 Hello, everyone. So I hope you can hear me. I'm really welcome all of you in this next panel discussion. As we have heard the very nice, previous conversation, and I can promise you that right now we are going to share stories as well. As we have learned the story, this is the most important thing, what we can focus on because we can remember for it. I do hope so that you will remember all of the details from the next conversation. I would like to use or aim just to just to opening the next channel and talking about the ecosystem in a different way. We all know that what does it mean the ecosystem, what I would like to get some answers and get some new methods that what does it mean the culture of the innovation and the culture of the ecosystem. So I can promise you that I'm really welcome all of my partners here. I can see Mariko already. I can see. Hi Mo, you are also here and I do hope so that Valentina and Jonathan with us as well. Say hello please if you are with us. Hello Mo here. Hello Mo and hello Mariko. Before we join I would like to introduce myself in a couple of words. I am a TV anchor and communication expert and I'm working with startups and new talents as well as a business developer. And or aim today as I mentioned that we will talk about the culture, the innovation culture and going back to the previous slides and the previous conversation. I would really like to ask you just introduce yourself first. Maybe in a nice story and introduce yourself and your organization. Then we can put you somewhere on the map and we will still remember for all of you in the next decade. So Mariko, would you be so nice and start the intro? Hi everyone. My name is Mariko Beckford and I'm I'm from the UK. I'm a digital skills officer working in local government. So I connect industries education to help build the bridge of the digital skills gap that we experienced so widely across across the globe. And one of the ways that I do that is by creating very useful and valuable partnerships with local organizations and national and international organizations so that these organizations can use their work to shape the curriculum in the educational system, but also to impact communities locally and nationally to help those communities thrive in the digital skills. Digital skills sector that they need to. So that's one of the one of the things that I focus on. I also lead a tech leader for Silicon Canal and this is a community initiative that helps to shape the ecosystem of startup organizations in the tech community in Birmingham. And I'm also a blogger on my digital shapers website. So I blog about technology innovation and skills and career advice. Thank you very much Marika. So bourbon when is already with us and I would call South Africa already because this is the global conversation. I'm very happy that we can hear all of the aspect and everyone all over the world. So Jonathan, would we be so kind and introduce yourself and your organization as well. Thank you Marika and good day to everybody. I'm Jonathan I do the chief executive officer of smart exchange. Smart exchange is a business incubator that focuses on the media information communications technology electronics and more recently the arts sector. The acronym is the mic sector. Why does art come in because of its relevance to the steam education no longer the stem. And even in all of our technology designing the pushing the arts agenda within that portfolio. I predominantly work with a lot of youth. Currently we have 72 companies in the incubation ecosystem and our incubator has got an amazing replication model. We've got an urban incubator in the central business district of Devon. We've got an incubator in a small town called Port Yepston. And then we've replicated an incubator in a township. And then the fort incubation is a rural incubator. So we're looking at the different economies. Whilst we do replication of the ecosystem. And of course, we enjoyed being magic with the youth when we take the challenges and take fantastic opportunities. We are proud to have one of our companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as well. That's it from smart exchange and Jonathan I do. Thank you and it's wonderful what we have heard and right now we are calling Chile and the Valentina area is also with us and please Valentina introduce yourself and your organization at the beginning. Hello everyone, I'm Valentina Gaia from Chile like I said, I am here at start up Chile that is a public accelerator that started its journey years ago. So basically what we do is that we need funding and support to take base global startups. So we give them funding, we give them guidance, mentorship, network, etc, in order to make them global business and succeed. And personally my role at start up Chile is just that is to connect them with all our resources and make this journey to our programs more smooth and help them basically whatever that they need in order to succeed in their business. Thank you very much Valentina and Moe. Finally, but not the end, but please, is there something about yourself as well because you are really expert of this question, but I would like to ask you just to introduce yourself as well. Hi everybody, Moe, Mohamed, Moe for those who know me and I'm a technology addict recovering addict who is trying to be an ecosystem builder. And one of my passion is to help communities unlock their potential. This is why we're here. That's why the whole team of this conference is about helping countries unlock their potential. And of course, I'm the senior coordinator of this topic at the ITU with the main goal to basically help countries foster more of their innovation to make sure that their young people can basically unlock the potential in their communities. Over to you, Marta. Thank you very much, Moe. Okay, we can start right now because it's very interesting for me that we have been talking about