Building Resilient African Digital Economies post-COVID – Focus on Ghana
Building Resilient African Digital Economies post-COVID – Focus on Ghana
On April 28th, 2021, ATBN and HapaSpace, co-organized a virtual roundtable under the title “Building Resilient African Digital Economies post-COVID – Focus on Ghana”. This virtual event tried to understand how hubs can be better supported to help African economies, harness digital opportunities, and catalyze innovation on the continent. The event attracted participants, including Entrepreneurs, Digital Skills providers, Tech Hubs, and Digital Innovation Hubs, mainly from Ghana, and consisted of two parts. The first part consisted of solid introductory remarks and a panel discussion about the challenges and opportunities for Ghanaian digital ecosystems and hubs post-COVID with three panelists: Josiah Eyison, Co-founder and CEO, iSpace, Gideon Brefo, Co-founder, hapaSpace, and Amma Sefa-Dedeh Lartey, Co-founder, Social Enterprise Ghana. During the second part, the attendees were divided into groups and joined separate rooms to discuss and process three different topics. The first group reflected on “How might we support African Digital innovation hubs to become more financially sustainable?” and proposed several ideas that will be compiled and presented later on from ATBN. The second group reflected on “How might we strengthen the ability of African Digital Innovation Hubs to support women and youth in a post-COVID world more effectively?” and highlighted the severe impact of COVD-19 on youth and women. The third and last group reflected on “What benefits and opportunities can actors African and European digital ecosystem actors offer each other?” mentioning the benefits of collaboration from both sides.
It was an interactive event, during which the participants generated ideas for building the capacity of Ghanaian digital innovation hubs and enabling effective partnerships with Europe. Then, all groups returned to the plenary session, where they presented their results and further discussed their topics with the other groups. AfriConEU had live coverage of the event through Twitter.
Read the key takeaways from the event here.
