Join the GlobalSouthTech (GST) community on Thursday, June 18, 4PM (GMT +3) for an intimate conversation with tech leaders around the world.

Africa’s tech ecosystem pales in comparison to Shenzen or Silicon Valley standards. However when you look at volumes and year over year expansion in VC, startup formation, and tech hubs, it’s one of the fastest-growing tech markets in the world.In total, there are over 600 active tech hubs — 643 as of the end of 2019

In this webinar we'll have a discussion with African Tech Leaders on the overall state of tech development and startups in Africa and the current ecosystems in Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt.

Some key points we will touch on are:

• Africa’s rise as burgeoning source of computer engineering talent
• The race to bridge the global digital divide
• Data privacy and regulation concerns in African Tech
• Startup Funding, expansion and distribution in the continent
• Beyond payments, the continued rise of digital lending apps

Jessica Francisca Colaço (VP of Growth at Brave, Ecosystem Builder) - Jessica is an entrepreneur and TED fellow born and based in Nairobi, Kenya. She co-founded Brave Venture Labs based in Nairobi, Kenya and London, UK at the end of 2015. Brave is a data driven company helping companies across Africa to hire the best talent for their teams. She co-founded the iHub with Erik Hersman in 2010. It was the first tech-hub in Kenya and East Africa. At iHub. She has built various communities in the last 10 years from developers, startups, corporates and investors. She was named one of the top 40 women under 40 years in Kenya’s business scene by Business Daily on 2009, 2011 and 2012

Nekesa J. Were (Executive Director of Afrilabs) - Nekesa serves as broadly responsible for building community, programs and partnerships that work together to ensure a thriving innovation economy in Africa. Afrilabs currently has a network of 202 innovation hubs spread across 46 African countries. Nekesa worked as Managing Director of the iHub Prior to iHub Nekesa worked with several grassroots organizations and non-profits. Nekesa is currently a Board Member at Creatives Garage, a high impact space dedicated to creating economic value and jobs for creatives in Kenya; Africa Tech and Creatives Group, a network of 300 members from across Africa who are working to ensure that the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement works for Africans,  and Missing Child Kenya, a platform to share information about missing children across.

Markos Lemma (Co-founder & CEO at iceaddis) - Markos is an activist, co-founder of iceaddis – Ethiopia's first innovation hub & tech startups incubator and co-founder of SelamCompany – a startup company working on primary education and literacy. He is also an advocate for startup movements, social and environmental innovations & blogging. He is a coordinator on a research program on literacy, a project running by MIT, OLPC & Tufts University with a direct supervision of Nicholas Negroponte, Dr. Cynthia Breazeal & Maryanne Wolf. He organizes Barcamp Ethiopia once a year. Barcamp Ethiopia is the biggest tech community event in Ethiopia. He loves the active tech community and initiated different technology events.

Agenda

4:00PM - 6:10PM - Webinar Discussion + closing remarks!

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