 Hello everyone and a very warm welcome to to one on all thank you so much for making the time to be here today and joining us for the session. In today's panel we're going to be talking about tech entrepreneurship and the key sector developments in Africa that mainly being around agriculture, healthcare, energy and trade. So today we're going to have quite an array of panelists that we're going to hear from, and just to give everyone a fair share of an introduction. Let me hand over to the panelists themselves. Let's a minute to introduce yourself. Mr Jeremy. Okay, if we could move on to miss Pumela. A brief introduction for yourself. She joins us as a country head for the United Kingdom for the brand South Africa. Thank you very much for this opportunity. My name is Pumela and I'm the UK country head for brand South Africa. Our mandate really is to position South Africa as a globally competitive country across all the sectors of the economy. And we also encourage trade and investment into South Africa. We believe that we believe in regional integration of the African continent, and as a country, we welcome collaboration with other countries for matters of mutual interest. Thank you. Thank you so very much. And next we move over to Mr Babousi from SEALA Health. Thank you, Levena. Greetings everyone, esteemed colleagues and co-panelists. My name is Babousi Nyoni. I'm the co-founder and CEO of SEALA Health, which is a global social enterprise that helps people across Africa access healthcare on mobile devices through harnessing machine learning. And in my practice, I use emerging technology to develop sustainable solutions for communities in sub-Saharan Africa. And I founded SEALA Health in 2019 after identifying an opportunity for artificial intelligence to fill some of the institutional voids created by poor healthcare systems in developing economies. And I have a personal passion for new ideas that will change the lives of those around me. And I'm a firm believer that African innovation will shape the technological zeitgeist worldwide. Brilliant. Looking forward to hearing more thoughts from you. Next we go over to Dr Joe. He's a senior power and utilities consultant. Yeah, thank you very much everyone. And it is an honor to join this panel and also this session. Now my name is Joe Nyangon and I work at SASS Institute where I advise energy companies on how to navigate the energy transitions in the United States, mostly focusing on issues to do with decarbonization, decentralization and digital transformation domains, which have become identified with the ongoing energy transitions, especially across different industries. Our SASS was built on innovation about 45 years ago and we are accelerating innovation across all our technologies to continue solving business problems of our customers. Everything we do here at SASS is designed to empower better decisions. Our analytics solutions, which we have been known for all these years, transform data into intelligence. We inspire our customers around the world to make bold new discoveries that actually drive progress across different industries. Because we do believe that by making better decisions, organizations can differentiate themselves from competitors, they can improve lives as well as make bold decisions that change the world. But it takes more than just data, businesses and governments need powerful analytics and decisioning capabilities to turn data into actionable insights. And with the disruption and uncertainty of the past year, as businesses globally face unprecedented disruptions and uncertainties due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SASS has helped customers across different industries to find innovative ways to democratize analytics as well as drive their digital transformation efforts. Now prior to joining SASS, I work in the academia as a postdoctoral researcher collaborating with agencies like the US Department of Energy to research some of the drivers of changing the energy sector, including the rapid growth of new distributed energy resources like solar photovoltaic as well as wind energy resources, as well as to evaluate proactive regulatory reforms that are being implemented across different industries to accelerate innovations in the energy sector. I'm looking forward to sharing some of these insights with the panel. Thank you, Dr. And thank you for your continued work in the space. Next, we move over to Ms. Anne, who is the CEO of the Africa Group. Thank you, LaVina, and thank you to the ITU for giving me this opportunity to come in and talk about something that I'm very passionate about trade and tech. Yes, so I am based out of Nairobi, Kenya. I run a company called Regal Africa, and really our focus is on trade and investment in Africa. For me, as an international trade and investment expert, my focus really is to support the businesses on this continent and transform them so that they can improve. And because I'm a fintech enthusiast, so I really work on financial technology, trade technology, and like I said, really focusing on technology for good. And what I believe and my team believes in the Regal Africa Group is that digital trade is the great equalizer of our time, and that's something that we're not going to take advantage of. Thank you. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Anne, and we look forward to it. So just a bit of a brief introduction in terms of myself. I'm LaVina Ramkeson, and I wear many various hats. I've been awarded and recognized for my work within the artificial intelligence space, being on the startup ecosystem, as well as in leadership. My work kind of varies from policy into the actual application end of it. So really excited to be amongst such brainpowers today. And so we're going to segment this into three different sections. We're going to call the first one a divergent segment, where we're going to be asking a fundamental question of how is tech entrepreneurship, fueling the competitiveness, or the lack thereof within the actual regional context. So, you know, when we actually have been asking ourselves this question, the first thing that comes to mind is the frontier technologies and how much and what enormous benefits actually can be amplified, right, to masses. However, the perspective of all of these immense, you know, sectors comes across in telecommunications, agriculture, healthcare, you know, energy and the rest of it as well. There are immense examples that we can give. But Jeremy, if I could possibly go to you, in terms of your experience in how tech and entrepreneurship is actually fueling the competitive nature or the lack of competitive nature, specifically within the agricultural space. Thanks a lot, Lavina, for getting us started with this with this great question. So we personally think that tech innovation have a very strong role to play and actually are indeed playing an increasingly important role in developing stronger and more resilient food systems and an economy. So when we look back five, 10 years ago, innovation ecosystems across sub-Saharan Africa were actually very small, fragmented and underfunded. But the tide is turning at a rapid pace. When we look, for example, at the funding across the African tech and innovation scene, we've seen that it grew from 760 million back into 16 to more than 2.4 billion in 2020. So we can see that innovation is becoming increasingly more important and there is more and more capital flowing to support those different entrepreneurs. So what we've seen in terms of, so we're focusing on food system, we believe that innovation has a key role to help and develop local markets to create more robust and resilient and adaptable system to effect like climate shots, for example. And we've seen an emergence of very strong pipeline of entrepreneurs dealing with food tech, energy, agriculture, and even e-commerce. And we've seen with the level of digitalization which has been increasingly increasing very quickly across sub-Saharan Africa, a lot of new business model actually appearing. So Hello Tractor is one example. It's an Uber for Tractor. It basically connects the demand from smaller farmers for mechanization services to tractor owners. And actually with the optimization that comes with the digital component, it makes serving very fragmented smaller farmer actually profitable for those tractor owners. So here's one example of a value proposition which is being enabled by the use and the increase in the digitalization. We also see a lot of model around marketplaces. So basically the potential that technology has to actually streamline value chain to connect directly the supply from smaller farmers to the demand from end consumer or from millers or processing companies and so on. So just two examples just to show how digitalization is opening the door for new model that develop novel value proposition. And maybe one additional element is that with those tech business model, there is a level of scalability which is actually higher because it's allowed to test and iterate on a small level. But the use of digitalization allows for actually rapid scalability. So those are a bit the point I wanted to make. We are in the middle of the transformation. Tech entrepreneurship is going to play a more important role in the years to come. Back to you, Lavina. Perfect. Thank you so much for that, Jeremy. And yeah, I like the fact that it's the complete food chain and the complete ecosystem that support the entire agricultural space so it's really nice to hear. Ms. Pamela, if I could probably ask and pose the same kind of question to you in terms of the competitiveness within the South African specific areas or regions of agriculture, healthcare, energy or trade and to what extent does entrepreneurship actually play a role. Thank you. Let me pick off from where Jeremy stopped in terms of entrepreneurship and answering the question that you have asked about the role of entrepreneurship, particularly within the South African economy. You know, it is usually said what is an economy without its people. And I wish to say what is an economy without its entrepreneurs. So as a country, South Africa, we encourage innovation in all the sectors of the economy being agriculture, energy and health as you have mentioned. And the government of South Africa creates an enabling environment of having tailor made incentives for each sector of the economy to ensure that there is entrepreneurship that is being built. And you'll be interested and I think our listeners and viewers will be interested to learn that South Africa in a recent report has ranked first in terms of its ranking in overall Africa tech ecosystems, particularly because of its economic potential, its startups and its business friendliness. And this is the inaugural FDI Africa tech ecosystem of the future. Now, when it comes to agriculture, South Africa has a market oriented agricultural economy that is highly diversified and includes the production of major agricultural products. I mean, you name it, South Africa, you know, is involved in it and particularly when it comes to agriculture and the agriculture sector in total in South Africa has contributed to 10% of the total export earnings for the financial year of 2020. And even in health, South Africa is ranked the highest within the African continent. So it's a country that's ranked highest in terms of health. Now, when we come to trade, South Africa is one of the most advanced and diverse economies within Africa, we have a huge population, and it's an attractive business destination, due to its growing and welcoming the business environment in South Africa prides itself and defines itself as an investment friendly environment. And that is why we have an increased engagement with global investors coming to energy. In the past, South Africa has relied on coal where we had 70% of the installed power generating capacity coming from coal. But as of 2019, the country has the integrated resource plan, which sets out a long term diversification of the power mix, which will be achieved by 2030 as the country moves towards lightening the carbon footprint of the energy center whilst growing the energy demand and ensuring that we have a socio economically just transition in this regard. Thank you so much. And I mean, you know, you talk about the carbon consciousness, which is so amazing and so important. You know, and it kind of also reminds me of another huge sector that's affected by this and that's probably the healthcare sector. So if if I could probably pose a question to Babousli, in terms of, you know, the competitive nature that we actually find ourselves in within the African region, specifically in the healthcare space. I mean, what have you experienced thus far, and you know, maybe shed some light in terms of that experience. Well, thank you, LaVina. I think the one thing that we've noticed since the inception of our companies that there is a finite amount of customers. And despite its incredible year on year growth, Africa's e-commerce users per capita still lag behind other regions, much less the numbers of health commerce customers. And we've also realized that there is global competition for this very same customer base by solutions that are often not tailored to the audience. But one thing that has, you know, exposed itself is that there's an opportunity for technology to serve as a differentiator. And an example of this is our built for purpose natural language processing tools that support 13 African languages and are accessible to people with varying levels of literacy. And these platforms allow us to harness the powers of machine learning and pair those with accessible chat platforms such as SMS and WhatsApp to help people across Africa gain access to basic healthcare. So while there is, you know, not the largest opportunity for one to commercialize solutions, especially so in the social impact space, I think contextualizing emerging technologies like natural language processing has allowed companies like ours to set themselves apart from what might be, you know, potential competition in allowing us to contextualize these basic services that are conveyed through digital forms to a wider audience with a better level of relevancy than one would find where they built by people not from the region. Brilliant and I actually read an article recently in terms of the movement of healthcare into more of, you know, virtual assistance and that personalized, you know, sort of environment that we want to get into, whether it's on the medical consultation perspective or even from a prescriptive perspective. So really exciting space to actually look out for indeed. And so now we're going to move on to Joe in terms of the African government's promotion of the technological innovations as a tool for actually accelerating the progress in terms of the digital infrastructure and development for actually fueling competitiveness within the region. And so Joe over to you. So infrastructure is actually the foundation for technology. And one of the problems that has hindered achievements of a number of goals, particularly sustainable development goals in Africa is the absence of adequate infrastructure. And I would like to expand on what I mean by infrastructure here because I think traditionally infrastructure has always been mostly focusing on the physical infrastructure but there are three forms of infrastructure that know it's actually important to highlight here, adequate infrastructure is a critical ingredient for enhancing the creation as well as application of science, market and technology innovation and development and infrastructure comes in three forms the physical infrastructure that has mostly preoccupied a number of governments you know include mostly roads, bridges, ports, power lines, rails and even airports. But we also have digital infrastructure which include for instance in enhancing internet connectivity, fixed broadband systems, enhancing the mobile telephony, cloud computing, investing in IoT that is the internet of things as well as some of the user devices. And the third aspect of the infrastructure is what actually Babusi alluded to, and that include for instance enhancing healthcare, childcare systems, enhancing education, job training. Now, African governments need to improve all these forms of infrastructure in ways that promote resilience, but also enhances technological development which is necessary for sustained economic growth. For us to realize meaningful development we have to focus on these three forms of infrastructure because they are going to be very critical in terms of how we position ourselves for the future. Now as a student living and working in Kenya back in early 2000 communication using mobile telephony internet or landlines was very challenging. I'm sure that an guide that can attest to this. And this fact was even made harder owing to state monopoly of the telecommunication sector. But enter liberalization and privatization of state owned telecommunication agency, leading to a split of the giant telecom monopoly into different agencies in charge of regulations telecommunications broadcasting multimedia as well as postal services. Today mobile telephony makes a significant and valuable contribution to African economies and societies. For instance, you know a total revenue of Kenya's telecom market grew by nearly 90% from 