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FOR RELEASE January 21, 2021:
The British Council and Ashoka Impact Africa Social Entrepreneurship Summit will be virtual in 2021.
On January 21, 2021, the British Council and Ashoka will announce the launch of the virtual edition of the Impact Africa Social Entrepreneurship Summit. The Summit aims to accelerate social innovations in the face of Africa’s most pressing challenges by inspiring and connecting social entrepreneurs, change agents, investors and other ecosystem actors across sub-Saharan Africa.
Building on the first Impact Africa summit in June 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa and the 2019 summit held in Nairobi, Kenya; the 2020 live event was scheduled for Lagos, Nigeria, but had to be postponed to 2021, following disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The impact of the pandemic, in many ways, has revealed the disproportionate capacities of entrepreneurs across Africa to pivot. To adapt creatively and continue to grow their businesses in the new normal. The complexity of the challenges facing humanity during the COVID-19 era requires a fundamental overhaul of Africa’s social and economic systems to align with the ecological and cultural realities that advance corporate equity.
It requires a new mindset to boost business agility; to adopt technology and collaborate across geographic boundaries, digitally. African businesses need new ways of defining their structures, products and value propositions. They must unlearn the status quo and develop new leadership skills across organizational, sectoral, political and geographic boundaries in a social context of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
To this end, Impact Africa has been redesigned and redesigned as a virtual event for the first time. It has also been expanded and expanded to be broadcast as a series of 12-month programs to increase its reach and reach out to a wider audience across sub-Saharan Africa, with 6 plenary sessions each. every two months; 6 clinics every two months and 3-5 virtual Keynotes over two days.
The theme of this year’s Impact Africa virtual edition is resilience and sustainability. It will support over 1000 social entrepreneurs with tools, skills and new knowledge to accelerate their business growth and achieve wider societal impact. It will be a gathering of bright and innovative young minds looking to access new networks and help them rethink their business strategies. Program content also includes an Elevator Pitch competition that will allow winners to gain mentorship from some of the world’s largest organizations and venture capital funds, as well as qualify for seed funding.
With sessions that cover topics such as the 4th Industrial Revolution; Digital preparation; Preparation for investment; Business model and job creation, to name a few, the Impact Africa Social Entrepreneurship Summit is open to young entrepreneurs from key countries of Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. It is expected to be one of the biggest social impact events on the continent. Our speakers range from social entrepreneurs to representatives of several large international organizations such as Microsoft, MTN, Anglo-American and SAP.
Striving to be an inclusive event and reaching out to the underserved innovator is a major consideration this year and will therefore feature sign language interpreters for the first time, who will participate in most sessions to open and encourage a larger and more diverse audience.
Moses Anibaba, Regional Director of the British Council, puts it this way: “By organizing the Summit almost over a 12 month period, we believe that we can reach more young people and give them time to react to the tools, the content, the opportunities. mentoring, elevator pitches and many other programs that Impact! Africa 2021 has to offer.
According to Lucy Pearson, Director of British Council Nigeria and Director of West Africa, “We also want to reach more women entrepreneurs and we want to provide access to budding and underserved innovators. The British Council and Ashoka intend to use this year’s Summit to further push for the creation of an ecosystem of vibrant young innovators, passionate about making meaningful change in their country and in their communities.
Pape Samb, Africa Diamond Leader of Ashoka, further underlined the importance of the Summit, especially amid the growing disruption caused by the pandemic “Studies have shown that the economic damage has been particularly severe for small and medium-sized businesses. , young people and women in emerging markets. Impact Africa has become more necessary now to build a social entrepreneurship ecosystem, which will develop and deliver impactful individual solutions to support relief, recovery and resilience of African communities ”.
The British Council and Ashoka are calling on all young social entrepreneurs as well as business innovators to sign up to be part of a unique ecosystem that enables positive change across Africa. Visit the British Council Nigeria and Ashoka social media channels as well as the Impact Africa Summit website for more information. www.impactafricasummit.net
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