Emergent Continent Conference: Key takeaways

The Emergent Continent Conference, organised by digital news service publication, The Nerve Africa, took place at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lagos, Nigeria on Nov 16, 2016. The conference is The Nerve’s first. Themed Make Innovation Happen, it comes at a time when innovation is frequently referenced as the key to solving Africa’s challenges.

The conference was attended by business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs across Africa and featured themed panel conversations around smart cities and corporations, smart payments, smart agriculture, smart content and smart investments.

The conference was well organized, despite a persistent one-hour delay in activities throughout the day. While attendance was solid, it wasn’t overwhelming. What was certainly notable was the strength of the panelists and speakers. The Nerve pulled together a particularly authoritative set of participants, who were broadly in agreement about one thing; great innovations can and will come from Africa, given an active and engaged populace.

A few key takeaways of note include:

Africa is in a position to innovate its way out of being a third world continent. The challenges we face in Africa such as lack of infrastructure, erratic power supply, unfavorable economic conditions are what put us in a position to be highly innovative.

Unstable conditions, create incredible opportunities. The bigger the problem the greater the opportunity.
Gary Whitehill, Futurist of Now

Africa is not a country but must act like a country in order to solve its problems. Africa needs to unite and collaborate to collectively solve Africa’s problems. No individual, company or country can hope to single-handedly solve Africa’s problems.
Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe, CEO, Fasmicro

No one invests in ideas anymore. African entrepreneurs with innovative ideas seeking to get investor funding need to understand that the smart way to get funded is to start working on the idea, gain traction and start generating revenue. Generating revenue is the easiest way to get funding.
Chris Shultz, founder, Launchpad

Innovative ideas must be centered around the real needs of real people. Customers now reasonably expect that products and services will be fit for purpose, relevant for them and their needs.
Juliet Ehimuan, Google Country Manager for Nigeria

The future of crop farming will be driven by technology. The agricultural sector in Africa has the potential to generate massive revenue and create tens of thousands of jobs. Nevertheless it is critical that we scale beyond subsistence farming so the cost of that technology can be spread over businesses that are able to take real advantage of it.
Prof. Ndubuisi Ekekwe, CEO, Fasmicro

Young Africans will be the catalyst for the future of Africa. Young millennials need to wake up to the realization that they are saddled with the responsibility of facilitating business growth, economic growth and social development across the African continent.
Gary Whitehill

In the future, content will find users rather than the reverse. Smart content must be designed to offer consumers a more relevant and personalized experience.
Abas Idiaresit, CEO, Wildfusions Nigeria

FinTech will not replace traditional banks, they will coexist. Banks must however adapt to the fast changing FinTech world and start collaborating with FinTech startups since the financial sector has a lot to gain from such collaboration.
Lola Cardoso, Head of Group Corporate Strategy, Union Bank