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How we responded to COVID-19
Most of Africa started shutting down in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the entire continent, including the innovation ecosystem, felt the economic and psychological fallouts that followed. Many jobs were lost as many businesses struggled to stay afloat. This gave rise to a few premeditated and mostly reactionary responses by governments, corporate organisations and international bodies to cushion the effect of the lockdowns. From ‘virtually everything’ to mobilizing resources with our partners for the ecosystem
At AfriLabs, we immediately moved all our planned programmes and activities online. This included our ongoing Capacity Building Programme and Annual Gathering. Next, we started mapping our innovation responses and interventions to the COVID-19 pandemic, building a database that allowed the entire ecosystem add and/or access COVID-19 information, opportunities and innovation across the continent. We called this platform covidtech.africa. Mapping of the African Ecosystem response to the COVID-19 pandemic Covidtech.Africa
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The entire Africa and even the world has not in over 100 years had to pause everything for months. These are unprecedented times caused by the impact of the pandemic and we have to support each other with resources and information, especially entrepreneurs, startups and SMEs across the continent; that’s why we built covidtech.africa.
Joshua Omena .A. Communications Lead, AfriLabs
2020: A Resilient Africa: An annual report of AfriLabs impact
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