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African innovation: much to be done

Joanne Carew
By Joanne Carew, ITWeb Cape-based contributor.
Cape Town, 17 Nov 2015
Africa needs everyone from governments to the private sector making a concerted effort to boost and promote innovation, says Christian de Faria, CEO of Airtel Africa.
Africa needs everyone from governments to the private sector making a concerted effort to boost and promote innovation, says Christian de Faria, CEO of Airtel Africa.

We need to do more to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship across Africa. This was the introductory statement of the first keynote on day one of AfricaCom 2015, under way at the CTICC in Cape Town.

Creating an ecosystem that engenders a favourable climate for innovation is important, noted Christian de Faria, CEO of Airtel Africa. "But there is still a lot of work to be done. We need to see everyone from governments to the private sector making a concerted effort to boost and promote innovation."

Markku M"akel"ainen, director for global operators partnerships at Facebook, outlined how differing levels of access and stringent regulations can hamper this innovation. "Connectivity is ultimately the enabler for boosting innovation." Essentially, entrepreneurs need an audience and connectivity enables these small businesses to better reach their target audiences.

The situation in Africa differs from what is happening in other areas around the world, noted Bright Simons, president of mPedigree. While he admitted to having nothing against photo-sharing apps, he noted the general trend in Africa is to create applications and services that actually have a tangible impact on people's lives. And that is the difference.

Marc Rennard, EVP for Africa, Middle East and Asia at the Orange Group, shared this sentiment. Innovation coming out of Africa is intrinsically linked to the needs of the population. It is essential to improve and alter services that already exist to meet the needs and wants of different groups of people living in specific regions, he continued.

Simons believes government has the potential to enable these possibilities and they have a crucial role to play in promoting this ecosystem. It is up to government to sponsor and create the initial market for local innovation and this will in turn encourage interventions from the private sector, he added.

The panel also discussed hurdles around funding small businesses and start-ups. But access to funding is just one element of this equation - the real challenge is enabling entrepreneurs and new businesses to gain access to the right markets and to expand into other markets, said Rennard.

Simmons stressed that promoting entrepreneurship requires a transformation of financing and economics as this is essential to the success of any new business. Mimicking the venture capital and financing models that have been successful in Silicon Valley will not work in Africa, he continued.

Promoting tech innovation means developing new ways of funding. "If we want to create a financial model that works for Africa, we need financial innovation. There really are so many other ways to tap into new funding models and in turn new markets."

Businesses cannot expect to do the same thing across different locations, stated M"akel"ainen. "Innovate don't imitate. Use whatever is available to you to create something different."

We need to come up with ways for good ideas to move from one part of Africa to another, concluded Simmons, and to enable these innovations using the skills and infrastructure on the ground. "To me, we need an innovation on a continental level to truly transform the innovation market in Africa."

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