the ecosystem and more than five, 10 years. Everyone knows it is important. It is crucial. But Moe, what do you think? Why is it important just to emphasize and highlight the culture as well? What is the extra benefit if we build not just the resources around us, but the culture of innovation or the culture of the ecosystem? Well, I think the ecosystem is sort of an abused world. It's the same as innovation. And most of the time people confuse what it is. But basically, it's very simple. When you think about innovation, and then you can look at a standard definition, which says it's a new product, new marketing methods, different forms of change. And this change is producing something that somebody wants in general. Now, if you are an innovator and you're trying to drive this product to market or this change to market, you need a group of stakeholders to help you. You need financiers maybe to provide you some kind of resources. And this could be what we call soft resources, which is not money, or it could be just hard money. You probably need the policymakers because you have to have policymakers help you with policy. You need academics because the whole world is really about a global war of talent. So your ecosystem will need that. And you need a whole bunch of other stakeholders. So the ecosystem is basically the stakeholders who creates this symbiotic relationship and sustainable relationship between everybody and their environment. So that's the ecosystem. And this is why countries need it is super important because without this, you will not have the innovation that you need in the countries. I have promised to our audience that we're going to give them very good, best practices. And I am really curious about those who are working in this kind of environment with these startups. How have you managed to do it, Marika? What is your opinion? What is the most important part in the cultural aspect of the innovation or the ecosystem building? I think that's a great question, Marta. Like when we break down what it means to innovate, and again Moe mentioned this, we're often referring to the improvement of something that's already established, where new ideas and new solutions can be shaped to enhance a product or service, method or experience. And in my experience working within and building startups, I've witnessed and participated in the development of some successful and some not so successful stages. I don't know if we can hear you, Marika. It seems to be it's frozen. I don't know with the others. Can we hear you, Marika? Please? I think no. Oh, anyway. Okay, then we immediately jump to chill. I don't worry. So because we can go to the next startup in computer parts. So Valentina, what is your opinion? What is your experience about this question? Well, I think that for us at the beginning, because we have been in this amazing journey for years, but it all started for us being at the end of the mindset. So at the beginning, without our program or our accelerator was created in our country, nobody was really thinking or talking about technology, digital businesses, entrepreneurship, startups. So we knew that we had to make something different in order to think the mindset and inspire people to start thinking about it. And as we didn't have anyone here, like, such a space, we thought about bringing foreign entrepreneurs in order to somehow inspire the local ecosystem. So that was like the first, the first stage of how to create this culture. And then we started to worry about and take care about the community, how to make this network in connection with all these entrepreneurs that came from all over the world in order to get them involved in the program. And also, if so, in the future, they could also help us. Like, for example, a lot of alumni from us became a loophole. So that was a very good resource that we were able to manage along these 10 years that now is a very valuable asset for us as we have this very international and very high level network of mentors, alumni. So we can offer that for the new generation as well. So I would say that it has to start with that mindset, at least in our ecosystem. And it also started evolving into how to create a community in this environment, how to make co-creation, collaboration between private and public sector, because like I mentioned, we are a public institution. So we had to also make these private companies involved into this movement of startup innovation. So it was a very complex process and how to get them all these stakeholders involved and make them want to be part of the GLAP, finally, of this innovation and startup ecosystem. Thank you, Valentina Jonathan. Do you have some similarity, like involving the alumni people and create a new network and the wider network around your startups? Is it the best practice for you as well, or it's totally different in your country or in your region? It is similar, but I'll maybe start off by using an African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, you go alone. Alone? Yeah, if you want to go far, we go together. And now that ties in with the brief note that Moe gave us, the whole thing is about collaboration. Hence we want to go far together. So in building up the culture of innovation, the fundamental blocks will start with collaboration with a host of strategic partners. And I don't want to go into the level of detail. I think we know who the strategic partners are. And once you've got that right with a powerful enabling environment from policy and government, then I think you've got the right ingredients for the culture of innovation. When we talk about culture, it means it's in your blood. That's how I interpret culture. It is something in your blood. So if your DNA is right, you can't go wrong. Now, in terms of our best practices out here, we've used a multi-pronged approach, underpinning excellent teaching and learnings. And to stimulate the innovation