Based on our surveys and interviews with participants, it is very evident that across regions, innovation is pervasive in Africa even though scalability has not been optimally executed. Product, process, marketing and organization method innovations are taking place in the continent and innovators are creating goods for local and international markets. There are stories of […]
11.0 – Sankofa Center of Excellence
Sankofa requires going back to the past, to get lessons and perspectives, which can help in building the future. It requires elements of memory and that means not forgetting the past even as the future is designed. Sankofa is a system and can be institutionalized. That institutionalization could involve a Center of Excellence (CoE) to […]
4.1 – The Rise of Startups in Africa
In the last five years, the rise of startups especially digital startups in Africa has been unprecedented. University graduates are finishing schools without the draw to look for regular jobs but rather to start companies and pursue the path of entrepreneurship. This is certainly good for the continent and it has been made possible because […]
4.0 – The Geography of innovation
Towards the end of the Middle Ages, merchants created a network of trading routes that went through cities like Hamburg and Bergen along the Baltic and North seas. In that early era of globalization, all those cities thrived. Today, though ships are still being loaded for world trade, the driver of wealth and globalization has […]
3.3 – What Can Africa Do?
Though the idea is that innovation is unbounded and can happen anywhere because of the ubiquitous processing power and shared knowledge made possible by new technologies, the reality is that innovation has a geographic component. The geography-relevance is not as in the scale of the old industrial economy that valued land as a key element […]