1.4 billion in 2008 to 2.6 billion by the year 2018. Now this growth is happening in a nearly all African continent, I mean African countries that have already invested in a liberalized and competitive market. Because innovation in mobile telephony infrastructure has played an increasingly important role in supporting economic growth, but also enhancing social inclusion of African countries. Growth in mobile penetration enhances for instance digital connectivity by expanding internet as well as broadband access which in turn facilitates the reduction of barriers to trade commerce communication service delivery as well as human development. Now to build and enhance on these progress which has been created in technology and innovation capabilities. African countries should devote resources to supporting education, especially of young people and particularly women is to attain higher education. For instance, because high education is very important than ever before in building digital ecosystems of technological innovation in the developing world, like Puma highlighted. Because universities need to also focus on transforming to national entrepreneurial training aimed at improving national as well as regional economic performance. As well as you know creating spin off companies that technology parks and business incubators, which can be used to further develop these clusters of innovation and entrepreneurship endeavors. Now there's also a need to conduct as well as to promote industrial research and development activities which can also support these kind of endeavors. Eventually new institutions may also need to be created that focus on promoting technological innovation, because all this is going to be very fundamental in terms of how we position ourselves in building a more competitive ecosystem for digital transformation. Thank you for that and you know it's been such a nice depiction between the digital infrastructure versus the actual physical infrastructure and you know giving us a good segue into the next question. So Miss Anne in terms of being an expert when it comes to international trade and development. What role is entrepreneurship playing in the actual in the region to actually fuel competitiveness over to you and Thank you Lavina. Entrepreneurship is everything. In fact, just mentioned about the way things were in Kenya where I'm based back in the 90s or earlier on, and the government has put in so much effort in improving telecommunications the internet access, which greatly supports entrepreneurship. In fact, one of the largest companies in the Nairobi security exchange is actually a telecommunication company, which then also supports entrepreneurs through their mobile money through their e-commerce. So what I'm just saying is a lot is being done in regards to supporting entrepreneurship and I think that the right direction that we should be taking. So just when I talk about entrepreneurship, I always say it ensures that the entrepreneur is providing the right solutions for its plans. So the local plants and global plants and making sure that you know they are competitive because I always tell a lot of entrepreneurs, you have to think beyond just local, especially if you want to really grow your business. So technology definitely supports businesses and be able to run both effective and efficient businesses. Because right now everybody's looking for convenience. Everybody is saying they want an affordable price. Everybody wants good quality products and I believe that is what entrepreneurs need to use as tech solutions so that they can stand out from the crowd and increase their market share. So technology is very important. I do have to say that in my space of international trade, which includes both intra-Africa trade and global trade, I have seen very many innovative solutions coming from Africa and mostly through educated Africans. And with the growth of that, we have seen a useful population, which is saying you know what we have to think different, find more solutions. So that's a good thing for Africa. And then we've also seen people who are very globally exposed, right? So something might work in a different region or different continent or part of the world, but then now you're localizing to actually affect you. So for example, in Kenya, you know, there is Uber, but then in Kenya, we have middle class, right? So it's actually they look globally exposed and now we're actually finding solutions that are African based. And when we talk about entrepreneurship, there is everyone who's encouraging people to go into entrepreneurship and making sure these entrepreneurs are competitive. In fact, I just want to highlight four industries. Agri-business is big and I'm very happy that we are talking about Agri-business here. Healthcare is very important. So I really want to continue to hear what those people are doing as a company, manufacturing something that has been highlighted by the Italian government and also real estate. So for us at Regal Africa, which is the company that I run, we are always encouraging startups and SMEs. You need, who are mostly women and youth-run businesses. You're always saying that you need to be more competitive. You need to think, you know, not just lifestyle businesses but growth businesses. And that means you need to actually do digital transformation of your business. So at Regal Africa, we have something called the Ashera Plan Startup Guide. So 30 steps in 30 days that will transform and ensure you run a successful business. It's a free resource that we give. So we start talking about thin-tech solutions. We start talking about processes, distribution, digital marketing, customer care, all these things, CRM. What is it that you need to do as an entrepreneur so that you're very competitive and you start out from the crowd? And as I earlier mentioned, I've been talking to a lot of entrepreneurs and telling them that digital trade is a great equalizer, right? No matter where you are, you can offer the right products and people will buy from it. So that is what I think and technology plays a central role in how African entrepreneurs will actually take things to the next level and the world will see us differently. And we then, as entrepreneurs, need to actually position ourselves in the marketplace so that people start taking up our solutions as opposed to, you know, imports that are, you know, foreign solutions were there in the past. So when we talk about entrepreneurship playing in the region and fueling competition, I can tell you everyone is competing, but also there's also a lot of collaboration. But competition is good because then the best stands out from the crowd. And that's what great entrepreneurs are. So that's what we're doing to support entrepreneurs and we keep playing technology is the way to go. And COVID should have. It surely did. Competitiveness, technology support, youth skilling, you know, all things that are so needed in terms of something that every panelist has spoken or touched on, which is this digital economy, right, that we speak around. So, you know, as the emerging sector, I guess the base question now in terms of our second round of questions would be, what are the challenges and opportunity for this particular digital ecosystem within this particular context. So, you know, coming back to you and as an expert in investments, what are the particular challenges that you actually see within the region to date. All right, there are very many challenges, but that means a great opportunity. I'm thinking like an entrepreneur right, but I think for me the biggest challenge for me is just the informal nature of our business. The informal nature of our businesses makes it hard for them to be relevant for them to thrive because everyone is coming from a mentality of just existing. If we could formalize more of our businesses, I think we would see a difference in the economy. And we do see some informal businesses that are taking up this technology solution. So I'll just give an example of Kenya also, Safari com, you know, gives people the opportunity to enter to be able to do their trade by accepting payments, right. So again, they're supporting the informal economy and then we have a lot of sort of tech enabled fintech solutions for credit. Yeah, so people are able to get short term loans, so that they can be able to do business. That is good, but the major challenge that I say in Africa is the informal nature of our of our businesses. But if we change that then I think Africa has a lot to offer to the world and to the continent. Another challenge that I do see on the continent and I continue to work on seeing how this can be resolved is about logistics. I know Joe was mentioning about infrastructure and the different types of infrastructure. But when you talk about logistics and you're talking about real role and air, that's a big challenge in Africa because we are not, we are not connected because most of the infrastructure that was done was for export, getting the trading with the rest of the world, as opposed to trading internally. So that becomes a challenge because as long as this logistics is is is hardware thing is not connected. The costs are high. It means that these businesses that we have are not profitable and if they're not profitable, it is a problem. So, some of that is a challenge, but I have seen solutions happening in Africa. For example, in Kenya, we have something called Fendi, which is really about logistic last mile solutions. I do know that DHL has I think we seem to be losing you a little bit in terms of your internet connection. And so we will definitely come back to you. Can you hear me now? Oh, yes, there you go. You can hear me. Oh, sorry, I don't know. I hope you heard what I said about logistics and the solutions, but that's a big logistics. The second one is trade finance. I'm a banker by profession, so I know finance and access to capital is a big thing. But then that's a big deal. And the reason is historically you need to have collateral. But there are solutions, tech-enabled solutions that are saying that you don't need collateral. You just need cash flow based funding and they continue to grow. And we've seen banks thinking differently. And that's the future that we'll see. So we'll continue to see. Awesome. Thank you so much for that. You know, when we talk about all these different areas, it makes me think in terms of creating links between the knowledge generation and the enterprise development is definitely one of the greatest challenges that we face in terms of the developing country today. So in what way, Joe, do you think that African governments can actually foster this linkage to generate the markets and make it more accessible for the local technologies to then be implemented? Now, the business environment has become a global marketplace that is characterized by fierce competition. And Anne has brilliantly explained this challenge using examples, particularly in the telecommunication in Kenya as well as in other industries. But there's also some other challenges to do with increasing consumer demands. The customer expectation is constantly changing and there's a need for businesses to reorient themselves to some of these challenges. But there's also the need for value-added products and services. And here is an example that comes to mind in terms of the unintended consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because while the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted supply chains around the world, testing the ingenuity, resilience, as well as flexibility of supply chain systems globally, they have also been a vital lifeline to support the response, keeping essential medical supplies as well as food and other key necessities flowing where they have the greatest need. Now, in order to survive in this interconnected business environment, farms must have the capacity to differentiate themselves from others. So creating links between knowledge generation and enterprise development can help farms, governments, organizations to master this challenge. And new knowledge provides the fundamental basis for continuous improvements of our farms' processes, products, services, as well as to remain innovative in a more evolving and competitive market. For African countries, this transformation requires a rethink of the existing incentive structures. And here I'm thinking about incentive systems to do with, for instance, taxation regimes, some of the market-based instruments that are currently being used by governments, particularly procurement systems. So these incentive systems can be used to stimulate technological development to reorient systems in such a way that they are directed towards incentive systems which are going to nudge the population towards a certain direction. And where they have been applied in other markets effectively, they have become very important systems in terms of driving this change, as well as driving innovation in certain industries. Now, to foster this linkage between knowledge generation and enterprise development and generate markets for local technologies, governments need to stimulate the creation and expansion. For instance, of small and medium-sized businesses by supporting business and technology incubation through, for instance, venture capital, as well as establishing export processing zones, which can be used to help farms, to encourage young people to acquire technology, as well as to diffuse this technology throughout the economy, because it's not just about having this technology. We must develop mechanisms to diffuse this technology and also ensure that we focus on issues to do with diversity and inclusion, so that the entire population is included. And they also must feel included. It's not just about, you know, government doing it. When citizens don't feel included, that becomes very difficult in terms of governance. So this has to be done from both the local level, as well as at the national level. Yeah, I think when you speak about diversity and inclusion, especially when it comes to the technology end of it, you know, taking into account data sets and the rest of it, it becomes really key and important. And, you know, you spoke quite a lot in terms of the unintended consequences and us being able to rethink it. And I think that's such an awesome way. And, you know, and it's probably a good base for us to hear from Baboosy at this point, you know, being an entrepreneur in the actual space and understanding what those challenges were that you faced, as well as what were those opportunities that you were then given. So yeah, back off to you. I think just piggybacking on what Joe said, you know, with regards to diversity and inclusion, what we've realized is that there is, you know, speaking broadly at gender disparity within internet access and user growth in Africa. African women have less access to the internet than African men do. And what this means for us on the ground is that less women have access to help improving solutions such as ours and this gap will continue to widen as this inequality becomes more pronounced over time. And what it means in terms of health outcomes as well is that we're, you know, unable to have some level of parity across the board and in in disseminating our solution in the communities that we want to create impact in. We're really struggling to do it in an equitable manner. And then this might be a call to action to to and but, you know, a challenge that we've faced as a startup, especially so one that is focused on social impact is access to capital. We've achieved an admittedly impressive 80% month of a month revenue growth without any external funding. And we're certain that we can do so much more with a captive injection and have of course, you know, shown the growth and have validated the model. In as much as it's often risky for venture capital firms or even, you know, traditional banks to invest in companies that are looking to achieve more impact socially than, you know, purely on a on a profit basis. I think we've been fortunate enough to strike a balance with regards to increasing access to basic care in the continent while also increasing revenue that is of course allowed us to scale our operations. And on more, not necessarily personal button, you know, closer to operations. We've been struggling with regulations, particularly because we often operate outside of the bounds of policy formulation, and we often find ourselves self regulating as we innovate because as people who were, you know, very early adopters of what then became termed as the fourth industrial revolution technologies, we have been creating our solutions faster than regulations can be created to to, you know, restrict to at least a form infrastructure around operations and constantly doing so to indemnify ourselves from any potential missteps in future has been something that I think, you know, where this infrastructure in place already could have really increased our ability to grow at a faster velocity as opposed to investing a significant amount in in, you know, creating that would be the job of a much larger regulator. And in all of this was seeing that they are opportunities, particularly around creating lasting impact. When we launched our free AI enabled help assistant, we surpassed 1 million messages within a few months of operations