ecosystem, right now, by the way, I'm just running a four day series in the township on a co-created solution of a challenge that impacted in the township economies under COVID-19. So we responded to a challenge where the entire economy came to a standstill. And when the challenge came to us, we co-created a solution with 10 startup companies. Now collaboration at even another level. And the guys are actually creating magic in the township, where we've now digitized an economy that was never ever digitized. Areas that are no connectivity, we are using television white spaces to ensure that there's connectivity for the solutions to be rolled out. But I think in the interest of time, I'll stop there now, but the key points is collaboration, co-creation, and this partnership creates amazing magic. Thank you very much. And Mo, may I ask you that we were talking about the collaboration that cooperation and co-working. And as Jonathan mentioned that it's in our DNA in a normal way. But what can we do with the question is the competitiveness. So sometimes it's people are competing or companies competing to each other, and maybe some of them on the same field. And how can you manage in these questions and in this part of the cooperation? Well, I think what you find is that in the beginning of every ecosystem creation, and you will find this competition, this competitive spirit is there. But quickly they will realize and they will go back to Jonathan's proverb, right? If you want to go fast, you go alone, but you're not going to go very far. And then they start switching the gear and they start finding ways to actually focus and have what we call the community consciousness. And the community consciousness is just what Jonathan brought up, which is to say COVID came, we did a challenge. Now the whole community is co-creating around this one problem. And this is something that they would not do before. So suddenly they have raised community consciousness to the next level. But of course it does not stop there because all of this is sort of a story that feeds on itself. The more people see this sort of consciousness and the more they want to join this crowd, and then the more you see the behavior or the DNA sort of thing that Jonathan talks about happen. And I think you're all familiar with the habit slope. In the habit slope, if you want to change any habit, there is something called the cue, the routine and the reward. Now if you have several stakeholders and you want to change their behavior, you need to impact something. So you need to either impact the cue or you need to, in this case COVID, so everybody's cue is wow, the reward. But you need to change something. So in your community, you have to start thinking about those things. And then you have to start engaging stakeholders so they can find these cross-collaboration issues. But I'll stop there, but the issue is a bit more complex in terms of how an ecosystem get formed. But I think Valentina also brought this up when she talks about in the beginning what they did. But it's really all trying to create these habits and these sort of events, communities, behaviors. Thank you very much. And hopefully, and I can see Marika also on the screen, so it means you rejoined us. Thank you very much. And sorry, probably we just lost you a little bit in this Internet connection. But as I have seen that you have been listening to us and maybe you can comment this, we were just talking about the cooperation and about the competitiveness and how people can or how your companies can deal with it. I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch the end. I only caught the end of the conversation. All right. So then I just wrap it up again. So we were just talking about how important it is to collaborate and co-working together with the startups and with the whole community and the whole ecosystem. But my question was that what can you do with the competition? If maybe in your hub also similar startups there and similar companies there, is there any competition between them? Or you can go with them in the next level and force them or ask them or they can understand the cooperation is much better than to be competitive. I think what you're trying to say, I think from my understanding there a level of competitiveness helps to push the barriers of creativity. I think there is a line that can be pushed and catalyze innovation because there is a level of competitiveness, healthy competitiveness. So in that respect I have seen that in startup cultures and I've seen it work for the good. And when it does, it can really help to propel and level up a level of excellence within startup culture in terms of how they create new ideas and their perspectives of things changing as well. And one more question to you Marika, because Valentina has mentioned one good practice like involving the alumni also to the ecosystem, to the network. And do you have some good practices as well? How can we nurture the startup culture? Yeah, I think I mentioned, I don't know whether you heard, I don't know what point I got off because I was talking a lot. You can start with one more time. I have some key things that I think will help and those things are a sense of collaboration. So when you're collaborating, the goal is to set the connection between varying strengths and skills and expertise and acknowledging those strengths and expertise, sharing those to implement the ideas. And I think sometimes when we are embarking on a collaborative process, collaboration may require an external facilitator or someone to facilitate the suitable connection. That are made in order for the process of innovation to thrive. And I think as well, there needs to be a level of awareness and one of my, I guess, a key point of guidance would be recognizing that when decisions and plans need to pivot, need to stop or need to start over. And I think in that process of