The Department of Science and Technology (DST) will host a satellite event of the Africa Innovation Summit (AIS) in Pretoria, South Africa, from 6 to 8 June 2018. The satellite event will be an extension of the dialogues taking place at the main Summit event in Kigali, Rwanda, on the same dates.
The AIS is an Africa-wide initiative aimed at harnessing the innovation potential of the continent. It aims to mobilise people and especially those with the "power to act" – including investors, policy makers, researchers and academics, the business community, youth, as well as innovators and thinkers – into a coalition for collective action to promote and build an enabling environment for innovation in Africa.
While the Summit in Kigali will focus on how the continent can innovate to address pressing development and transformation challenges, the DST's satellite event will hone in on innovation in the southern African region, focusing in particular on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap.
The Strategy and Roadmap seek to engender economic and technological transformation at national and regional levels in order to enhance the competitive and comparative advantage of the region's economies and accelerate growth.
Other topics that will feature at the satellite event include the integration of trade and science, technology and innovation (STI) policy; STI parks for industrialisation; national and regional intellectual property structures; and the innovation finance gap.
Technopreneurs, policy makers, private sector and civil society representatives, research and innovation managers, researchers, incubators, academics and technology transfer officers are among those expected to attend the event.
One of the outcomes of the satellite event will be a declaratory report and position paper on issues of strategic importance, which will inform key multilateral governance structures within the SADC region and the continent.
For more information on the satellite event, contact Ms Phumelele Higgins at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
For more information on the main Africa Innovation Summit, visit www.africainnovationsummit.com.