and this was something that we achieved with, you know, an almost $0 marketing spend. So with the sole focus of harnessing chat platforms and using the force multiplication abilities of machine learning, particularly around natural language processing at scale to give Africans who, you know, live in regions that often have high ratios of one is to 5000 access to basic healthcare through scalable means, and we are certain that our success stories testament to the reality that there's a massive opportunity for accessible tech to create lasting impact in African communities. I love it. I really do and it speaks to my heart. If we can move over to you at this point. The equal kind of question in terms of you know your challenges and your opportunities that you encountered. As far as a check. The first and foremost, it is still availability of broadband connectivity and the core and and related to that is the cost of connectivity and then the speed of internet itself. We are pleased to see that companies like Google through his Google Africa program about two weeks ago launched, you know, a global infrastructure program that will build and bring faster internet and for more people and lower connectivity costs across Africa. And you also see that there is now going to be an sub C cable in the form of a qui ano, which will run through South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and send Helena to ensure that it, it connects Africa as a continent with the rest of Europe. So we would like to encourage other companies who see the infrastructure and the broadband connectivity challenge that we have within the African continent to take heat and follow steps and ensure that we increase the infrastructure within Africa. The second one is funding of startups. And I think some of my my panelists, my fellow panelists have also alluded to this and what we what is needed there is an ecosystem that includes VC funding government grants incubators and tech talent. And South Africa is actually the home to one of the most developed VC networks and the oldest startup intubator within the African continent. And the name of that intubator is called became innovation and technology initiative. So I'm balancing the challenges that we have faced with the opportunities that, you know, other stakeholders have come in, in order to be able to close the gaps. Now, the next challenge has been access to markets. We then have a South African company that, you know, again, change that challenge into an opportunity by making sure that it provides South Africa focused tech companies access to global markets. And they also give, you know, the tech companies, international experts that are able to make them settle in the global markets that these, these small companies go to, because they know that it can be daunting. If it's more company, if it's more startup, and you want to enter the global market. Now, I see that what has also been a challenge within ourselves and I'm speaking as Africa is what constitutes made in Africa. And so it is encouraging to see that with the Africa continental free trade area that there will now be a definition of what it is that constitutes, you know, a truly African product, what does it take for a product to be regarded as being truly African. The other challenge that we see has been the digital skills. We need the digital skills for the continent to be able to move into a technological trajectory. However, there is an opportunity in that regard as well because in Africa alone, 230 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030, and this equates to about 650 training opportunities. So it's going to create a 130 billion dollar market in terms of the training opportunities that are available to scale us up as a continent from a tech point of view. So to respond to this, what is needed to respond to this demand is that higher education institutions will have to reorient and reorient their ICT and engineering courses in order to be able to take account and take opportunity of these rapidly developing technologies. So I've tried there, Lavina, to create a balance between the challenges that we see on the ground and how companies, organizations, individuals have made use of this in order to change the challenges into opportunities. I appreciate that, Ms. Pomela. So, you know, moving away and shifting our focus from tech-prenear sort of applications into something a little bit more on the socio-economic side like food security. So Jeremy, I'm going to reach out to you at this point and kind of ask from a food security perspective and, you know, the promotion of that. What has been some of the challenges and opportunities that the startups that you particularly worked with have experienced? Thanks a lot, Lavina. Most of the challenges and opportunities have actually been touched upon by colleagues on this course, so just allow me to piggyback on a few. So the first one would be access to funding. We know that food system is key to sustainably lift people out of hunger and create more stronger and more resilient economies. When we look at the startup funding across sub-Saharan Africa, only nine percent goes to the Agri and AgriTech tech sector. Most of it goes, for example, to FinTech. So food system is still a vertical, which is considered as too risky and not understood enough by large investment firms, VCs, and AgriInvestors. So we see a big gap in what is called the death values. Basically, one entrepreneurs are trying to get funding in the size of like 20,000 to 250,000 USD for a lot of investors. This is considered as too risky. The cost of due diligence compared to the level of investment is just too high. So that's also why we are trying to focus on this sweet spot, so to say, or like this stage in the lifecycle of the startups that we support. It's also difficult to access loans. Banks are not used to these both loans to entrepreneurs to start up. There is interest rates, which are very high in a lot of different areas, for example, housing. So startup comes at the bottom of the list when it comes to funding, for example, from a large bank. I'm going to push this point a bit further, and it's especially difficult for local entrepreneurs to access capital. So I'm a white person here talking about this, but basically there has been a lot of studies showing that people with an international background have 10,000 times more likely to actually get funding for their ventures. So I think there is a strong bias here, and I'll just bounce back on the points that you made on localization. I think it's very important. We, for example, as the WP Innovation Hub for Eastern Africa, only invest into businesses driven by local founders. In a lot of areas, it's actually difficult to scale and to find the right monetization stream relatively quickly. When you look at food system, one of the core users, to say, has more than farmers, it's a very fragmented market. It's a market that has a relatively low income, so it's very difficult for entrepreneurs to be able to show that they can monetize their value proposition and their business is relatively quickly, which in turn makes it more difficult to actually raise funds. So they need access to more patient capital, and they need access to more patient capital with a blended approach to not only get grants, which don't come for free because institutions in grants have very strict requirements and reporting guidelines when it comes to impact and so on, but they also need loans and they also need funding from the private sector because especially the funding from private sector is catalytic in nature versus grants. Access to tech talent, I think this has been touched upon by quite a few people on this call. A lot of startup or innovative MSMEs are fighting against large corporation like Microsoft for those talents, and those large corporations are able to pay a premium for it. And maybe the last piece of the challenge is what's touched upon by WC especially is on the policy and creating a more conducive environment for actually startup to thrive. And maybe just a couple of points on opportunities, so looking at the bright side. So again, the value of digital penetration is increasing. In the past five years, the number of people being having access to internet has more than double in sub-Saharan Africa. We see that 4G coverage has been multiplied by two in just the past two years. And maybe just one last point is the power of use. In Africa, the median age is 20 years old. So what this means is that a new generation of young entrepreneurs is emerging, who is holding the future and we shape the development of their societies and economies. And those views are digital savvy when you look at the penetration of TikTok that took by storm countries like South Africa. So I think those views are creating and we keep on creating new business and operating model focused on technologies that will contribute to shape a brighter future for a lot of economies across Africa. Thank you Jeremy for delving into the details of that that was very useful. And this kind of comes to mind in terms of our last segment that we're going into. In terms of the overarching question, what are the new mechanisms or initiatives that are actually needed to accelerate all of the transformation within the whole ecosystem approach. And I know that we've, you know, the key learning that we've just found is that funding is generally directed and supported by the areas where regulation has largely been supported. So Babusi, if I could possibly come to you as an entrepreneur, what has been the main thing that you in particular would like decision makers to know. And I know you touched on regulation a little bit earlier on, but is there anything else or would you like to go into a bit more details around that? Thank you, LaVina. I mean, to put it bluntly, you know, grassroots innovation efforts such as ourselves create solutions at the speed of problems. So what we find ourselves doing is doing what needs to be done on the ground to solve problems without having to wait for, you know, frameworks to be built around how we can operate or how we can in effect, you know, help people. Either have better access to care or just improve healthcare in general. An example of how we did this was with our data privacy standards in how we chose to anonymize and aggregate symptom and disease data for use by health ministries and departments as a byproduct of our healthcare chatbot. And we also created data sharing protocols for collaboration between healthcare professionals such as GPs and specialists, which is something that needed to be done in order to allow us to grow an ecosystem of digital health tools that allow patient outcomes to be better improved through sharing of critical data by people who need, you know, access to patient information within a short amount of time in a better organized manner than traditional, you know, low fidelity methods of capturing patient information and sharing it with, you know, in this case specialists or in some instances pharmacies as well. We find ourselves, you know, forever growing faster than regulations can be enacted to kind of control this growth. And we feel that, you know, when it is formulated regulation should serve as scaffolding. I think oftentimes for decision makers or, you know, people who create and implement policies, regulation can be, you know, often perceived as an opportunity to, to constrict growth in a way that makes it palatable to people who are often out of touch with what kinds of solutions can be implemented on the ground and using what kinds of technologies that oftentimes are one or two. I would say years ahead of those who ultimately hold the power to enforce policies and, and, and other, I guess, constricting for us as startups working within this emerging technology space. There are ways of giving our businesses something to work around. So, yeah, that's, that's basically it from, from my perspective as a social entrepreneur in that I think we do need younger representation in rooms where these policies are enacted. I think there are some people working on the ground right now, people like Janet Sawari, I think who's doing a really amazing work in working hand in hand with policymakers to almost serve as a representative of young technology companies such as ours that are, you know, trying to effect as much as possible on the ground, working within the bounds of social impact in trying to improve lives, but also harnessing technologies that for a lot of, you know, current policymakers, you know, not familiar and often terrifying to even broach, and by default of that dynamic, often over-regulated over, over-policed and that of course will hinder the growth of future startups, and of course including ours when they do become enacted. Thank you so much for that. Moving swiftly to Joe. In terms of, you know, policies and regulations and frameworks that we've heard, you know, there obviously needs to be a critical point for harnessing our technologies, right, even fostering a culture of digital innovation in developing countries. And my question to you is, why do you think that they need to be the core and the critical piece to unlocking this puzzle? So that's a brilliant question following on Jeremy's answer and Babouz's answers as well to their questions because government policies, data and the role played by business enterprises are a beautifully complicated trifecta of information, because governance models are changing rapidly, constantly and inconsistently. So equally the amount of data that government agencies produce is growing rapidly. So businesses on the other hand operate in a world of regulatory complexity where government actions impact industries more than their own customers do. So amidst these changes, government of the future looks very different from government of today, in my view, because the future of government affairs will be polycentric, meaning that government affairs and business development will be bottom up led, cross enterprise and organized around citizens. Citizens are going to increasingly be leaders of their government and this is going to be led from the bottom up. So it is for this reason that the private sector needs to leverage government relations to harness frontier technologies and promote business opportunities. We are witnessing profound shifts in every industry marked by frontier technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles as well as nanotechnology. And Klaus Schwab, the founder of World Economic Forum, has referred to this shift as the fourth industrial revolution. But as he says, the fourth industrial revolution is not only about smart and connected machines and systems. Its scope is much wider because occurring simultaneously are waves of other breakthroughs in areas ranging from gene sequencing to nanotechnology, from renewable energy sources to quantum computing. And it is actually the fusion of these technologies and their interaction across the physical, the digital as well as biological domains that make the fourth industrial revolution fundamentally different from the previous revolutions because we've had a number of revolutions in the past. But why is this different? So the question for us is how can we, the private sector, the civil society, universities, you know, in Africa, master these changes, leverage government relations for business development while recognizing the enduring forces that are changing the traditional role of government. How can multilateral institutions like ITU strengthen existing partnerships and expand government collaboration to new scientific, technological, economic as well as societal frameworks with universities, the research and development agencies across the continent, national laboratories as well as government departments because there's need to build a more cohesive and collaborative institutions that are going to drive the future. Because with the pace of rapid change that we are witnessing, triggered by this fourth industrial revolution, governments are being challenged to unprecedented level. There's political legislative as well as regulatory authorities are often overtaken by events. They are unable to cope with the speed of technological change. And the significance of these implications are profound, because in such conditions, how can government policy and regulation support businesses and technological developments without stifling innovation, while at the same time preserving the interest of consumers and the citizenry, because there's a need to create a balance here, while coming up with policies. Are these policies encouraging more businesses or are they just stifling innovation. So there is a tricky balance that we have to strike here as well, because without key enabling as well as supporting policies and regulations. The real benefits of these new and frontier technologies would remain unlocked, especially for the developing world. So governments have a key role in terms of how they shape the application but also the impacts of these frontier technologies. Brilliant thank you so fusion of technologies is definitely going to bring about a lot of collaboration, not only between technologies, but also between you know the policies and the startups themselves. And when we talk about collaboration, the natural thing that comes to mind is