This session showcases the shortlisted ICT developers, innovators, engineers and entrepreneurs as part of the Africa50 Innovation challenge to help increase access to high-speed internet in under-served areas in Africa.

The winning solutions will receive cash prizes and/or will be considered for project development funding. Projects will be rolled-out in Rwanda as the pilot country, with the objective to scale them up to other countries in Africa

• Investing in data to build a single view of the customer
• How can advanced analytics enable real-time management of those experiences?
• How do businesses need to change their relationship and engagement with the consumer?
• Implementing a test-and-learn culture to best inform decisions and processes

• Evolving our education models to accelerate innovation
• Upskilling the next generation for digital transformation
• Creating effective training and retraining initiatives
• Ensuring initiatives spread to underserved communities

• Blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological
• Catalysing the relationship between AI and Blockchain
• Disrupting current business practices with blockchain

The AHUB programme is designed to highlight the critical role of entrepreneurship in fuelling Africa’s digital economy and connect African tech start-ups and scale-ups to investors and corporate partners.

Hot topics:

• Entrepreneurship as an engine for economic growth
• Stimulating the development of Africa’s tech start-up ecosystems
• Tech start-ups tackling Africa’s social, economic and environmental challenges
• Investor insights: tips on standing out from the crowd
• When David and Goliath collaborate: successful start-up and corporate partnerships
• Ripe for disruption: what are the hottest sectors for tech-enabled investments?

Check back soon to view the full AHUB programme.

• Developing blockchain powered solutions for peer to peer Co2 transactions
• Using the latest scientific tools and AI
• Creating a positive social impact with Blockchain

• Overcoming transactional challenges with blockchain
• Moving towards more public anonymous systems
• Balancing regulation and innovation
• Reducing time, costs and fraud
• Examining social impacts of blockchain

• Looking at the opportunities and challenges that African AI companies are facing in the international market
• Exploring the value of international partnerships with leading technology vendors

• Improving the demand proposition to help bridge the rural connectivity gap
• To what extent are affordable smartphones critical in SafariCom’s rural connectivity approach
• Developing local applications and online communities to complement the drive to connectivity

• Employing affordable tools and equipment which are easily accessible to those even in rural and remote areas
• IoT as a mechanism of prevention: how has it been harnessed to measure water quality and reduce water-borne diseases?
• Transforming development industries such as healthcare from small to exponential revenue to encourage international investment and ensure socioeconomic improvements are made

• Creating content customers want to see and investing in content that brings stories home
• How do new viewing habits impact how content is produced?
• How do you develop a seamless multiplatform strategy?

• Overcoming the challenge of high CAPEX by harnessing wavelengths
• The practicalities and potential of TV white space to bridge the connectivity gap
• How TV white space has already transformed connectivity in rural Africa

• Gaming, coding and robotics: connecting the dots
• Exploring opportunities for enterprises, education and the economy
• What organisations should be paying attention?
• Scaling up the African eSports industry

• How to extract meaningful insights from data silos
• Key ways that Machine Learning can help with data cleaning

• It’s no secret that the African IoT ecosystem is one of severe fragmentation: explore how infrastructures can be improved through modernisation to ensure universal accessibility
• Discerning how to improve system efficiencies and commercialise IoT – even for small to medium enterprises
• Integrate IoT into systems with set standards which are proven to be commercially successful and will make life simpler for those applying

• Investing time into security and performance
• Using AI and machine learning to streamline ID processes
• The rise of trading platforms
• The impact of this on consumers, businesses, banks, regulators and governments in Africa

• Developing new technologies to overcome existing problems in the Telecom Infra Project
• Increasing adaptability and reducing CAPEX and OPEX by disaggregating traditional network deployment
• Open RAN technology to reduce the costs of rolling out networks in rural areas

• New trends for work and leadership in the age of AI
• Technology in the classroom -breaking down the educational barrier and developing core skill sets

• How can we best serve low income households?
• What models work in underserved areas?

• Identifying key continental initiatives to achieve rural connectivity
• Identifying and collaborating with international partners to increase rural connectivity projects
• Overcoming policy, financing and business-case challenges to widen coverage

• How can we encourage cross market partnership?
• Ensuring local producers and consumers are fairly charged and rewarded

• Create good content in a world without high production budgets
• Strategies to increase the popularity of local content
• The rise of user-generated content
• How to take content internationally

• Changing perceptions: implementing effective change management which generates excitement about the Internet of Things
• Building organisations in a global digital world: with population growth and unemployment issues on the rise, what solutions can IoT bring to the table?
• Applying IoT in every day working life to instil practical learnings about its offerings and maximise the potential of the future of work

• Meeting the challenge of profitability in rural connectivity by leveraging USAFs
• How to ensure targeted investment from USAFs in to rural connectivity projects
• Case Studies: The roadmap to rural connectivity through USAFs

• The human factor: Ensuring that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a force for good
• Technology as an enabler: Re-framing the technology vs humanity debate
• Automation and AI: Are robots really eliminating our jobs?
• Reversing brain drain: encouraging people to contribute where their skills will have a far greater positive impact

• Rethinking the traditional agricultural process
• Exploring solutions for the key challenges of food production in Africa

• How can you ensure your workforce is up-to-date on all things IoT so they don’t get left behind?
• Minimising unemployment through IoT knowledge: upskilling strategies which are proven to work
• Proving the capital incentive of encouraging a tech-first culture and mindset across the organisation to secure investment into the IoT vision and retain staff
• Closing the digital divide gap with integrated development planning

• Addressing inequality and promoting social mobility through internet coverage
• Leveraging public and private sector partners to successfully implement hotspots in remote and low-income communities
• Case Study: the benefits, challenges and timelines for wi-fi hotspots

Physical versus digital – how AI-powered digital twins are changing the game

• Identifying the key principles to create an investment-friendly regulatory framework
• Implementing a taxation policy that incentivises investment in to rural coverage
• Minimising red-tape to deploy infrastructure quickly and effectively

• The key objectives of BOSCO Uganda and how they are being met
• Community Networking case study: Installing an IT infrastructure to connect the unconnected
• Entrepreneurship, solar power and training – BOSCO Uganda initiatives to drive digital engagement in rural communities

• Cloud and IoT: enabling the connected mine
• Extracting more value from data
• Integrating automation across the mining value chain
• Applying lessons learned in other industries

• Channel IoT in retail for better understanding of your shoppers so you can build strong and relevant business propositions which will increase revenue
• Opening up the entire retail journey from start to finish: track both shoppers and stock to visualise where your most popular goods are and where you can capitalise
• Harnessing IoT applications for digital signage and near field communication payments to improve efficiencies and reduce costs in the retail world

• How are traditional banks capitalising on IoT to build winning business strategies?
• A fresh pair of eyes in a traditional industry: understand how disruptor fintechs are tackling cybersecurity and regulation barriers to IoT
• Working better, together: understand how fintechs and traditional financial institutions can begin to partner and learn from one another

• Understanding robotic process automation, it’s role in AI, and how it can help grow business
• Practical examples of AI created through IoT
• Understanding how robotic models can fulfil processes which are usually repetitive, what is the risk to employment?