The maiden edition of Techmoney Africa Summit holds on Monday, June 10 and Tuesday, June 11, 2019.
The programmes will start from 9am daily.
The Chief Programme and Business Development Officer, Unicorn Group, Mrs. Olatorera Tori Abiola, made the announcement at a press conference on Friday at the University of Lagos.
The main objective of the summit, she explained, was to bring together all the change agents in the space to drive significant development, create a powerful platform to enable investment into the right areas, using the right processes into the right products.
She stated too that the summit would sign-post correct decision-making and build an enabling ecosystem for technology and innovation in Africa.
Mrs. Abiola added that the summit was born out of the need for Africa to realise her dream of a society with reliable electricity supply, stable telecommunications infrastructure, fast and efficient transportation which could transform the lives of over 1.3 billion citizens of Africa.
“We are ready to write our own story, change the script, introduce new players and take center stage,” she said.
She said the summit was the idea of Unicorn Group which was brought together by a board led by Chief Kola Abiola.
“It’s part of his legacy because he believes that in today’s world, the new entrepreneur and the new opportunity for wealth is through technology,” she said.
She gave reason for the choice of the University of Lagos as the venue of the summit.
“We chose University of Lagos because it is the largest public university in Africa with the biggest population and it also has the talents that can fill the pipeline of the kind of people we are looking for to invest in,” she aid.
According to her, the location is also perfect.
Her words: “It is in Yaba, our campus is in Yaba, many of the upcoming tech companies are in Yaba; we call it Yabacorn because it’s really in the heartbeat of everything we are trying to do.”
She further disclosed that anyone between the ages of 8 and 80 years with a great idea leveraging on technology and innovation could participate in the summit.
She stressed: “We are looking for people that can really change the world and believe they can do that and have ideas that can move the scale. We want big and ambitious ideas that require big funding and big support. We are looking for the next Uber, the next 2gos, the next Facebook, and we want them to be Africans.”
She revealed the reward for the top three participants: “The first prize gets a trip to Cape Town at the South African Innovation summit to showcase his or her picture ideas. We give a return flight ticket and a stipend and care for basic expenses. It is a great opportunity for an entrepreneur to showcase his or her work there and to sell to not just Nigerians but also to the internationals.
“The second prize will be a consultancy to some of our companies and this will provide chances to offer solutions to these companies that we network with while the third prize affords access to the Unicorn programme.”
According Mrs. Abiola, there was a new paradigm shift, a new dynamic which Africa was yet to be part.
“It is aimed at creating opportunities and giving access to knowledge, access to capital, and access to people. Tech money is out to create the ecosystem for talents to meet opportunity,” she said.
Techmoney and Innovation Summit Africa promises to bring together the leading minds in technology, innovation and finance across public and private sector in Africa.
Invited Speakers include Clen Cook, Executive, RIIS, South Africa; Dr. Wuraola Abiola, Management Transformation; Dr. Akintoye Akindele, Partner, Synergy Capital Managers; Dr. Ponmile Osibo, Chief Investor Relations Officer, Unicorn; Jack Russo, Managing Partner, Computer Law Group, Silicon Valley (via videoconference); Mark Cameron, White Summers, Silicon Valley; Kola Abiola, Chairman Unicorn; Professor Ogundipe, Vice Chancellor of UNILAG and a host of others.