also digital competitiveness. So, you know, Miss Pamela, literally, if you, if I could give you a minute. What would you say is the most crucial thing that is actually needed to ensure that this digital competitiveness is actually spurred. So within South Africa, as well as within Africa as a continent. Thank you so much. I would start by saying that we need to grow digital inclusion on the continent. And what this requires is us building strategic and unconventional partnerships that as Joe has indicated that include key governments that include institutions and individuals and that include enterprises so that we are able to accelerate the digital economy across the African continent. We also need to look into competitive sectors that contribute to higher consumption growth. And this I mean, we need to look into new sectors. For example, our country South Africa, and has now ventured into the space economy, and South Africa is the only country in the African continent that is engaged in the engineering capacity and the design of operations of a satellite. What South Africa has done is to come up with a number of reforms that have been established and executed by both government and the private sector to ensure that South Africa's role in the space economy is strategically positioned for the global and the domestic recognition. So what we need to ensure is that, you know, these expands across the continent, and we need to support the youth, and we need to support the citizens who want to venture into the space economy field. I'm stating that as an example, as it falls within tech and it falls within entrepreneurship, which the essence of our discussion today is. And seeing that there are game changes within the continent, I've mentioned Google's investments. And we've also seen though is that a US based vantage data center has now made an investment in Johannesburg to the tune of also a billion US dollars. So they will build this multi million dollar investment. I also want to, you know, acknowledge other companies who have done this Amazon Microsoft Alibaba within the continent, but to say that there is still an opportunity, they, you know, there are game changes within the continent. However, having said that we need to close the gap in connecting these type of investments that have highlighted that have that I mean some of them will increase the internet speed three fold and five fold. We need to make sure that these type of investments enable us within the continent to be able to accelerate the startups and to accelerate the small businesses so that we're able to continue to build the ecosystem. You know, small businesses entrepreneurship is still vital within the continent. We need to make sure that they continue to be investment in entrepreneurship that continue to be investment in technology throughout the continent. And we need to also ensure that the interventions that are made help entrepreneurs to get online help entrepreneurs to get access to new customers, because in that way we can then be able to grow the economy across the continent as the entrepreneurs will now be exposed to larger markets globally with technology as an enabler for services and for the production of some of the of the goods. Great. So moving from digital competitiveness to digital innovation. We've heard obviously in terms of digital inclusion of partnerships and digital citizens being pretty much at the center of it. So, Mr. Jeremy, for you, you know, anything in particular that you would like to share around digital innovation ecosystem stakeholders and being able to develop the mechanisms or the initiative that actually required to transform the sector. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, LaVina. And again, I'm going to bounce back on the previous points that that were made and just just going to look at it from a slightly different light. But when we look at the model of the Silicon Valley that created a completely new industry, we see that it was built upon foundation and collaboration between public and governmental organization and entity, academia and the private sector. So the point here is just, we need more collaboration, we need more concerted approaches and we need more collaboration between stakeholders across the board, and specifically looking here at Eastern Africa collaboration between academia, the startup ecosystem, large corporation and government entity, be they national or at a county level. So I think that's a, that's one point. Second point we also touch upon, but there is a need for stronger investment in digital infrastructure. This would really allow a lot of different startup businesses and business model to accelerate and grow faster. We need a stronger recognition of the role that women have to play, especially in building more resilient and stronger for the food system. And generally, we need more and more people that have this relentless attitude. COVID was a tough time for a lot of startup. One startup in our portfolio as a founder stopped getting salary for one year and a half. It was a very tough, very tough, tough time. They actually made it through and now are getting like a larger, a large investment. But the point I'm trying to make is that we as an entrepreneur support organization really needs to provide the right type of support to those businesses. The level of support need to be bespoke. It can be one size fits all because we don't hold the card for the better future. We are an enabler and we have this responsibility to support those businesses to create a better future. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. And moving, you know, swiftly on to you. In your perspective, what is actually needed to support this entire ecosystem approach when we talk about transformation, and I'll give you a minute. All right. Yes. So everyone, I always say, all hands on deck, right? So it first starts off, of course, with the business is who I think we choose technology, right? So that's what we keep talking about digital transformation. But then it's everybody, government, civil society, private sector and academia. I do have to say though that there is something that we at Regal Africa have been doing since 2018, and we've seen more of this happening. In regards to, when people talk about tech solutions, it's always just one size fits all or just a particular product. But what I think that we need and the ecosystem is really creating sort of this platform so everybody is able to go into one place and they can be able to get the information they need as a business. For example, I know Babusi was talking about that he needs funding and hopefully we can have a discussion after this. What we created is something called East Gold where we link businesses to funding to market and to advice. Because even though you have market and you don't have the funding to steal up your business, that's a problem. But for you to get that funding, you need the right advice so that they can work with you on that journey. Where do you get them? In fact, Jeremy just spoke about that the solution we should have is bespoke and not one size fits all. But when we start talking about startups and SMEs in Africa, they're so small. How do you offer bespoke service? We try to do that at Regal Africa, but you can't do that because it takes time, it costs money and this business can't do that. So you need to find a way to use technology, which is what we're trying to do at East Gold, and then help build this ecosystem. I do have to say, even as we've been working at East Gold, there's something that Kenya has done right. I'm in Kenya and I do have to say it just was launched in September whereby the Kenyan government came in with the Kenyan private sector alliance, which is the umbrella body of business. Businesses, they came in the Kenyan government, KEPSA, and then certain DFIs like the UN, and they came and formed something called Sintrinet. And Sintrinet really is using technology to connect people to finance, trade, and investment. So that's what I'm saying is about all hands on deck, creating this ecosystem, connecting the dot. What does this entrepreneur need and how do we help them? Because we need to be very collaborative and we need competition, but we can't stop just because I won't be number one. And so that's the work that, or that's what we think needs to be done in this ecosystem of entrepreneurs and just support the entrepreneurs where they need it, regardless of the size they are, regardless of where they are. And we think tech technology would be able to stop that. I love those insights and thank you so much for that. We're going to move on to, you know, the last 10 minutes of the session. And that's going to include a few questions that we have from the audience. So I'm going to read one out and this is to Mr. Baboussi. The question is, would you say that the regional knowledge is something that is to be leveraged for external funding for scale? If so, how would you package the regional knowledge to make it attractive to investments? Perhaps even Anne has some perspectives about this too. This is above and especially needed for the pre-seed and seed attractions. Perfect. Thank you, Lavina. And thank you to the participant who sent the question through. I would say yes. This regional knowledge is something that would be, you know, potentially leveraged for external funding and for scale, especially so if a startup's exit strategy is acquisition based. You know, I'd also say that the degree to which this leverage will influence the success of around would differ because of the startup landscape and how it's very nuanced. As a founder working in social impact, the key factor in driving our eligibility for funding has been our ability to de-risk our model and show sustained growth in terms of revenue as opposed to, you know, sectors like fintech, where different factors would influence eligibility, you know, where maybe the novelty of an idea would be sufficient enough for pre-seed or seed raise. There are, of course, different conditions existing around successful capital raises for startups focused on fintech, as mentioned, and also e-commerce versus health tech, which is where we are. And looking at the second part of that question around how one would package that regional knowledge, I think when you look at an acquisition based exit strategy, access to market for potential acquisition would be, you know, the difference between funding and the absence thereof. There are, of course, more things to unpack and I'm trying to be conscious of time, but it's never a bad thing to have as close a proximity to a market as a company would have, which is definitely something you could leverage for your own growth and at some point for external funding and potentially acquisition. Yeah, thank you so much for that. Miss Anne, would you like to add some comments to that or could I go to the next question? I'll just add two things that I'll add on to what Baboufi said. One, the first thing that we think needs to be done regionally is we need to find more local investors. And when you talk about early stage investors, we have to start talking about our own angel investors who are Africans who understand this segment. We need to have our own VC funds. We need to have our institutional investors being able to look outside the traditional asset classes and really understand what it means to be a startup. So that's the first thing that I think will need to be done more differently because as Alia said, most of the investors are international. So they usually back businesses that are set up by international funders. So if we want more local funders being funded, we need more local investors. The second thing that I need, I think that really needs to be done in this funding perspective because a lot of these things are new. What we found at ISCO is people don't even understand what equity is. So we in the beginning process we're saying, do you need equity? Do you need funding? Are you looking for an angel? They don't know. So someone says I need equity and then when you actually call them, they meant something totally different. So a lot of education is needed in this space. A lot of preparation for funding is needed by these entrepreneurs. And fortunately, a lot of these startups don't have the funding to pay advisors like us to be able to support them. So we think that's the innovation that needs to be done. Who will support or provide technical assistance to these SMEs to prepare for funding? And then if we have the right investors, then it's easy to connect. Brilliant. Love it. So going to the last question due to time. We have beautiful insights, Dr. Joe, and I couldn't agree more. Education is key for the innovation as well as the inclusion in becoming the economic benefactors as well as economic contributors. I think that was just a quick comment. The last one is to Ms. Pomela, who said you speak of high education providers that would include private institutions. And in your opinion, would this be something like a brand SA potentially? You know, in South Africa, we pioneered a model that closes the skills gaps, that closes the gap in education, and that closes the gap in employment, particularly of the youth. And the model that we developed as a country is now world class and is being copied, you know, elsewhere in the world and you are welcome to take this model. What this model entails is that we provide an end to end solution between the learner who receives the training from an education provider and educational institution, both public and private, answering that particular question. And we also make sure that in this model there is partnership with the private sector in the form of the employer who will guarantee that they will take the learner who will have gone through this training that is needed specifically for the needs of the employer. And then government comes in at the level of providing the funding for the learner, we have leadership programs, and also to be able to also give incentives to that private sector that will have taken the learner that has gone through the training program. So by saying that it's an end to end solution, we close the gap between someone learning a skill through an educational institution, as I said, be it private or public, so you are welcome even if you are private to provide learning to learners who have come out of a school. And then we have the employer who then also gets an incentive from government from having absorbed that person that will have gone through the training program through the service provider. Okay, thank you so much for that. Absolutely. So we're coming to the end of it. So I'm going to ask each of the panelists to give us a 30 second round up and a conclusion. So one key takeaway. Let's start with Mr. Babusi. Thank you, Livina. I would say, firstly, thank you to my esteemed colleagues and co-panelists for such an insightful session. As a startup founder, I do believe that now is an exciting time to be building in Africa. Millions of Africans are coming online for the first time every month and are doing so in a time where e-commerce ecosystems have matured enough to support and contextualize services tailored to young Africans. And I believe that, you know, this is the best time to build a profitable social enterprise while creating lasting impact and changing lives for the better. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Joe. Thank you, Livina. Now, it has been a distinct honor to join this panel and wonderful contributions and insights from my esteemed panelists. But if you take a step back and ask the question, what is the future of entrepreneurship and innovation in Africa? I'm going to quote a very famous leader of the ecosystem of innovation here, Andrew Grove, who is a former CEO of Intel Corporation. And he wrote a very provocative book with the title of only the paranoid survive, how to exploit the crisis points that challenge every company. Now, in this book, he explains what it means to move from a situation where you think you are doing very well and suddenly and unexpectedly the rug is pulled from under you as the fundamentals of the economy, business or industry change. The change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights, but it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end. Now those fundamentals may also mean a loss of market competitiveness competitiveness of financial dominance to control an industry. So here is where investment in new ideas, new solutions and new capabilities in new technology such as artificial intelligence, machine learning is needed to help governments, businesses as well as societies continue to evolve and innovate, because this is the linchpin of the innovation ecosystem. So my parting advice to is to stay paranoid in order to survive, keep innovating. I like that. I like that. Thank you very much. Miss Pomela, 30 seconds. I would like to firstly thank ITU for having given South Africa the opportunity to participate in this robust panel of everyone was excited about the potential for technology and entrepreneurship within Africa. My departing thought is that Africa can and must take advantage of the technological advances in order to one, industrialize to pursue inclusive growth and three attract investment. We really need to fully harness the potential of technology. And in order to do so, we need to respond with agility, one, and secondly, with purpose, and South Africa and particularly will take heed of the recommendations of the presidential Commission on the advancement of South Africa's for IR and innovation capabilities and what we're going to do to invest in human capital development, we're going to create an artificial intelligence institute, and we're going to secure and avail data that enables innovation. And finally, we are building a full IR infrastructure as a country. Thank you. Brilliant. Jeremy, over to you. Yeah, so first allow me to start by saying that it was a pleasure to have this discussion with you all. And maybe what I want to mention is that innovation is burgeoning in Africa. More funding is coming, more entrepreneur support organization are being launched and scale. The environment is becoming more and more fertile for innovation to go on scale. And while it's still tough, and probably always be tough, entrepreneurs are on a journey that will transfer food system in the next five to five to 10 years. So just a message of hope. Brilliant. Thank you for that. And Miss Anne. All right, so thank you, LaVina and I do have to say thank you to the ITU forum team for putting together this forum and this very interesting discussion for me as an entrepreneur who supports other entrepreneurs in my last remarks at this one. For all entrepreneurs out there they need to have an online presence. That is very important. But for the people who are providing this solution with tech solutions, you need to make sure that if you're providing them in Africa, they need to be simple and they need to be affordable. That is what majority of the population is asking for and so they need solutions that will support their business. And innovation is key for both, right? And I believe technology is right there at the key, but I do have to say that we need to support African entrepreneurs because if we take half their product, they're able to scale up and they can then get additional funding to create even better solutions on the continent. For the last remarks, they support African entrepreneurs. Thank you. Brilliant. I love it. And that's a wrap, guys. Thank you so much for being with us. A parting thought from everybody if I could connect the dots was digital innovation needs affordability and accessibility together with us taking advantage of the consciousness that we bring it together, but remaining very paranoid at the same time. It's unanimous. It all can be done. Africa is rising. So here's to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us. I'm hoping that you can hear me. Fellow panelists, can you hear me loud and clear? Yes, we can hear you. Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm really, really glad and very, very honored. And of course, it is a huge pleasure to have such a team of esteemed panelists. Kindly for a bit of housekeeping, let us put off our mics if we are not speaking. And when we get to speak, then we can turn them on. Thank you so much. Wonderful participants, delegates, honorable guests. It is indeed an honor to have you on this session. As you can see, we have put together a lineup of incredible speakers. They will introduce themselves in a minute. But first, let us go through a bit of housekeeping. You'll be sharing your questions on Swapcard. So kindly go to the question and answer box on Swapcard and share your questions there. They will be picked up by one of our teams and relayed to the moderator, who is me, and we will be able to have the team of esteemed speakers answer them towards the end of the session. Without further ado, let me kindly go straight to the esteemed panelists and have them introduce themselves. I will start with none other than Vanessa Chavula from Zikta, Zambia. Vanessa kindly take the floor. Thank you, Ida. And greetings to everybody that is attending. My name is Vanessa Chavula, and I work for Zikta in Zambia. Zikta is the ICT sector regulator in Zambia. And most of my role at Zikta involves promoting as well as supporting ICT related innovations as well as entrepreneurs and startups in Zambia. So I am responsible for the design and as well as the implementation of Zikta's flagship initiative, which is the Zikta ICT innovation program. And this is a program that is aimed at providing various support services from business development support services to technical development support services, including things such as mentorship support and various other support services to ICT innovators to different new ones to startups. And this support is provided from the ground up to try and see how best we can commercialize various innovative ideas that have come up within our different communities from among the youths and from among the people of Zambia. So we try to provide this environment that they can be able to create and to experiment and to test their different ideas that are trying to solve different societal challenges in our various communities in Zambia. And also part of my work involves bringing together different players within our ecosystem, bringing together the public sector, the private sector as well as the academia. And just to come together on one platform and see how best we can support the innovators and entrepreneurs in Zambia. Thank you very much. That is a little bit about me. I'm looking forward to interacting with all the different panelists on this session and I'm looking forward to responding to any questions that the participants may have regarding our work at Zikta and also regarding the panel discussion that we're going to have here today. So thank you very much. Now, excellent. That is really amazing Vanessa. Thank you for bringing the issue of youth and innovation to the forefront. And we're going to be talking a bit more about that later. But first let us go to Petra Muathe Wase of eduX Dynamics. Did I pronounce it right Petra? I think your mic is off. You can just turn it on. All right. Thank you very much, Ida. In fact, I want to thank you for Mali for always having the right words to put a smile on my face. Seriously, you're so nice in your way of interacting with us. It's been wonderful having you as our mentor. I can see that. Thank you so much. I'm Wase Petra Muathe from Cameroon, commonly known as Africa and in miniature, Central Africa. All right. I represent eduX Dynamics. I'm actually the chief executive officer of eduX Dynamics. We are a group of teachers, a group of educators that have come up with a solution to resolve a typical problem that we have here in our country, which is that of pedagogical discontinuities during the period of crisis. From the political crisis, social crisis to sanitary crisis that we have actually as the COVID-19. All right. I wouldn't like to go more than that because I know we are going to talk more later. Thank you. I'm so pleased to be among these wonderful people. Seriously, thank you. I hope I'm going to enjoy myself. We're even more pleased to have you on board because not only are you a woman, you're also an innovator of work and we are really, really grateful to have you on board. And we hope to just have a bit more insight about your work at eduX Dynamics later on in the session. Thank you so much. Can I interrupt? This is the technical moderator speaking. I received a message from the interpreter that on Petra there is a background growing noise. I don't know if it's the TV, but we can hear the background. It's hard for them to interpret. Thank you. Okay. All right. Kindly dear panelists, esteemed speakers, maybe you can put off the background noise in case there's any. And also probably we should try and speak a bit slower so that the interpreters can be able to pick up on our jargon because we use a lot of jargon sometimes. Thank you. Are we all right? Yes. And if possible to use a headset with a microphone, that would be the perfect for them if you can. And if not, yes, speaking slowly and making it here for them, making the best audio quality. Thank you. That's right. That's right. We can try and speak probably clearly and concisely just to make it a bit easier for the interpreters to pick up on our conversation. Now, let us kindly move on to Immanuel. Immanuel, you have been very active in the innovation space. Could you tell us a bit more about you and also about your work? Okay. Thank you so much. My name is Immanuel Nubijo, and I hope I've got you well enough. I hope my audience is also very clear. Yes, it is. Thank you. My name is Immanuel, as I've said, Nubijo. I'm based in Cuba, South Sudan. I'm a social entrepreneur and an activist. I work for Junip Open Space, the space I founded in 2016, majorly to provide access to skills, access to co-working in space for the youth, to collaborate, to co-create, to shift the mindset of youth from job-seeking ideology to job-creating concept. And with the specific program focus on youth-building technology, entrepreneurship, education, and health. So I think this is a privilege that I can mention for now. Yes, that's wonderful. And we also have Richard Seshih, who's going to add on to your work. And probably Richard, could you just introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Kool-Lion energies? Yes. So I love everyone. So I'm Richard Seshih. I'm based in Côte d'Ivoire. So basically, I'm the founder of a really young company that is providing cooling as a service solution. So what we're trying to do, we're working with smallholder farmers and women fishmongers. And we're trying to provide them with solar-powered cooling. That comes in a containerized box with the idea that it can actually use this to store their produce. So I think that will be a quick introduction from my side. Thank you. That's great. And I think it's not only about innovation on your side, Richard. It's also about adding value to your community. And I think that is very important as we go deeper into this session. And as we look deeper into what our panelists have been doing in terms of their work, but also in terms of impacting the communities as well as sustainability. So it is an honor and a pleasure to present this session and to be able to discuss, to go deeper into the three engines of growth, which are technology, innovation and entrepreneurship in the ecosystem. And also looking at what are some of the key insights for the enablers of digital innovation. So I will first go through my first question to Emmanuel. Sorry, Emmanuel, you'll have to just come back. And in your experience as founder of Junuk Technology and Innovation Hub, having been featured in the best practice regional reports, how is technology, innovation and entrepreneurship fueling competitiveness in Sudan? Okay. Thank you so much. It's South Sudan, not Sudan. Yes, in South Sudan, yes. Thank you so much for giving this session. This is a real pleasure to share in this forum more specifically. And I really appreciate also the opportunity given to me to share briefly about this key topic that you have just shared. You know, South Sudan is a 10 years independent country. And it is one of the, I say the youngest country in Africa or in the world. And, you know, there's a lot of skill gaps, but then there's a group, I mean, like a few number of youths in South Sudan, who are really driving change and who are really trying hard to make sure that they come up with innovative ideas. I can bring that closer to, for example, our space because with the incubation of startups at the Junuk Open Space. And from the startups that we have, I can just like relate a few of them that that are really doing amazing thing and also like bring on with the use that already having started, I mean, amazing technological ideas that are already operating in South Sudan. For example, we have a night border, which is an app that people can able to replace a border border should pick them up or that supplier or even come along with the the new, the mobile money that was been launched two years ago in South Sudan by Zayn, that's Mgroos and also there's Night Pay. You know, that gives a big space now for the youth to actually creatively come up with the innovative skills in order to be able to take over the market. You know, there's a lot of opportunities in South Sudan, a lot of untapped opportunities actually. And for example, we're using digital currency site as our Bitcoin cost. If you support families, that's part of what he might be doing well. We use digital currency, this Bitcoin cost will provide food assistance and food bags to the neighbors. And like for countries like South Sudan, which is still just coming up. I know some people keep on asking like, Hey Manuel, how possible is that people are waiting for getting it out? And how are you putting it for Samsung and all this thing, you know, so like the power of this digital currency was able to help. We're able to impact more than 50,000 Spanish in South Sudan and even more right now most people with the flooded affected communities and others. So this is the thing now at the moment, you know, it was something that is very close in my heart. As I mentioned before, I'm a social entrepreneur. I don't see problems as a problem, but I see them as an opportunity. And that's why our key focus is to shift the mindset of the youth from the jobs taking ideology to job creating ideology. And that's like one of the things here in like in Africa, for example, majority of youths want to graduate what they wanted to do is to go look for job. But then of course government job or NGO job cannot able to take everyone at the end of the day, you know. So like, that's why like our focus is measured on how their concept, their mindset from the jobs taking or instilling the spirit of entrepreneurship among the youths, among the majority. Because like why keep on mentioning youths in South Sudan, 72% of the population are on youth. You can just look at that huge population. And if you look at it right now, in some other states, the chaos whereby the youth mobilized themselves and they don't want humanitarian workers to be employed in their state because they wanted to be the one to be employed. And then like the skills specifically, for example, for those fields that are open, or the job opportunities that are opened in their state, they don't have the qualification, you know, and that becomes another challenge for them in this place here because they don't have the skills in order to, the skill needed to get that work done, but then they wanted to let the humanitarian worker get out from their state. I can just recall some few scenarios, some few days ago, some few months, those early this month, over 20 to 30 number of employees were being evacuated because the youths were messaged out because they don't want those people to be there. So like one key thing I'm looking here is that access to skills or opportunities to provide hands-on skills or intramural related skills to youths in different, I mean, in the key employment areas, I think that can be really good. That would be able to assist people like this guy. And like so far, like from based on this as they have seen from the youths and the staff that we have from our space, it is clear, there's a clear sign that the actual youths have all the opportunities that they can able to go over it and they can able to to progress, to prosper. For example, in the technological, like most people in the era of now, where most things have sift online. I can just mention briefly, you know, when the pandemic hit, so many business got down in South Sudan. And like if that's the one key thing that we find out was this information, there's a gap whereby access to information was not really open, you know, some people have been cut off. The IEC materials that have been produced, some other committees cannot able to translate them. Some of them are in pictures, some of them are off. So like it is not very inclusive. So one thing we did was, we developed a low tech tool, do it yourself, I can say like that, we do it DIY tool kit, to pass out information to the community so that they will still be informed. Because we believe in information is eight, it's just like food, like shelter, like another thing, you know. That's right. So this mobile, this basic tool kit that we developed, which is called the glue messenger bicycle together with our partner, the voice post organization. It was able to impact a lot of life, you know, communities were able to get, they were able to get information, they were able to get information at their doorstep, they were not able to be cut off because a bicycle set up with the megaphone and amplifier and playing prerecorded radio program, you know, it makes it so easy for the community to get access to those information. And beside that, some other communities were like in the market, there's a couple of markets where there's having over a thousand people every day accessing the market. We're able to set an offline radio, you know, this offline radio was able to pass out information, it's just like a megaphone with a call and then amplifier. And we train volunteers and radio presenters to be there to talk to the community and raise awareness on that, you know. And then the other thing is that in South Sudan, there was a cut in education, for example, out of school shutdown. So one key thing that we are able to look at, yeah, they introduced a program called education