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One of Africa’s leading tech and innovation figures, Eric Osiakwan, will be speaking at this year’s Africa Investment Forum (AIF), GITEX 2020, on ‘Kings of Africa: Unleashing the Power of Innovation for Business Opportunities and Economic Growth.’
Osiakwan, entrepreneur and investor, is the Managing Partner, Chanzo Capital. He is the chief promoter of Angel Fair Africa (AfA), founded about seven years ago to address the need in the emerging African entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem. Angel Fair Africa has helped to raise more than US$23 million worth of deals for the continent’s growing army of startups.
Osiakwan is the author of “The KINGS of Africa’s Digital Economy”, and coauthored the “Open Access Model”, adopted globally by the telecommunications industry, “Negotiating the Net” – The politics of Internet Diffusion in Africa and “The Internet in
Ghana” with the Mosaic Group. He was invited to contribute ideas to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa.
Eric is a TED, Stanford, MIT and Harvard fellow. He writes frequently for IT Edge News, one of the media partners of GITEX in over a decade.
GITEX Technology Week holds 6-10 December. One of the key highlights of GITEX 2020 is the AIF featuring some of the world’s leading technology and investment experts as well as top government decision makers from the continent.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy is co-hosting the AIF with the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), organisers of GITEX.
The 2020 GITEX Africa Investment Forum is one-day program that will cover key tech trends across industries with representation from all regions across Africa. A new generation of entrepreneurs, investors and government leaders are making the most of technology to continue bringing economic growth and prosperity. More and more investors are beginning to see countries across Africa as growth markets where innovation and technology create solutions to legacy challenges, notes the DWTC.
The 2020 AIF has a mix of sessions focusing on the technology and economic trends on the African continent. They include the sessions on: ‘The Future of China in Africa – Discerning the Emerging Trends’ by Christina Seyfried, Yale University; ‘Investing in Technology to Expand Relations and Grow Trade
Between the Gulf, Africa to the Rest of the World’ to be moderated by William Skidmore, Editor, Gulf Africa Review; ‘Untapped Potential: Data Science and the Future of Health in Afric’a by Benjamin Fields, Founder, JIVO Health; ‘The Opportunity for technologies from AI, robotics and IoT to evolve design, planning and construction to improve resource efficiency across the African Continent’ by Christopher Wodzicki, Director, BuroHappold.
Nigeria’s Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, is leading discussions in the session on ‘Investing in ICT for Economic Development and Future of Work’ looking at current prospects of telecoms and IT services to enhance industry competitiveness for economic growth across Africa. Other speakers are Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, and Head of MENA, GSMA, Jawad Abbassi. It will be moderated by Dara Latinwo, Manager – Digital Delivery Centre, Deloitte (UK).
A Nigerian-focused session is also holding as part of the AIF.
