New partnership to promote innovation, entrepreneurship in Africa

The US Department of State, US Agency for International Development (USAID), the African Development Bank (AfDB), Microsoft, Nokia, infoDev, DEMO, and the World Economic Forum have launched a new partnership to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa.

The Liberalizing Innovation Opportunity Nations (LIONS@FRICA) partnership seeks to mobilize the knowledge, expertise and resources of leading public and private institutions to encourage and enhance Africa’s innovation ecosystem and to spur entrepreneurship across the continent.

The partners launched the initiative May 10, 2012 at the recently-held World Economic Forum on Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Planned activities for the partnership, according to a joint statement, include a series of programmes across the continent featuring promising African start-ups and entrepreneurs as well as venture capital roundtables and innovation bootcamps, and Start-up Weekend events in some African cities.

LIONS@FRICA will also launch the first-ever DEMO Africa, a global platform to connect African start-ups to the global ecosystem, where the most innovative companies from African countries come to launch their products and announce to Africa and the world what they have developed.

By Ekow Quandzie