Africa Rising: Hybrid Future City Summit Annual Meet 2020 Concluded with Establishing Africa-Asia Tech Acceleration Action Agenda in Tanzania, Nigeria and Greater African Region
On 16–17 December 2020, the 5th Annual Meet of Future City Summit was successfully held globally, with Cyberport in Hong Kong used as the studio. The event was jointly sponsored by InvestHK (Government Department of Foreign Direct Investment) and Cyberport Hong Kong. The summit recorded over 390 nominated delegates from 49 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America with over 34,000 organic audience reach while streaming. Since 2018, Future City Summit has been highly engaged by the African young professional, policy and technology innovator communities.
This year, the Summit partnered and earned support of the African Union Youth Advisory Council, ChinAfrika Forum (Kenya and Ghana based professional network founded by the Post-Graduates from Tsinghua University and Peking University) and Urbunx(the World Bank Y2Y Innovation Fund backed African-Tech Accelerator). The discussion has been surrounding the roadmap of the Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020–2030).
The Future City Summit Annual Meet 2020 was hosted by the Good City Foundation, a multilateral non-profit development organisation based in Hong Kong and Southeast Asian cities, founded in 2016. The 5th Annual Meet was themed “Global Post-Pandemic Recovery” with a series of thought-leadership dialogues with influential figures such as Stephen Phillips of InvestHK, Petrider Paul(Tanzania) of African Union Youth Advisory Council, Tita Larasati(Indonesia) of Indonesia Creative Cities Network, and Retnam Shanmuga of ASEAN Smart Cities Network, along with multiple side sessions.
As an overall achievement, a global-scale moonshot ecosystem composed of 22 countries with members in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Middle East and Africa pledged at the closing ceremony to collaborate with members of Emerging Future Cities Network formed in 2018 and international high-level communities such as ASEAN Smart Cities Network and G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance. A 10-year agenda objective was then set forth to impact 100 emerging cities of 500,000 population each through digital urban innovation, advanced public policy and governance entrepreneurship.
5 urban technology companies such as Kusini Water & Filters(South Africa), Kwaba(Nigeria), Bitmast Pay(Nigeria), Smartcore(Tanzania) and Medikea Health(Tanzania) were selected into the Tech For Good Cities Roadshow in the face of 20 investment committees.
“This is our pleasure that we have been engaging with young professional leaders from African region since 2018, starting from the first visiting guest from African Union Science and Human Resources Commission. The deeper and further engagement with the African partners such as Urbunx, the World Bank Y2Y Fund backed African Tech Accelerator, ChinAfrika Forum, African Union and others. The Africa-Asia continental partnership would encourage tech deal flow pipelines, potential urban tech transformation for the cities and investment flow for greater resilient regional economic development.” — Andre Kwok, Founder of Good City Foundation and Future City Summit
With the support of Foreign Investment Department of the Hong Kong Government, Invest Hong Kong, the Good City Foundation entered into a collaboration with the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) and African Union Youth Advisory Council(AU). The partnership aims to build a greater urban tech ecosystem and create startup launchpad pipelines to co-invest in profitable ventures. The partnership involves formation of co-venture building schemes for early stage and ideation stage urban innovation and technology companies in Tanzania and African regions with product-market-fit and follow-up financing schemes. Co-investing schemes and pilots would be explored and designed with the COSTECH and investors network in Hong Kong and Greater Bay Area of Mainland China. Interested parties to engage and explore partnership may reach City Partner of Tanzania, Mr. Chrispin Boniface(chris@futurecitysummit.org).
The Africa-Asia Tech Acceleration Action Agenda in Tanzania, Nigeria and other African countries would plan ahead towards the coming milestones in May for the upcoming World Economic Forum events and Startmeup Festival in Hong Kong (virtual) with the partnership of Invest Hong Kong and other corporte ventures in Mainland China.
This platform has opened the gates of opportunities for Africa and Tanzania especially on Entrepreneurship and startup Ecosystem.It has bridged the gap between talents and innovations in Africa to opportunities available in Asia.With the primary goal of fostering collaboration and strategic partnership for development,The summit has been a hub for African talents and that has been ever-increasing gradually since 2018.Following the 5th year Anniversary where we experienced more engagement from Africa with an African panel and Some startups representing African on tech for Good cities Roadshow,Future city summit is going to position itself as a strategic partner towards contributing to a scalable and sustainable social and economic Development in Tanzania and Africa. — by Mr. Chrispin Boniface, City Partner of Future City Summit and Good City Foundation.
“For a long time, the focus on African development has been placed on natural resources, while neglecting its human capital. This neglect has left most African countries behind their peers globally. The good news is, I am part of a generation of young Africans that genuinely believe the Africa we seek would be built by its people” — Mr. Shem Ayegba, Associate of Rainmaker Ventures, in-door venture building subsidiary of Good City Foundation.
The 5th Annual Meet was supported by a wide spectrum of stakeholders including African Union Youth Advisory Council, Global University Incubator, Generation T(Gen T) Asia, Yunus Environment Hub, YY Ventures, Golden Age Foundation, Hong Kong Social Enterprise Summit(SES), Independent Power Producers Forum(IPPF), Venturous Group, Aclan Pakistan, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology(Nepal Innovation Digital Network), Sustainable Finance Initiative, Generation Hong Kong, LAB.PH, Urbunx, PropTech Institute and production house DECT Production.