on air. But this education on air, there's so many families who don't have access to, to radios, for example, and they don't, maybe they cannot be able to can charge their phones, you know. One other thing that we introduced here, an offline internet device called the hybrid phones. This offline internet device was able to, we packed educational opportunities, we sat down with teachers to extract notes and put them in the box, and then we deployed them in the school, you know. And the students were able to get access, you know, in terms of high school ended up to form 4, that's like senior 4. And then from there, they went to university. So like the senior 4, who are the only group of people or students that are left supposing the school because the exams will kill, you know, it became very challenging because teachers cannot afford to access the school throughout, and the students are not allowed to stay a lot in the school. So when we introduced this offline internet device and the e-learning platform that would evolve for them, they were able to get, because we compile pass papers and we sat down with teachers and extract notes. And we're able to put in the box itself, you know, internet connectivity is very expensive in South Southern, and that is why we were able to make it offline, so that those who cannot afford to buy internet banned them, they can still be able to access the same materials for free without any internet costs, you know. Right. Yeah, that is why we're able to get it for them so that they can still be able to get access to the same materials. And inside that, because we're having a lot of skin set, you know, there was a huge demand, for example, in use of sanitizers, handwars, and so many other things. So one thing that we're able to use here is we're able to creatively use the available materials that we have in Juba, and produce sanitizers, handwars, liquids, you know, and we took them to the military hospital and the public hospital to help the doctors who are in the frontline, serving lives of the people, you know, and not only by us doing the products on, we introduced some women and dogs. We introduced them, we trained them on how they can be able to make these sanitizers, these handwars, because there was a huge demand in the market. And that can be an income-generating activity for them. And I can say that we're able to successfully, like, really reach the number that we wanted. And after now, the skin set is still there, and the middle skin that we transferred to the communities, they're still practicing, they're still in the market, and they're still doing the amazing things that they're able to do using the available resources and the materials that they have. And that's why, like, you know, since the market all moved online, we're able to introduce a training model for female entrepreneurs in South Sudan. And it was a collaboration between South Sudan and Nigeria, our colleagues from Perk West, the STEAM Academy, were able to introduce a female entrepreneurship training program that able to impact 200 female entrepreneurs in South Sudan and 200 in Nigeria. So this female entrepreneur in South Sudan medially would develop a 14-model training that targets a bulletin business idea, legal procedure to starting a business in South Sudan, leveraging digital technologies, access how to manage finances, It was a branch of topic that we developed in order to still keep them in the market, because so many business are closing because they cannot open their software. But then I can say, from the few success stories that we're able to get back from other entrepreneurs, because it was a target of those ones who started business and those ones who are about to start their businesses. So many of them like, yeah, I was able to make a huge service man after attending the session on the leveraging digital technology, I was able to use my social media productively. For example, some of them like spent hours on Facebook and doing nothing and just chatting the whole day. And they're like this forward sign is no business, but then after they're able to get those skillset on how they can able to market their businesses, their product to the different social media presence, you're able to give the positive feedback that they're able to reach a huge number of sales per month. In fact, even some of them are like, you know, I don't think I'm going to open my shop again. I'm going to cut down the cost of rent and other things because I can use social media as my tool now as my office as my store, you know, and I just want to say this is really a great opportunity to say this brief and thank you so much. Thank you so much, Emmanuel. The reason why we were so excited to have you lead this session is because out of the other cases that we went through in the regional good practice reports on how technology innovation and entrepreneurship are fueling competitiveness, the new technology and innovation have came up tops, one because of operating in a challenging environment, two because of putting a focus on social impact as well as scaling, and three because of looking at sustainability at the very top of its solutions. So Emmanuel, how you have used technology innovation and entrepreneurship is actually a testimony for how the rest of Africa can do it. And despite the challenging situations that people find themselves in, whether you're young or whether you're older, if a young person such as you, if your team into new technology and innovation have can surmount all these challenges and make it and also be featured as best practice in Africa, we felt that you really, really needed to come out very strongly today and speak not only to the audience, but also to other innovators who are struggling in this area. So thank you so much, well done, and we look forward to collaborating not only with you, but also with your team on the ground. Thank you so much, Emmanuel. Thank you so much. Right, so next we'll go to Vanessa. Vanessa, same question to you, but in a slightly different angle. In your work at Zipter and as an ATU Innovation Challenge winner, how have the three areas of technology innovation and entrepreneurship affected your business and what have you viewed as a success in your work? Kindly could you just take us through it. All right. Thank you so much, Ida, for that question. And once again, thank you for the opportunity to just be here and interact with all the different panelists that we have on the call today. So firstly, I'll start by talking about the three engines of growth that you have talked about, and basically how we have interacted as Zipter and in our work at Zipter. One of the things that we have noted is that there has been a lot of growing interest among the youth to venture into innovation and as well as entrepreneurship, not only here in Zambia, but I think in Africa as well. So there's so much interest among the youths to develop different innovative ideas and solutions that are not only sustaining our way of life, but also generating incomes for them, creating employment opportunities for other youths as well, and generally contributing to economic development across our different countries. In Zambia, one of the things that we have noted is that there are so many organizations that are providing different support services to these innovators and as well as to entrepreneurs and to startups. So there are so many innovation support organizations that have come up, and this is something that is very, I think very, very important in order for us to be able to succeed even in our work as a country. It is very important for us to have these different support organizations to come on one platform and be able to provide various support to the startups and as well as the entrepreneurs. I think one of the significant successes that that we have made as a country. I think there's been a lot of development of digital platforms and digital entrepreneurship as well in Zambia. And I think I'll also talk about digital financial inclusion as well when we look at things like mobile money that have significantly increased and this has promoted financial inclusion in the country. And we have also made, I think, great progress around infrastructure. So we have moved from all the 2G and 3G to 4G and I think right now we have some of our mobile network operators who have mentioned that they've already started preparations for 5G network infrastructure as well. So yeah, we have seen a lot of development around that. There are so many digital platforms that I mentioned that are on the rise from fintechs to edtechs, ICT and agriculture, and this has even been more accelerated during the COVID pandemic period that we I think are still grappling with. There's been a lot of digital platforms that have enabled things such as education and health to go on even when schools are closed. And so I think another thing that I can talk about is that right now, there is so much focus around the different actors and players in the ecosystem in Zambia to say, how can we create a healthier ecosystem for innovation, for entrepreneurship in Zambia? How can we work together as different players in the ecosystem? How can we collaborate and provide the support services as opposed to working in silos, for example, where there are different players working in silos and providing the different support services and you find that the support is duplicated. So right now I think a lot of focus is around how can these different actors work together. So I think these are some of the things that I can talk about and I think some of the successes that I can mention on our end. Wow, that's amazing. Vanessa, you've actually taken us right into the issue of things and one of the areas that you have actually highlighted is how you have been able to galvanize other stakeholders to work with you. And I think for me this is a great milestone for you at Zikta and also the fact that you have been able to look at youth, not only as a bulge, but as an asset that can be used, something to invest in. I think you're doing a great job. We are looking forward to hearing more from you. Let's go to Petra. Petra, you are a shortlisted candidate of the ITU 2021 Global South Innovation Challenge, am I right? Petra, are you there? Yeah, you're right, Ida. Wonderful. Tell us more about what drove you into your area and what it feels like to be an innovator in your sector. Alright, thank you very much Ida for this opportunity to present to you what you have been working on and who we are. Okay, actually, as the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the company, EDUC Dynamics, I'm responsible for the success and the failure of the company. And in order to maintain a sustainable future for our company, I assure that the working condition, the collaboration about our mountain members is just the best. I do this and also encourage their performance. I do this through relational coaching, performance coaching. I don't also fail to create initiatives to award them and recognize their good work. And also, I don't fail to make them to get the consequences of their omissions or their failure to play according to the rules of the company by bringing them disciplinary actions. Okay, besides that, I also represent our company locally in our country and nationally and internationally, like now during challenges, hackathons and edutons. Alright, what brought us into this idea in our country, Cameroon, we have a typical problem of pedagogical discontinuity during periods of crisis. If all of us started during Boku Haram crisis in the north, when students in 2009, students were put out of school, schools were shut down, no lessons, no teaching, families moved out for safety, and then the children were not going to school. And then in 2016, there is the Anglophone crisis that came up in the English-speaking region of the country, the Anglophone political crisis that made schools to be shut down by the government because the fighters closed down schools were killing students and all of that. I don't want to talk much about the political point of view of it. So all of us were frustrated. As a guidance counselor, my role as a school guidance counselor by profession, firstly with my government here in Cameroon, is to encourage students to go to school. I could not just bear the fact, we could not bear the fact that students will stay out of school because some other people are stopping them from going to school. And then the government would close down schools because the security is not assured. And then I think it was not enough. In 2020, COVID-19 crisis came in and schools were still closed down. We were like, oh my God, that was what pushed us to come up with a solution. How can we bridge this gap of pedagogical discontinuity during period of crisis? That's how we came up with the project Omni. Omni is a digital and a distant learning platform that enables students to continue learning anywhere they are at any time with or without internet connection. So Omni is built by the group of teachers, as I said, I'm a guidance counselor. My other team members are teachers, ICT teacher, mathematics teacher, and the other is a financial specialist. So we all work together to make sure that this solution has its impacts and results in our community. So that's what drove us into this project. That's what drove us into this innovation. So how does Omni work? Omni is a tool in one package. We have the Omni book, which is the platform, and then we have the Omni kits. How did the Omni kit come about? What is the Omni kit? The Omni kit actually is that device that permit people or that less privileged population that does not have access to internet or electricity. That's the energy to continue to gain their lessons through our platform, because it is a device that we practically came up with. It uses solar energy. It is charged by solar energy. So it contains all the content produced by teachers that are stored in the platform in itself. So even if the users are not within the zones where they can have access to electricity or internet, they can still benefit from their lessons that school will see continue by using this Omni kit. All right, how does it feel to be an innovator in my sector, in this sector, in my country? I must say the truth is that either it's very, very challenging but yet exciting. As I said, our country is always in crisis and actually still in crisis, either be it the COVID-19 or the political crisis. So what happens is that we don't have enough access to internet connections all over the country. There is a coverage but very few 34% of people have exploit the internet connection, have phones, have access and all of that. So what does it feel like? This makes us to be more excited about our project because we came up and said, what can we do? We are going to provide a solution, which is just like all other conventional solutions on distance learning in the country. But how is us going to be different? How are we going to create more impact, more results? That's what pushed us to come up with Omni kits. That solar powered nano servers that permits those in the remote regions, those in the less favoured regions to continue to benefit. That the teachers continue to produce their lessons and tests which they share, they produce these lessons and tests easily, more easily and they update them easily and then they can share among them. So we are trying to bridge this gap of, okay, those teachers who are in remote areas who do not have access to good libraries, internet connections to do their researches, they can benefit from those who are in these places where these facilities or infrastructures are with their own knowledge. They can get good quality lessons that can be shared with your students in your area to bring up this balance in the quality of education both in the city centre and in the peripheries. So that's the challenge. That's actually the challenge. But it's a good thing because we are, we learned and we have learned that the challenge is even necessary because the challenge without the challenge will not be existing because the same necessity is a model of invention. So without this challenge is giving this challenge that is a force or motivation to getting to improve our products and touching getting creating more impact in our community and hoping to go why not further the sub-Saharan African and other countries. Thank you Ida. I hope I answered the question as you wanted. Yes, oh my goodness, you've even gone over and beyond you know when you talk about necessity being the mother of invention. I am very excited to hear that actually right now I'm a country and the solutions that people are coming up with to beat not only the COVID pandemic but also other shortages such as power and the lack of access to reliable internet is amazing. And most of them are young people and you're just a testimony also that this can be done. I'm very excited to hear this and no wonder you're the winner, one of the candidates for the ITU 2021 Global South Innovation Challenge. Today we have had your passion, we have had it in your voice, we have seen it in your, in the way you have described that you were driven into this area and how it feels to be an innovator. So well done. And we are looking forward to collaborating more with you. Thank you so much. Thank you Ida. Thank