What: Innovate Africa Symposium

Who: The African Development Bank and the University of Johannesburg

When: 25-27 October 2023; 09:00-1700 Johannesburg time (GMT+2) each day

Where: JBS Park, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

The African Development Bank's Statistics Department, jointly with the University of Johannesburg, will host the inaugural Innovate Africa Symposium from the 25th to 27th of October 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The objective of the Symposium is to offer a holistic approach to uniting the currently fragmented landscape of data innovation and associated technologies, ensuring that stakeholders understand the present scenario and the road ahead.

The Innovate Africa Symposium stands as more than just a conversational platform. It is an ambitious combination of sectors - public, private, academia and international organizations - joining to harness data innovation for the collective progress of Africa. African countries - with their immense potential - could benefit enormously from leveraging data and innovative technologies for informed policy and decision-making toward sustainable development.

It is crucial for Africa to not only preserve and utilize its data assets at the national and regional levels but also to actively shape global data governance mechanisms. However, the pressing skills gap remains a hurdle. The Symposium aims to address this by fostering collaboration, building expertise, and establishing institutions like innovation labs, which are presently scarce across the continent.

Each year, the Symposium will focus on a particular theme, with this year's theme being "Ideating Partnerships to Enable Data-Driven Government Agencies." As we embark on this inaugural edition, we eagerly anticipate the subsequent editions, which will welcome the wider public starting from 2024.

The first day of the symposium will be conducted in a hybrid mode. To join us remotely, please register here.

For more information, please contact: Momar KOUTA | [email protected]