innovation, when we have that awareness of when that idea needs to change, needs to adapt, needs to start over, that's where we get a heightened level of activity. And I think having that level of awareness is really important. The other thing that I think is really key is acknowledging the efforts, the energy, the time and the talent. So in your startup groups with your stakeholders, with your partners, recognize and appreciate the outcomes of the entire process. I think that's really important to raise motivation, to raise energy levels and to help the innovation process to continue to thrive and to be energized as well. Thank you, Valentina. Are you agree? Because I have seen you were nodded while listening, Marika. Is it similar to you that it's easier to energize or easier to motivate those who are in the community? Probably your answer, yes. But how can we see the differences between the collaboration and the common culture or if you stay alone? I have a particular case that happened in one of my credentials that they were very stressed out that all the things that they had to do and they were collapsing at the end of the day. So we had this meeting where we were one-to-one meeting and we were like, do you have someone that you can recommend to me that could help me to deal with all this that is happening in my personal life that is growing and I don't really have the capacity, so I really don't know what to do. And then a few days later we have this group meeting and she exposed her problem and she realized that the other peers that were at the meeting, I faced the same situation two weeks ago, for example, and she realized that she was not alone there, that there was more people going through the same situation that she was, but what she was doing is that she was staying home for work and we have coronavirus now, it has like a different context now, but back then we had this co-work space with all the entrepreneurs work together, share ideas, work together in finding synergies on how even there is stuff that can make businesses. So she realized that staying back home alone, she was suffering and she was not able to connect with the other entrepreneurs that had the same experience and that to help her or guide her how to deal with it. So I think another important thing like Mariko said is that when you get together with other people that is in the same journey as you are, you find support there and you find this additional strength to go through all these things that maybe you didn't but they were coming through this stage because another important thing I think that is that you have to know that it's not going to be that easy as you think maybe maybe you're going to fail maybe you're going to have to be but and redesign yourself, redesign your solution, think again and pivot again so sometimes when we talk about entrepreneurship innovation, it sounds like this amazing journey and like it's all flashes and amazing things and it is but it also has the other thing that it might involve a lot of stress or a lot of hard work and hard times also. So you need to have this community, this culture that is supporting you all the time and telling you that if you really believe in your vision, just go for it and keep the passion. Yes, thank you very much. Jonathan, are you agree with it that not only the success but the failure is also much easier to handle if we are in the community and if we are in a great culture and we can handle it better than. Absolutely. I mean, what's important is never lose the opportunity of a crisis. Don't let a crisis go to waste. Take the learnings out of that crisis and turn it into a motivational success story, but it'll be criminal to repeat the same crisis. I think that's important for us. So there's obviously stages to reduce that in terms of your methodology as well. So it's called risk management of the entire project. So if you're kind of scanning of the project is great. Your market research of it is smart. The chances of failure is minimized but not guaranteed. I think that's important for us as well to make sure those safety nets are built in. And of course, if there's collaboration, the chances of failure is even reduced further. But collaboration also with good competitiveness is smart. I go back to the current project we're running out in the townships. I've got six marketing companies that are collaborating and competing in terms of marketing good news stories from the communities. But it's such a buzz out that each guy takes his client, converts into an amazing story, pushes it onto the social media, and we're all benefiting out of it. So that's the beauty as well. And the added advantage of the competitiveness, it makes you put your best foot forward. Thank you. And Mo, we have a question already. What if the market isn't big enough and many startups cannot coexist? How can you adjust this situation if the market is not enough? It's a question. Well, I think if your market is not enough, if the market is not enough for startup, at the most startup, I mean, we have many successful countries who are very small, but they're really globalized. And what they're able to do is to reach out to markets and actually to make those connections, not with their countries, which they have probably done a good job, but also actually try to find networks for these communities that can help them support. And this actually goes both ways, because it's not just about the market, but it's also about the resources that you may need in your ecosystem that you don't have, right? And I think this is what, you know, when you talk about developing your ecosystem, you don't have, I mean, I can cite you an example of a really one of the wealthiest countries in the world, which is in Europe, I will not name the country. But when we did their analysis of their ecosystem, we realized that actually there wasn't really that much of an ecosystem, because