideas Exchange Summit will serve to wrap up the series and bring together participants from government, academia, private finance, industry, hubs, labs, NGOs, MSMEs, as well as individual innovators and entrepreneurs, to reflect upon series’ outcomes and highlight any key case studies, thought leadership, and takeaways, to have developed over the past month of activities.

Wrap-up Presentation

In this short session, KTN Global Alliance Team will share its lessons learnt, takeaways from the event, and launch its activities for the coming year.

Invited Keynote Speakers

Alicia Greated, CEO, KTN

Real, lasting change happens when we work together.  KTN exists to connect innovators with new partners and new opportunities to drive positive change. The Global Ideas Exchange Event Series will bring together people and organisations globally to ensure our innovation systems are resilient and fit for recovery given the impact of Covid-19. I am very excited about this initiative and look forward to the outcomes and making a valuable difference. 

Final Panel

Featuring panellists from the week’s activities to discuss outcomes and next steps.

Register for this exciting event series here.

View the event brochure here.

View the rapid analysis document here.

Watch our launch video for more information on the event!

We hope to see you online!

Register here.