Africa must invest heavily in youth, if we are to lead in innovation

Finding the right balance. How do we get moving in Africa?

Enter Africa the much-taunted next frontier for economic growth and opportunity. (phrase reminiscent of colonialists arriving on Africa’s shores ready to conquer). Moving through many innovations and accelerator hubs, you meet some of Africa’s bright minds, working on a host of wide range of ideas that can offer solutions for easier and effective service delivery for social services, facilitate a dynamic local economy, and truly disrupt different economic sectors and the world economy.

For the millions of innovative ideas in thousands of hubs being advanced by the young generation in Africa to reach scale, and impact societies where they live, and the world around them, several factors must fall in place.

Primarily, Africa needs its own “Silicon Valleys” – investment in environments and infrastructure to enable an economic system to thrive that supports critical thought, incubates ideas, and accelerates them into viable ventures. Public and private sector drivers must recognise this as a critical component for economic dynamism that will enable service providers to offer solutions to a wide network of people across the continent. Innovations that make sense to the lives of ordinary people.

Uber, Airbnb, Spotify or any of these western developed innovations will not grow economies in Africa. They will make the life of the privileged class more comfortable but not create jobs on scale,nor would such a model offer solutions to get millions out of poverty throughinclusiveeconomic growth models.

The mindset towards African innovation must offer solutions to the most pressing problems or needs of the people in critical areas such as health, education, finance or even recreation. Efforts at such innovationsmust also be invested in, and be facilitated to reach scale. Investing in innovations that are not inclusive, thatexclusively cater for the elite and well to do, will only heighten the income divides with negative consequences.

Some of the African innovations that havesucceed in disrupting how services are accessed give hope that this is possible.  Mobile money – an innovation by Safaricom in Kenya is perhaps the best example of disruptive innovation radically changing how ordinary people can access services on a simple mobile platform, giving sleepless nights tothe traditional banking institutions.

The other example is Nollywood from Nigeria with its film production catering for a mass audience in Africa that relates to story narratives more than they can relate to Hollywood movies.

The combination population growth and demographics, cell phone penetration and increase in data as drivers for tech innovations, all point in the direction that Africa can lead in innovations.

To what extent we shall see more of these innovations disrupting economic service systems on scale and lead to billion dollar investments and listings on world stock markets is yet to be imagined.

To begin with, we must think-tank how to innovate differently. We can’t do it the American way or how it has been done in the western economies and win. We simply don’t have thesame software (mindset) with a vision of society and agenda like they do.

To put it simply, Africa has to invest in young people. They are the greatest resource the continent has. Shaping their mindset and validating their ideas and thought processes of their own place in an increasingly globalised world is what we must do.

**Awel Uwihanganye is the Founder & Senior Director at the LéO Africa Institute, organizers of the 2017 LéO Africa Economic Forum.