what was happening is other people, Silicon Valley was coming in in their ecosystem to utilize their resources. They weren't coming for the market, they were just coming in because they had a lot of fancy equipment, investment that they can leverage, right? But at the end, they take that resource and then they come back and they sell the product. So you have to be super smart about your ecosystem and how you connect it to other ecosystem. So market is not an issue. I mean, yes, there's always good for your companies to get started. But after that, every tech company, the minute it's born is global. So you should think that you're competing globally, you're not competing locally. If you're not ready for that, don't start your business. Yes, I think it's very important what you have mentioned that Valentina at the beginning already said it as you just brought foreign partners as well as you brought foreign companies as well as you have those companies in your country who would like to go global. You would like to have them as well. Is it very typical that they need the global network as well? Like we do it right here already. This is also global networking and I'm very appreciative that you are joined to us as well, because I think this is the question what we are going to solve today. So but go back to the question, Valentina, have you seen the benefit of this cooperation with other countries or with globally? Yeah, definitely. So when we started, the idea of the program was to use our country that is a very small country as a platform for the rest of the Latin American market. So what we wanted to do basically is that as we are a very reduced market, it's like a safe place for validation for private piloting. So we wanted them to come to our country, inspire the people and at the same time they use our market in order to validate. And also as we have a lot of very close neighbors, they can easily start to make businesses abroad in the region. So we have, we must have good connections with those markets in order to guide them through and connect them with other important stakeholders in those circumstances. So I think it is very important to have this kind of network because you are able to open these doors for these startups that maybe they go alone. They will have to spend a lot of resources and time and effort to actually get one meeting, for example. So when you have this kind of balances, for example, I think it's easier for them to have the opportunity of exploring the new market. And also, if you have, for example, in our case, we have companies and entrepreneurs that are from those markets and came to our country, they already have the perspective of people that came from those markets and they can also share how that market works, what is the culture back there, what is the right way to make businesses, what is the right approach to talk to a company. For example, I was in a meeting this week and they were saying that here in Latin America, if you fail, for example, your product is not ready and you go to a meeting with a client and you fail in that meeting, it's very hard giving our culture that you will be able to sell again to that person. But the guy was saying that maybe in another country that they are more open to risk, maybe you will have the chance to go back again and say, okay, I fix it and now this is my new product and maybe you will be able to fail. But that depends on the culture, depends on the ecosystem that is in that market. But you also have to be able to read that information and be prepared to that. And so you have this study for the different situation. And I think when you have different stakeholders, companies, startups, or mentors, or people in your network that came from those different markets and countries, you have that first insight on how you should approach the different operations if you want to start, for example, an internalization. Yes, I think it's very important what you mentioned as well because different cultures can react in a different way. And if we are in the big hub and we are able to use the benefits of the differences that we can go further, we can go together, not faster, but farther as we have learned already in the first second from Jonathan. We have a question, I think it's a very interesting question. How do we explain the necessity of the continuing innovation to young generation? And I just wonder whether innovation is always good or not? It's a little bit kind of a theoretical question or a philosophical question. But what do you think, what is your opinion? Maybe, Morika, you have some idea about the ongoing innovation. Is it good or is it necessary? Marta, it's absolutely necessary. On-going innovation is very necessary and I think that in a world where the pace of technology and how we're communicating and thinking up ideas is very rapid, the process of innovation is becoming more natural, I think, because we are all becoming creators within our own niche and we're all communicating creatively through various different mediums and platforms and I think these are sparking those ideas of innovation and I think what's happening as well is that every time we stumble upon a problem, I think there's a culture and a generation of us that are more inclined to thinking of solutions and ways around that and the connectivity between us now is, I believe and I'm witnessing that it's happening much more naturally and rapidly for us to innovate and this is what excites me about innovation because I believe this process of organic connection virtually is helping to catalyse that so absolutely it is necessary. Okay, so I think I was absolutely sure that your answer will be like similar as I see you because you believe in this field but this question has arrived to us. Mo, I would like to ask you that you did many research and you did many study about the resources and the outcome of the ecosystem working. So