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More information and registration at https://itu.int/go/GIFREG
Language of the event: English/French
The Regional Innovation Forum for AFR (RIF-AFR) building partnerships to mainstream entrepreneurship will take place virtually on 27th and 28th October 2021 10:00-13:00 UTC, organized by the International Telecommunicat ions Union.
Context
This event is organized within the framework of the 2021 ITU Global Innovation Forum with the main aim to build partnerships that mainstream entrepreneurship-driven innovation and competitive digital ecosystems.
Recovering from — as well as preventing— pandemics and bridging the digital divide require new partnerships and new approaches to close the digital innovation gap. Countries can use this opportunity to transform their communities into thriving and competitive digital economies through accelerating entrepreneurship-driven innovation and focusing on job creation.
The Regional Innovation Forum for Africa will empower participants with new approaches, insights, tools, frameworks, communities, and relevant case studies to understand how to mainstream sustainable ecosystems that accelerate digital transformation in Africa. This forum's programme builds on ITU's Africa Regional initiative 1, AFR-RI1 (Building digital economies and fostering innovation in Africa ) to support the digital economy and an inclusive digital society, which was adopted by the the World Telecommunication Development Conference 2017 (WTDC-17),Buenos Aires.
Objective:
This two-day forum aims to build regional and national capacities by identifying, learning, networking and highlighting successful projects and/or initiatives, policies and programmes in developing competitive digital innovation ecosystems.
The following topics will be covered:
- Day 1: The forum will examine the state of regional countries' readiness and show practical cases of how key sectors of the economy can benefit by nurturing digital innovation.
- Day 2: The forum will continue its regional deep dive by sharing good practices, stories of digital change-makers and offer insights for new partnership actions at the regional level.
Participants will learn the “why", “what" and “how" of building new partnerships and initiatives that ensure that communities have the right innovation capabilities to be resilient and competitive with digital technologies.
Who Should Attend
This forum targets all stakeholders involved in nurturing digital innovation especially in sectors such as tourism, public services, education, and digital agriculture. Particularly, this agenda has been customized for the needs of ICT policy makers, regulators, tech incubators, national innovation agencies, development agencies, entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders, media, academia as well as institutions willing to undertake a national review on the ICT centric innovation ecosystems and develop sustainable initiatives to accelerate digital transformation in countries.
Expected Result
This forum is designed to empower participants from the African region with methodology, frameworks, tools and context relevant case studies to accelerate digital transformation through promoting competitive digital ecosystem and entrepreneurship-driven innovation. Further to this, participants will also be able to identify and pitch sustainable projects or initiatives that are relevant to ecosystem and entrepreneurship development.
Organizer
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). ITU is committed to connecting all the world's people – wherever they live and whatever their means. Through our work, we protect and support everyone's fundamental right to communicate. The Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D), being one of three pillars of ITU, fosters international cooperation and solidarity in the delivery of technical assistance and in the creation, development and improvement of telecommunication and ICT equipment and networks in developing countries.
