The 1th edition of the Global Startup Africa Summit, organized by Wesgro, SA Tourism and the International Convention Center of Cape Town (South Africa), brought to light the main causes to boost the African innovation sector through various debates that dealt with the scenario of starting the circular economy for the protection of intellectual property on the continent.
During the event, the evolution of start-ups in Africa was discussed and how governments can create policies to bring impactful results in the technological innovation sector, where Ryan Marinkowitz, CEO of My Health Africa, stressed that, although the next African unicorn could actually come from space healthtech, these innovations would be meaningless if they could not reach communities and people where they are most needed.
"We need start-ups to build the technologies and platforms that healthcare professionals can use in the public system and impact as many people as possible.,” said Marinkowitz.
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Another important point at the Global Startup Africa Summit was the Circular Economy and its potential to transform the lives of people in developing countries. Kidus Asfaw, co-founder and CEO of Kubik, shared at the event how his work with Unicef has been in the management of childhood malaria and diarrhea in urban areas, leading to the development of Kubik, a startup that recycles plastic waste to be used as Construction Materials.
"Findings that plastic waste was clogging waterways and creating pools of standing water where mosquitoes were breeding and stagnant water being used for human consumption“He explained.
In the same vein, Klariska Moodley, in charge of experimentation at the United Nations Development Programme, shared her thoughts on the issues that stifle the impact of the market in Africa and called for closer collaboration in the areas of focus of innovation to overcome the disadvantages of being a first driver of change.
"Many start-ups fail because they couldn't gain market share or were missing a crucial component. Knowledge sharing can benefit the entire industry and see complementary innovations improve the customer offering."
Also present was Ian Putter, director of the Standard Bank Blockchain Center of Excellence and founder of Blockchain Research Institute, showed those present what their dreams were for the impact of Web3 innovations on our daily lives, and how their examples of supply chain management were a world away from the decentralized financial utopia that was sold by crypto capitalists and a refreshing foil to the misconceptions surrounding blockchain technology.
In his speech, the bases for the continuation of the exploration of the most active areas in technological innovation were shown, which included the launch of the African Blockchain Report which was presented by Crypto Valley Venture Capital MD Gideon Greaves.
It should be noted that the Global Startup Africa Summit also served as a platform for important discussions and networking that will help the digital entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa.