what can you see? Is it worse from economical way? Does it worse to co-operation and co-working together in an ecosystem at the end of the day because I think it's also a very important question and very important economical question? Well, I think having an ecosystem is absolutely important and having a functioning ecosystem is even more critical. Sometimes what you see is that a lot of big money gets an ecosystem started but the innovation goes anywhere, it doesn't go anywhere. The entrepreneurs gets addicted to the money. I mean, in some countries I won't name them. Entrepreneurs get like 100,000 grants for what? I don't know. What do they work on? I don't know. Is it a real problem? I don't know. Is it worth their time? Probably not but they're getting the money so they'll go for it. So it's super important and I want to build on what Jonathan and also Valentina were saying. In terms of the sustainability, you have to think of the sustainability because you have to first make sure that there is an environment for these young people or these innovators and that they are focusing and solving a problem because if you're not working on a real problem, then most likely they're not going to get the collaboration of the community because if they're working on a problem in the community, people will buy that. Earlier Nas talked about this. He says, well, I'm going to tell you a story. Please don't tell me the product. We have gone through the pitches with our own innovation champions and the first thing I want to do is here is I have this product, it's got this feature and that feature. I said, no, no, no, what the heck is this product doing for me? Tell me what is it solving for me? So you need to focus on the problem of the community and from there you can start mobilizing the resources and this happens very naturally. Marika, I know in your environment, for example, you work a lot with private sector. Well, what does private sector has that cost them nothing that the innovators needs plenty. Did the innovators or the entrepreneurs ever go to talk to the private sector? No, that's the kind of relationship I believe Marika is trying to broker because what you find is people have resources. It doesn't cost them anything and they can offer it to the ecosystem but we never facilitate this connection and we know it's not about competition because the way you make a pie bigger is that if everybody has an ingredient they come together and you make a bigger pie. So that's sort of the short answer to your question. Yes, thank you very much. Jonathan, I agree with it. So you are only dealing with your problems and can you decide after an idea it's an unspareful real problem or not or you take time just to invite everyone and later on you can decide it or the society or the ecosystem will decide it. Is it unspareful real problem or not? Currently our methodology is kind of stereotype in the sense that if we're not solving a real problem we're not going to touch it. We've learned from case studies the guy who innovated the supersonic aircraft broke the sound barrier but what happened to the innovation? Not both because there's no sustainability. We can't afford the flight costs to keep the aircraft in the air but that was certainly an innovation. So key to our innovations are solving a real problem whether it's community-based or industry-based or local government-based and the second component is sustainability thereof and the third component it must lead to a serious start-up of course the links to sustainability will create jobs and economic growth as well. So in summary the problem has to be a real life problem that we're solving. And I would like to bring some one more aspect in it because if we have a problem, if we have a solution and a little bit connecting to the previous discussion about the storytelling about how can we show it to the audience what do you think what is the role of the media in building a start-up culture so do you have any connection with the media? Are you able to show what you have? Are you able to show to the audience what's already with you and are they open for it or not or how can you make it visible? Valentina, do you have some good practice maybe for it, some best practice? Yeah, I think in our country we have new initiatives that are sharing the stories of entrepreneurs in different levels I mean not only digital businesses that are also traditional businesses but it's something that is spreading the voice about entrepreneurship as a really real option of working and not just something that seems so far away so I think that in that sense it's good that somehow as it is a massive media they are making the entrepreneurship innovation and that all those subjects more close to people but also like I mentioned before I think that we don't have to step up in the sense that it's all the good things but also that just share the complete message that it has to have a lot of efforts and there is a journey at the end of the day it's not just to open a business and see the next day so I think we have to be curious very selective in how we say the message in order to somehow educate and inform the people in those subjects and not only sharing success stories and then people are just going to go or open their businesses and then realize that it's not as they were told Yes, it's not that easy as they know it so Maybe it's worth it but I think you have to know that it's not just that it's a journey at the end of the day and maybe you're going to fail a few times before you succeed and instead of TLA we also have these media like the marketing area that has their journalism that helps entrepreneurs to make press releases but we have this approach that is not just going to press because of going to press you have to have something to share a milestone something important that you want to communicate so for example if you make a very good business or how are