The Africa Innovation Summit (AIS), which will take place from 6-8 June 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, under the esteemed patronage of His Excellencies President Paul Kagame and Pedro Pires (ex-President of Cabo Verde), announced a call for applications to innovators across Africa whose solutions have the potential to solve the continent’s challenges.
The summit seeks innovative and disruptive solutions to the major challenges facing African countries, which include energy access, water, food insecurity, health systems, and governance.
As a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and actions, AIS will feature Heads of States and Governments, Ministers, corporates’, innovators, investors, policy makers and academics, researchers, as well as policy, science and technology experts, with the aim of building robust ecosystems for innovation in Africa to ensure Africa’s structural transformation.
Dr. Olugbenga Adesida; Co-Director of AIS, indicated that AIS provides more than a robust and dynamic platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue, but rather a catalyst for ‘Made in Africa’ innovations that are already addressing the challenges faced on the continent.
The AIS has partnered with Enterprise Room; a transformation consultancy specializing in starting, sustaining, and accelerating businesses, to drive the sourcing and selection of up to 50 innovations across the continent, to be showcased at the Summit.
Eligibility for the Africa Innovation Summit
AIS is therefore calling all African innovators to apply for this opportunity not later than Friday, 30th March 2018. The innovators selected must meet the following criteria:
- African-based and operating from one or more African countries.
- Founded and managed by African nationals.
- Either for profit, non-profit or hybrid entities (i.e. social enterprises).
- Solving one or more challenges that directly affect Africa in the following sectors (and/or any related value chains): Food security and agriculture, Energy, Water and Sanitation, Healthcare, and Governance.
- Scalable: A solution that has the capability and potential to be enlarged and replicated to extend the reach of its mandate.
- Innovative: A solution that addresses a challenge in a new and different way often through a simpler and more effective means.
The identified innovators will meet influential people, policy makers, and investors who are ready to discuss Africa’s development challenges and ways to solve them. They will also have the opportunity to interact with like-minded African innovators and change agents who are driving a new era of change in Africa.