you. The pleasure is shared. Yes, Richard, I think you're going to have to beat Petra because she has already set the bar so high. Tell us more about your entrepreneurship journey and also tell us who supported you in the ecosystem. Well, so thank you so much again so hi everyone. So I will say basically that first of all I'm from Ivory Coast. I had a chance to, to after my studies that I completed to spend the past eight to nine years abroad. And that actually allowed me to have exposure to different entrepreneurial environments. So upon returning in Côte d'Ivoire in 2016, early 2016. I actually became very excited about, you know, social entrepreneurship that is driven by technology. And for the first few years I was actually working on supporting other entrepreneurs. So as an ecosystem, I mean the term traditional use is being an ecosystem builder. And I think that was a really eye opening experience because we've witnessed for the past five years, you know how the ecosystem in Côte d'Ivoire has been slowly built with the contributions of, you know, different actors and passionate young people. And I come traditionally from a family that was involved in the agri-agribusiness sector. And during, you know, my journey, early this year, I actually came to realize a huge fundamental problem and challenge, which is actually the lack of cooling solutions for basically fisheries participants, so small scale fisheries participants, and also small water farmers. So in Côte d'Ivoire traditionally, Côte d'Ivoire produces annually 21 million tons of foodstuff produce. It's one of the leading country is the world leader in cocoa production in cashew, and but other than that, when it comes to export cash crops, we have very solid logistics chains. And I mean, but when it comes to local domestic food crops, so you know, millions of women, small water farmers who are producing, you know, tomato, okra, eggplants, banana and so on. Supply chains really are big mess. So when we're diving deep a little bit more into this sector, we realize that one of the key constraints that exist is actually the inability for them to preserve their food produce. On average in Côte d'Ivoire, from the when you collect food produce from the farm gate level, up to, you know, up to actually having to transport the produce and send it to the cities which are the main consumption centers. They end up between 25 to 30% of food produce loss. And the reason why is because of the poor conservation of this. Same thing goes also for the fishery sector, where you have annually up to 40,000 tons of fish that is actually also made available in the market and there's also huge losses coming on that. So we engage very early on with a design exercise with this woman. We really wanted to understand how we could provide a solution actually that was grounded in the local context and I really insist on the local context because a lot of solutions sometimes actually, you know, comes of parachuted year to the, to the, to the, in the country but they don't make sense of most of the time. Don't add really a lot of value because they actually are not, you know, aligned and really eventually a context. So, we, we spent a number of months with this woman, trying to be with them, trying to understand what are really their pinpoints and how we could actually provide a cooling solution that makes sense. And we ended up with presenting a container. So we've designed container coming in, in different sizes that are customized to their needs. So those containers can come in 10 foot 20 foot 40 foot, and they are solar powered. They can also also be hybrid powered. So it means we can use solar with a different alternative source. Essentially, those containers have the ability to be movable so they can be brought to any site. So they're powered by renewable energy. So that's of course, lessens the ability for them to incur high electricity cost and can be deployed in rural settings. And the really, the key year that we had the key insight was how was to actually the key constraint that he had was how can we make sure that those containers are affordable basically. So our solution was actually to, to leverage something that has been used in solar home systems for the last 10 years in Africa, and that has been successful, which is actually to provide them on a pay as you go basis. So what we do at Kuleon basically is that we have designed containers that have fitted the unique local context. So the design for containers even have, you know, a cold showroom compartment so that they don't have to open at all times the So that the showroom can be used as a sales area. So we've done a lot of iterations with this woman and we provide those containers on the pay go approach. So it means basically, we'll provide it to them at little upfront costs. And then they have 24 months to repay those containers, you know, under a monthly, monthly lease basis. And the way we do that is that we've incorporated a remote lockdown system that actually enforced repayments and actually encourages repayments. We can deploy those containers, have a remote lockdown system, and we can give it to them and tell them, hey, you know, we work with cooperatives basically and tell them hey, here we're giving this out this container and then you can actually use that container, pay us on a weekly basis on a monthly basis through mobile money payments. And then in turn, you can actually rent this container space to your cooperative members. So it's a two layer channel model that we use that include the pay as you go and then a pay as a store model where the cooperative leadership then can actually let this woman farmers or this woman fish mongers to be able to actually store their fish produce. So we've been fortunate since the last few months to have been a winner of the African Union, African Union, COVID-19, small infrastructure window. And we've received a lot of technical support around building a solution and implementing a solution locally here in Cote d'Ivoire. So we've built our very first container pilots. That is actual operation within a fishing cooperative in Cote d'Ivoire. That is actually, that is actually allowing us to deploy and test a number of assumptions that we have around it. We very early, like I mentioned, we don't have all the, all the nitty gritty details of how we deployed, but a really big vision is to really fix cooling for this traditionally overload sector and actually make a difference. So I think I'll just wrap it up here. I can see why you actually want that challenge because seriously, not only are you looking towards your community and having impact on them, you're looking towards building a solution that can be used and can be sustainable at the grassroots. And I think that is amazing, great job. We would love to hear more about your work, of course, and see how we can even collaborate, go further to amplify your work and probably to scale it from your country to other countries because it is totally scalable. Well done, Richard. So we are very, very excited to see that we have such great innovators here. And as you can see, the story is not only about impact, it's also about action and the passion is there. So we are going to come back to you, Emmanuel, and ask you what is missing to help innovators achieve their potential. Thank you so much for this opportunity again. I just wanted to fast comment on Petra. I think basically from what they're doing, I think I'm really seeing like line of most people with education program, I'm seeing line within our e-learning program. I think we'll definitely pull up the conversation after this forum and see synergies and also share learnings, for example, how we're doing in South Sudan and also how you're doing it in your country. And then we can see how we can both collaborate and try to exchange this skill set between South Sudan and the country there. So, you know, there's so many things that actually entrepreneurs or innovators need in order to excel, in order to bring out the innovation, the creativity they have in them. And like for a country like South Sudan, there's so many amazing youth with really good ideas and good business plan, but the only challenge right now, like most of them face is the capital. Like where to get capital is one huge challenge for them at the moment. So like at our space, we give them mentorship, we guide them, there's one-on-one mentorship because we have a co-working space. There are people who come, like at our co-working space, we have a three-type of membership. We have the S-members, the M-members, just in a moment, the camera is trying to make it easier. We have three-type of membership at our space, S-members, M-members, and the E-members. So this three-type of membership, all of them have a different skill set that we provide to them. For example, the S-members at our space are youths who don't have any specific idea. They just wanted to meet with a different group of people so that they can be able maybe to build up from there and able to get something started. So what we provide is a mentorship for them, try to take them through business model, canvas, on how they can be able to put their idea down and all these things. So like in South Sudan, all those amazing youths with good, great ideas that need investment in it. There's a huge challenge with the investors. Investors from South Sudan either angel investors or even network of investors. We don't have angel investors in South Sudan and that become a huge challenge to so many entrepreneurs. Like at the moment what we encourage entrepreneurs to do is to start with the little that they have, the little resources they have, let them start from where they are and let them just do the little that they can and move on forward. Support, funds, capital will get them on their way. And like so far I can say, because we majorly focus on access to skin. I know like South of them in the site of education, you know, there's very less, I mean, investment in this sector specifically. And that become a bit challenging and majority of South Sudanese are illiterate, you know, huge percentage because of the long signal war that is like the first 21 civil war before the independence. And then after the independence, we had two civil war, which is all internal conflict. And it was able to be set up a lot of a mean of movement. And that's actually one of the key thing why I started the general public space to continue to provide the same skills. Like looking at focus on hands on skills and like the skills that can take you to get employment, the skill that will let you start something by your own self, you know. And one key thing I find out is that helps innovation spaces across Africa are really driving huge changes. I visited like a couple of other innovation spaces like a high school up in Uganda, in Uganda or K-Lap in Rwanda or IHAP in Nairobi, you know, or ISADIS in Junaidisababa. All these spaces are really driving huge change. And we're able to be like part of so many other networks, African innovation networks like AFRELAP, which is a group of over 162 innovation space. There's a network like I4Policy, which is majorly focusing on putting policies around innovation and technology in different parts of Africa. And so far through this network, we're able to continue to push. For example, in South Sudan, there's high access for young individuals who are starting the business. And like you find that an entrepreneur started a business in one or two months, the person is no more in the market simply because there's high taxes that has been imposed to them. So we're trying to work on together with the entrepreneurs. And we're really like using the group, the network that we are part of. There's a manifesto, I4Policy, this manifesto. We're able to present to a chunk of commerce, present to a means of use and support. Let them look into it and see how best businesses in South Sudan can, like this young business, so that they continue to stay in the market. Because that's already the employment of, they're already creating job opportunity to some and other youth who would like to, who are staying idle. You know, like one of the key things here is that now in South Sudan is that youths who are just idle, they end up being used as tools for destruction. But that is not the exact concept. And that is like happening a lot in Africa. You find that so many youths have been used as tools for destruction instead of being used as tools for development. And that's like one concept that can easily be changed, you know. And like with that big challenge right now that so many youths are facing, being used for the personal interests of the leaders. I personally believe leaders, it comes after caring for people's life, but not after them. You cannot say you're my leader if you cannot care for the life of the people, the people who voted you in your place, you know. And that become a challenge. You find that the youths today started a business in two to three times. The person is two to three weeks or one month. The person is nowhere in the business. What's happened? There's high taxes that has been imposed to the person, you know, and that become a challenge. So like for a country like South Sudan, I think there's need for investors because there's a lot of potentials. I can say that like most people in the agriculture sector, where there's huge virgin land that is not yet been tested with either any of the fertilizers, which is really, really good for farming. Like the yield in South Sudan, we received seven to eight months full of rainfall. Seven to eight months, you can just imagine. Naturally, you don't need any. Immanuel, I'm sorry, I'll have to cut you short, but we are very, very excited about that feedback. And we actually have some comments from the chat and one of them is talking about your experience. It says, great Immanuel, that is what we are talking about. Share experience, good practices and scalability. So you're getting good traction well done. Sorry to interrupt it. It's just because of the interest of time. I know you understand. And we can always have this conversation one-on-one because I'm so excited about the team here. The team here is what pulls my heart. This is the reason I think that I have a colleague. And I'm really, really excited to be able to work with you, very excited. I can see we are going to do a lot, not only with Petra and Immanuel and Richard, who are the innovators, but with Vanessa, who's an ecosystem builder. And she's also as passionate as I am and as my team at ITU, not only at ITU, but also the other ecosystem builders that we are working with. They would be glad to collaborate. Thank you so much. Just one, sorry Petra, could you keep it between 30 seconds just to tell us goodbye. Just a call for action before you go. Okay. Thank you very much, Ida. All right. I just, what would I say? A lot of things, but I have to say something. Okay. Actually, it's very important that we bridge the gap. This divides that we have all over Africa in my country, all over Africa, South Saharan Africa in education, the digital divides. We need to bridge it. And to downstream this, to downstream this through our innovation and entrepreneurship. It's very, very challenging. It's challenging, but yet, how do we do it? My opinion, I think that the best way to do this is by bringing education closer to this less favored population. Bringing education to them, because education is life. Education will make them to have the sense of creativity, a better sense of curiosity, creativity. This education and especially when it is coupled with developing an entrepreneurial mindset, it will give them that enterprise in mind that will permit them to recognize opportunities and grab them. This is the quickest way for us. We want countries in the global south to quickly move from cheap labor to high skills and knowledge-led economy. And I think this is what we need in Cameroon, because when we talk about emerging in 2035, this is the engine that will move us, that will drive, make us to drive to achieving this objective. Thank you, Ida. Hello to Petra. I was almost going to give a standing ovation, but since all of you are so good, I'd have to give a standing ovation to everyone. Well done. Last words, Vanessa, and then Richard kindly keep it between 30 seconds or so. Thank you. Great job, Petra. Thank you, Ida. Thank you. Your mic is off, Vanessa. Sorry, I was speaking to myself. So I think that on a personal level, I'm very excited for what the future holds for Africa. I think there's so much potential, and I think that what we need to do is to identify the gaps in our various ecosystems and how we can bridge those gaps. I think that as players in the ecosystem, we need to see what challenges are existing, how are entrepreneurs and innovators finding the entrepreneurial ecosystem that we have in our different spaces. Is it something that is healthy? Is it enabling them to grow? Is it enabling them to scale both locally and as well as globally? I think that there is need to look at so many things. I think in our different spaces, there's need to look at so many things that can create healthy ecosystems. I think that for me, one thing that is very, very important, Ida, is to create an enabling environment to create a healthy system. But when we talk about that, what are we looking at? So