- Title: KENYA: Innovations summit brings together tech, business and leadership players.
- Date: 29th May 2012
- Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (MAY 28, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF OPEN INNOVATION AFRICA SUMMIT (OIAS) OIAS LOGO VARIOUS OF OPEN INNOVATION AFRICA SUMMIT (OIAS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) JUSSI HINKKANEN, VICE-PRESIDENT, CORPORATE RELATIONS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT, NOKIA MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, SAYING: "We felt that something else is needed, we need to create a platform where people from
- Embargoed: 13th June 2012 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kenya
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Economy
- Reuters ID: LVADSVAD8QONU4ABUM0Y3XJ1HJ76
- Story Text: Innovations summit brings together tech, business and leadershKenya's capital Nairobi hosted the second Open Innovation Africa Summit (OIAS) that ended on Tuesday (May 29).
The two-day meeting brought various technology, business and leadership stakeholders together to discuss the continent's future in innovations.
The first OIAS was organized in 2010. This year, Organisers said they wanted to build on the results from the last meeting, looking at the need for superior execution and leadership to drive African entrepreneurship and innovations.
"We felt that something else is needed, we need to create a platform where people from all over the innovations system, the stakeholders can come together whether they are financiers, innovators themselves, academia, policy makers and all of them," said Jussi Hinkkanen, vice-President of corporate relations and business environment for Nokia Middle East and Africa.
With over 600 million mobile subscribers in Africa with the potential to use their phones to access the internet, the continent has more mobile internet users than America or Europe.
Developers call Africa the new frontier and the scope for innovation is bigger than it has ever been.
Wesley Lynch, a South African entrepreneur and developer is the CEO of Snapplify. His company puts various publications, big and small, online and on various app stores. You can place multiple publications within a single App making it a handy tool for magazines, newspapers and books.
So a local daily newspaper, for example gets an unprecedented global reach.
"Our mission is to help publishers, content producers get their content into mobile devices and we take care of the entire process. We produce the mobile applications, we convert the print material in automated fashion even if its a daily newspaper we take care of all those hustles we put them in the various app stores we also collect all the revenue, we take care of the multi currency so its not just a tool its an M to M platform that allows them to distribute and moneytise there content," Lynch said at the summit in Nairobi.
Various other solutions were also on display including an education platform that delivers learning material and information through mobile networks to schools across various, sometimes inaccessible locations.
"We are not working in isolation we are working in terms of partnerships with multiple organisations because we really believe that the opportunity in Africa is huge and immense and we partner together with organisations with governments with legislators we will be able to create a more prosperous and better Africa for all Africans," said Gerard Brandjes, vice president, Nokia South And East Africa.
OIAS is organized in association with the Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy program, which is a partnership between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, infoDev and Nokia ip players. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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