you changing the industry of for example I don't know the industry of food how are you making a change what is it that you want to communicate because it's not just going to make press release and make some noise in the social media just to let people know that you exist it has to be something beyond your solution beyond your startup so it's engaging for the audience and not just saying okay this is my startup and this is what I do and that's it it has to be a more profound message I totally agree with you I totally agree with you I'm coming from the other side and if you send me a press release I put it in the trash because I do not care about it at all I only care about the stories I only care about the real stories I only care about the real answers for the real questions but I think it's also important just how can you manage it and if you have I don't know 100 startup and if you have 100 of projects you are working on it what is the main message to your audience about these hubs and about this innovation question if it's also crucial just to say then what is your real message Marika what would be your message to change the audience's mindset about this question yeah I think thank you I just want to echo what Valentina was talking about as she mentioned a lot about the storytelling but I also think that the role of media is shifting significantly in startup culture all these startups are becoming their own media organisations and I've seen this you know because the media that's been created the content that's been created from these startup organisations is becoming an asset it's providing greater value to leverage their business goals to build meaningful connections with their customers or services and also it's another way to create another financial stream that can help to propel their business in different directions or to serve their communities wider and I find it really interesting when startups successfully share the narrative of their business journey when they start sharing their values and their missions and they're building these communities and these tribes and fans that are following their story because they believe in their value and their mission and I've seen a great example of this a UK founder called Sharma Dean Reid and she created a startup organisation called Wah Nails and it was the way she utilised her social media to build the community so what she did was she would post social media posts of very highly polished nail varnishes and women with their nails painted and what she found was that she started inviting these women to pop up nail varnishes and then she provided extra value to them because she listened and she recognised that they wanted to the conversations that were happening in the nail varnishes was women wanted to build their own businesses and their own startup communities and then that spiralled into a larger network of business support for females and that was that the essence of that was that communication and building that network via her social media platform and I believe that another reason why media is important in startup culture is because one it's significantly cheaper it's measurable it's insightful and it helps startup organisations capture the demographics and the interests of their audiences and when they do that that's when the startup is able to use the analytics that they've found from the communications that they've shared and they're able to use that to inform very vital decisions that they make next so I'm always delighted to see a startup embrace media I'm always delighted to see them mix different disciplines and different platforms to communicate creatively with their audience Thank you Jonathan are you agree with it so are you using this tool as well because I think it's very crucial but what we have experienced in the last 10 years it's totally has changed so we have many platforms already the media is not just about the social media not just the state media we have all the platforms around us and if you are able to use the right one and if you are able to put your questions or your product on the right one maybe you can build this ecosystem in a wider way we are blessed in the sense that we've seen the writing on the wall from the inception stages hence I introduced myself by saying we're a M-I-C-T-E-A incubator media is part of the incubation program say the pivotal role in the CR digitize a project that we're running out in townships the audio and visual media is playing an amazing role we've got three digital radio stations that are pushing the good news stories as well the added advantage of media is that it now makes your potential customers embrace the product or service that you bring into them it also alerts industry players in terms of being ready for the new disruption so it's giving an early warning signal shape up or ship out because my innovation is coming so that's the other beauties of having a powerful media campaign linked to any aspect of innovation by closing them up on that media and innovation goes hand in glove I have seen that Marika was noted so highly because I can see the disruption and you can check or you can test your product on the market is it really crucial most definitely it helps us to validate the product or the service that you're preparing to your audience and having that validation enables you to work on whether you're going to continue that process or whether you're going to change it and it's that element of awareness that I mentioned earlier in the innovation phases that I think is important so absolutely I'm always inspired when I see startup cultures really embracing media at a very early stage in their process thank you Mo we have a couple of minutes left and I would really ask you just to summarize that what is the for those who are listening us for those who are watching us and maybe they would like to improve the culture of the ecosystem what do