for example, are there, what are the existing regulations and how do they affect entrepreneurs and startups? What can be done if possible? For example, we can look at issues to do with regulatory sandboxes for digital innovation, because they provide innovators with the clear mechanism to navigate regulatory requirements. I think somebody talked about... Sometimes the conditions that we ask for... Sorry? Sorry. Yes, continue. I'm sure that Emmanuel had talked about tech hubs, which I think are very, very important in Nebler. And this is because they not only give innovators a platform to test, to experiment their different ideas, but also they provide all of these different skills from business development to technical development, mentors and advisors, which are very, very important to support innovators. I think it is important for us to look at how can these tech hubs also be supported as not only supporting the innovators themselves, but also how can tech hubs in these different ecosystems be supported? I think also that there is need for a lot of effort to be placed around promoting this culture and innovative mindset from the grassroots levels. I think that somebody had mentioned this and I just wanted to echo because I think it's very important. We need to look at what can be done from the grassroots. It could be entrepreneurship skills for kids and all of those things, seminars and all those things. One other thing I think I can add, which I think is an often overlooked segment is... One thing that I've noticed is there's so much support that is provided to any stage startups and ideation stage, innovative and digital entrepreneurs and not so much support is provided to the growth stage, people that are looking to scale. So I think that it is important for the different areas in our continent to look at how those growth stage entrepreneurs can also be supported. It could be supporting them to scale into different markets, facilitating access to markets for them beyond just the local markets, but also into international markets as well, so that they can learn, they can be able to reposition their products and be able to compete at that level. So yeah, I think I just thought that I should mention all of those things, but I think that the future for Africa is very bright. We need to just fill in those gaps in our ecosystems. We need to leverage on the existing opportunities that we have and how those opportunities can create employment opportunities, especially for the youths who we all know from the large majority of African population, how we can facilitate industrialization and also how we can create solutions for challenges that are prevalent in our different communities. So once again, I just thank you very much, Ida, and thank you to all the other panelists that we've been able to interact with here. I think it's been very, very interesting to hear what the different innovators here on this call are doing. I think it's very, very commendable, and I'm looking forward to interacting with you all a lot more beyond this call. Thank you. Wonderful. You know, it's very amazing that you always come up not only with an answer but with a solution to a question that you have already raised. And this is the kind of innovative mind that we think we need to be creators and we need to be innovators even when we are helping others in the ecosystem. That means that even if you're an ecosystem enabler, you should be able to think like an innovator. You should be able to think about solutions. You should be able to put yourself in the innovators shoes and clearly Vanessa, you're able to do that. So that is very exciting. We have Richard. Richard, could you just give us your final comments? And I can also see that there's some good comments which have come in from the various platforms about this session, especially the innovators groups. I can see comments from WhatsApp, from Facebook, from Twitter. And I can see this session is the kind that has actually encouraged a lot of young people to want to engage more with platforms like this. So, well done, Tim. Richard, your final comments, please. Yes. Yes, so thank you, Ida. I think my opinion, maybe I wanted to share that simple quote is just take, we are not actually just take a whole, a whole village to raise a child. And I think when it comes to innovation, I think we, we basically in the context of African countries, I think we, we look at two things basically. So of course, there is how can we provide an enabling environment to make sure that technology is adopted widely within the population, which is something that we've seen time and again, for example, elsewhere. One of my favorite inspirations, for example, is India, where, you know, you've seen in the last 10 years, amazing internet penetration and amazing adoption of technology. And I think we can do the same thing here in Africa. The second thing of course is really I think like Vanessa pointed out, is to really ensure that we have a driving ecosystem. I think it takes really all of these stakeholders to understand that we need to support young innovators so that we can build not only, you know, companies that allow them to survive in the midst of the lack of employment, but to build driving companies that could go on to be millions of dollars companies, tens of millions of dollars companies or, you know, even regional champions and beyond. So we need, you know, public officials, we need ecosystem builders, we need universities, we need talent to really ensure that we can be able to move forward. And I think ITU is playing its part through these firms. So that will be my closing remarks. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm glad you have talked about that because we do have a course that is geared specifically towards the issues you have raised. In fact, bringing the ecosystem builders together, the different stakeholders, instead of working in silos, working together with similar goals, getting to understand what exactly drives those is behind those three drivers that we talked about. So I'm very excited to see that all of us are on the same page. And we're going to be sharing more information, not only with you, but also with the networks that you're in. We can see that there are a lot of networks out there, especially driven by young people who are very excited to hear things which are explained in a language that they can understand. That for us is an eye-opener. We're going to be able to at least try to have more sessions like this where we engage more young people, more young innovators, more entrepreneurs, and actually be able to give them toolkits that can help them in their daily lives. Something practical, something that can be used at the very ground or even at the grassroots. So we're very excited to hear that. All of you are not only innovating, but you're also thinking about impacting the community and impacting your fellow youth. So we are very excited to close the session. Probably we could just look at some comments and be able to throw one or two comments to some of you, because we seem to have excited quite a number of people. Probably just one thing that we can... Richard, oh yes, back to you. Maybe you can tell us how the sector has been able to find a footing during and post-COVID, and what further measures should be taken to enhance innovation in Africa. Richard, are you there? Richard, are you there? If you're not there, we'll just go straight to Petra. Petra also tell us what kind of interventions you're putting towards... What kind of interventions? You're putting towards even pre-covid. Sorry, I'm just speaking the comments from our groups. So I hope you understand if I'm not that relevant with the question. Yes, please come over again. The Interpretion Bureau was intervening when you were asking the question. Okay, maybe you could tell us how the sector has been able to find a footing pre- and post-COVID, and what further measures should be taken to enhance further innovation in Africa. This is in regards to the COVID pandemic, I believe. Okay, in regards to the COVID pandemic, particularly here in my country, the pre-COVID era was that we were not so much into distance learning. That is our government did not really put much concern on distance learning until COVID-19 came in. So yes, until COVID-19 came in, so in 2020, the government called for the implementation of distance learning platform in every school in the country. But now the problem that we face with this calling is that most of the principals, the heads of the schools that are in charge of implementing this objective do not know what distance learning is all about. They don't have the technical and human resources to implement this project. So I think that the government, because quite often when startups come and ask them for proposed them solutions, they would think that they just want to bother them. But if they are the ones asking for it, it means that they have seen the importance. So I think that at the level of the government, they should put in place technical resources and human resources that can train people that can train resource persons that can implement this innovation in order for us to succeed in this sector. Secondly, the problem of access to internet. I think the communication, the communication technology companies should also do something they are already doing like for us here in Cameroon, the Camtel is offering bundles or opportunities that will ameliorate or improve the megabytes of internet, especially in the universities, so that students can do their researches with better megabytes that will permit them to get their results faster. But I think they should do better. I think they should go to the peripheries, go beyond, not just in cities, go beyond, go to those areas that are less favoured. Bring these technical resources, bring these human resources that can put in place these innovations so that the whole case will grow because we cannot talk about collaboration. We cannot talk about partnership when we are not aware of what we are partnering about. We cannot talk about downstreaming innovation or entrepreneurship when the other parts of the country or the other regions are completely left out. So I think that it also calls for government policies. It also calls for stakeholders. It calls for everybody, everyone in the ecosystem. It calls for students. It calls for students to also understand that it's high time. They got interested in what matters most now, the trends, the technological trend in the world. Learn new skills, acquire new skills, not saying that no digital technology is reserved only for genius. No, there's nothing like that. There's nothing like a particular thing being reserved for particular people. We can acquire skills, skills are inborn, they are also acquired from our environment. So I think that's what I feel. And education is the easiest way, sensitizing youth, sensitizing learners, applying and promoting like this here in my country. I think the government is really looking forward to meeting this innovative spirit. Because this year in my country, the National Guidance and Counseling, the team, the roundtable team for the conference team for the National Guidance and Counseling Awards, promoting entrepreneurial skills in school milieu, promoting entrepreneurial mindsets in school milieu. So I think that we are on the trend and I hope that it continues and not just die out in papers. For us, we are bent on continuing whether or without the government support, because the most important thing is to move from idea to trying to connect with the reality if actually your idea can create results in reality. So we will move with or without the government help to our project because we already have partners who are encouraging us. We have also been applying to challenges that have also been giving us motivation, to go up with our project. And if it continues like that, if you continue to work hard, you continue to know that we are the leaders of tomorrow as youth. I'm a mother of three and I'm a working class mom. I have twins among the three children. I have twins that are just three years old. Even when I was heavily pregnant with them, I was still working for my company. I was still working as a CEO. There was nothing like, oh my God, I'm in a bad mood. No, there was nothing like I would come and say, okay, I'm not talking about collaborators because today my babies in my tummy, my twins don't want me to smile. No. I forged in because I know that it's only by forging in because I think that those challenges are even what give us the motivation because there is some, some school has said that problems are golden opportunities with tons on them. So I think each time we are faced with a problem, we should instead turn it over and look at it as a golden opportunity, and then look for every means to forge on. When you forge on, there are probably people who will see your effort, there are people who will see your results, they will see your impact and then they will come and add to what you already have. I think that's the mindset that we need to have, that's the mindset. You know, that is not only a call for action, it is inspiring in its very self. And coming from someone who has gone through so much in order to create something that works in the environment. I think all of us are going to go home feeling very encouraged and ready to face the challenges that come day to day. I also feel that you have actually given us a reason for fighting for the ideas or the solutions that are constantly flowing in our heads. Because as you have said, there must be a reason for them. And the reason is we need to take action and feelingly and remain on track. And that is really amazing. It's inspiring for everyone, not only someone who's a young innovator and entrepreneur, but anyone, regardless of age, regardless of status. And that is why we hope we'll be having more of these conversations. And this time involves some of those policy makers that we're talking about. You have said it will still be done with or without them. And we would like them to hear that so that they can see how serious it is for them to create an enabling environment for innovators and entrepreneurs. Thank you so much for those words of wisdom Petra. Thank you. Thank you, Ida. Thank you. It's really been exciting to engage with this panel. Seriously, I'm really motivated. This is something I did not expect as moderator, but I have really been inspired even beyond what I thought, even beyond the boundaries that I thought that I had, because I am an innovator as well. I have felt the call to do more and not to do less. And this is because the innovators here are talking about whether it is an enabling environment or not. And it will still be done. They will still do it. And I'm very excited because we meet challenges every day. And these are some of the attitudes that we need to inculcate, not only in ourselves, but in others. As we wrap up, I would just like to draw attention to the fact that the regional good practice report where we highlighted Juneau as a tech hub and as a workspace. It actually showed us that in the Africa region, there are so many good practices. You have heard from Petra of edgy dynamics. Did I pronounce it right? I don't know why I always go back to that. That is really amazing, the work that is being done, even by innovators who have just hit the ground running. And we have also heard from an ecosystem builder, someone who's very serious about building the ecosystem and someone who's also not talking about the talk, but working the work. There are good practices that can be modified and replicated by champions in their own communities to help maintain vibrant digital innovation ecosystems that are conducive to the accelerated digital transformation of society. So that the opportunities inherent in accelerating digital transformation in Africa are crucial. And they require an understanding of the critical enablers and the linkages that are needed to foster ICT centric innovation. So good practices can serve as a basis for strengthening digital innovation ecosystems, as well as promoting regional and international cooperation and partnerships. So we are very excited that this has already been explored and collaboration has already been gained, even from such a session as this. So thank you continue engaging with us, whether on social media or directly when you're able to actually get. I'm sure we will try and share at least the contact person you can share with ideas and also ways and solutions in which it you can collaborate with you to make your innovation or your business a success. So we are very excited about this and continue accelerating digital transformation in Africa. Remember you are crucial to us and remember that we are going to be build this as part of good practices that can serve as a basis for strengthening digital innovation ecosystems. Thank you. Well done and God bless. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Bye everyone. Bye everyone. Thank you so much. You're the best coach. That's your calling either. Yes, you're calling. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The pleasure was everything. I'm pleased to have met you. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye everyone. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.