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African Innovation Ecosystem Roundtables
2. Lack of connectivity (and digital fluency in general)
Access to the internet is fairly low across the majority of the continent which further excludes innovators, entrepreneurs and the general public from the connected world. In order to advance at a rapid pace, greater connectivity (coupled with an increased awareness of the digital space) is required in all regions.
Leading Products in 2020
1.
Product Category A here
2.
Product Category B here
3. Lack of access to finance
3.
Product Category C here
4.
Product Category D here
The African ecosystem has been deprived of funding and access to finance (compared to the developed world) and much more needs to be done to enable innovation, prototyping and testing through greater access to funds. This is further hampered by the lack of policies around investors and the uncertainties around how an investor can exit from a venture.
4. National silos
There is a growing need for African countries to open up their networks and opportunities to one another. The individual ecosystems are longing to learn from each other and to provide their innovators and entrepreneurs with access to other markets and regions. This can be kicked-off with focussing on regional collaboration to be evolved into a African wide collaboration. As mentioned during one of the discussions: “Africa needs to buy from Africa” (especially mentioned by both Gambia and Ghana) and in doing so, grow the regions and the continent.
3.2 Products
The most recent notable advancement in products came about as a response to the Covid-19 challenges and resulted in innovations in two main areas being:
● Supply chain/home deliveries mainly around improved deliveries for online or telephonically purchased goods, and
● Edutech mainly in expanding some existing online learning systems to a greater community of school children.
In both these areas, connectivity and access to affordable data has been the stumbling block resulting in sub-optimal growth and expansion.
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