they what should they do what would be your recommendation to make it better or improve it well that's a really tough one but before I said that I just want to point to another aspect of the media and I agree that media is reorganizing itself and startup have to utilize this to survive but there is a very important part of media that we should not overlook which is basically the fact that media tells success stories of entrepreneurs which inspire other entrepreneurs to join those digital communities so that aspect I think is super important for the ecosystem now back to your question what should any ecosystem really do to think about building their culture I think the first thing is to really do a honest assessment of your ecosystem the stakeholders and how every one of them is contributing to the journey right towards this vibrancy etc at ITU we use the tool to do this is called the ecosystem maturity map where you can basically color code 30 different indicators and tell you how you look but it does not tell you how to get there for you to understand how to get there you have to basically do a bit more but you have to think about okay at which stage you're in you have to think about what is the most critical aspect you need to fix but out of all of the aspects I think building digital communities and fostering the digital communities is super important because that's what's going to feel is the community that will feel this positive feedback and then you will be able to actually develop into this remarkable ecosystem is what will attract policymakers to enact new laws is what will attract private sector to take notice to say well these guys are small fish today but they're going to become a big fish if you don't pay attention right but that that's the kind of things I think would recommend. Jonathan are you agree with it if you can if you have any wish for the next 10 years and some form wish for the other communities what would be your best practice or wish for them I would like to add one more component to the maturing community stages of development when you pass the construction stage your consciousness your collaboration and when you meet or reach the vibrant stage of your choice I'm saying there's one more stage and the stage is that of the philanthropic stage it's a stage where we must be sharing our generosity to others then I think you've got a lovely mature system. Thank you I think it's very interesting and wonderful what you said and the same question to Valentina In my case for my for the ecosystem where I'm right now I wish that this becomes somehow a mission or a vision of a country level as we are a public institution it started with us moving all these things forward and inviting these different stakeholders that you always need for example collaboration from other institutions in the public sector that helps us to move the process for those that are coming for something so ideal or my dream will be that this ecosystem and innovation and digital businesses and will be part of a bigger vision of as a country where you involve education at very initial levels in that way I think that everybody is going to be somehow like Jonathan said at the beginning we will have it in our DNA so I think that is what this we are right now in which we already have an ecosystem but I think that we are in this stage of making it a vision of a country I think it's very important and thank you for mentioning this one as well and the where we are going right now this is the digitalization it helps this connection probably and it helps this kind of knowledge sharing between us and between the different networks and Marika what would be your wish for the next 10 years where would you like to see your organization or your ecosystem in 10 years or maybe 5 is enough for me it's okay yeah I think I'm very mindful about the automation of jobs and I'm very I understand that artificial intelligence can do can do a lot of things I'm glad that it can but I also don't want to underestimate how valuable it is to cultivate creativity in an authentic and organic way and I think that's really important because it sets us as human beings and gives a lot of value to us as humans is our ability to create and to do that in a very authentic way which is an advantage to us as humans because artificial intelligence can perhaps replicate that or learn that but not to the extent that we can do this naturally and through sparks of inspiration that come through us so I think that has to be a real human level of not underestimating how valuable authentic creativity is to the innovation process and I share more about this on my on my blog page and I welcome anybody who's interested in hearing more about that or sharing those sort of insights to visit my blog page on digitalshapers.co.uk I hope all you the wishes will come true and we will live in better and more connected area and we can sit together the success of your companies of your startups and we can help each other in the failures as well because I think it's also very important just to be behind each other and have those people who need it and encourage them for the next level and thank you very much for participating in this conversation on this discussion and just going forward I would like really invite everyone join to the network session because this is absolutely just join and connected with your last part or last couple of minutes the next session will be the network session with Jan Kek this is a meaningful conversation and stories magical human moments so please join to him and enjoy it and try to bear the stronger community and I'm really happy to be the part of it maybe just for one hour and maybe later on for a longer time but thank you very much and enjoy the day and thank you we hope we can give you for the audience very interesting and very good stories as well you can use it in the future thank you very much thank you