The ICT 4 Social Innovation West African Network (ICT4SI) in collaboration with SPIDER – The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions and AfriLabs has held its first Workshop for the ICT experts, techprenuers, techies, start-ups, tech innovators amongst others in Abuja, Nigeria yesterday.
‘Launched in Kigali, Rwanda in November 2015 during its first Conference, with support from SPIDER, it’s a Pan-African initiative that seeks to build a network of high impact
social innovators working on scalable ICT4D solutions for improved education and well-being across boundaries’, said Benjamin Akinmoyeje, West African Coordinator for ICT4SI.
According to him, “the aim of this workshop is to enhance the capacity of the participants while stimulating discourse that would ultimately engender effective collaborations and partnerships with other social entrepreneurs and innovators within the network”.
“The workshop has brought together private, public, civil society organization, tech hubs and ICTD enthusiasts in Nigeria and West Africa to exchange experiences on key development opportunities/challenges and identify key opportunities for scaling up partnerships within west Africa” he explained.
Henry Umunnakwe, ICT4SI Team Member, added that the network is working in
line with SDGs/Global goals slogan “leave no one behind”. In other words, it is a multi-sector action for African ICT solutions to bridge gaps through social innovation”.
He further explained that with this workshop, the network is creating a common language to practically stimulate social innovation through ICT in all sectors in line with the Global Agenda and African Agenda 2063 by providing platforms that showcases best practices of organizations using ICT solutions to stimulate social innovation in education, health and improving the quality of life of millions of people across West Africa”.
‘Our target is to build a powerful network with West African tech hubs, civil society organisations, researchers, Africa Development Bank, social innovators and special needs organizations’ he affirmed.
The workshop had renowned ICT/Development experts such as Bankole Oloruntoba of Enspire Incubator and Taopheek Babayeju of iCentra as the top facilitators.