Africa’s Scientific Independence: No More Business as Usual

Nick Staite is the Operations Director for the Planet Earth Institute (PEI), an international charity and NGO working for the scientific independence of Africa. Having joined the PEI in early 2011 to establish the charity’s core private sector partnerships, with a background in business across Africa’s frontier markets, Nick also coordinates the PEI Partners Forum activities and all additional PEI operations. He has a MBA from the Open University.

In November last year, we hosted our second Planet Earth Institute UnConference where we welcomed over 100 people to the Hub Westminster for a day of robust discussions and debates around science, technology, innovation and big data in Africa. It was an absolutely fantastic day: we saw Mary Olushoga of the AWP Network and Sarah Hoey of TReND in Africa be named joint winners of our first Africa Data Challenge, and really interesting presentations from the likes of Dr. Sajitha Bashir, Education Sector Manager for Eastern and Southern Africa region of the World Bank and Professor Romain Murenzi, Executive Director, The World Academy of Sciences. We were also delighted to see a range of attendees form useful connections and have productive conversations on different ways to drive scientific and technological advancement on the continent.

This year, our #ScienceAfrica UnConference has an even bolder focus. Entitled ‘Africa’s scientific independence: no more business as usual’, we’ll be challenging attendees to scrutinise the role of business in contributing to the scientific and academic agenda in Africa, helping us to find new ways the private sector can help drive sustainable and inclusive development on the continent with science at its heart.

At the PEI, we believe that for-profit businesses can and should play a key role in spurring scientific and technological progress on the continent. As the leading source of job creation, for-profit companies can also equip the continent’s young and dynamic population with skills for the workplace. Yet our chairman, Dr Álvaro Sobrinho, has observed a troubling disconnect between businesses and scientific communities: business leaders regularly raise concerns about the lack of skilled local labour forces, and African scientists often pursue their research interests divorced from industry and national needs, with little leadership provided by governments.

It’s clear that we must make greater efforts to include private sector companies in broader conversations on science, technology and innovation, facilitating greater collaboration with governments, academic communities and broader civil society, whilst acknowledging and avoiding abuses of influences and power.

On 21^st July, we will welcome like-minded NGOs, interested business leaders, diplomatic missions, academia and civil society to discuss and debate many of the challenges and opportunities currently being faced around technology integration, the role of business, human capacity building and training and investing in research. We have a fantastic line up of speakers including:

• H.E. Dr. Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, President of Mauritius
• Hon. Prof. Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, South Africa
• Hon. Prof. Sandy Tickodri-Togboa, Minister of Higher Education, Uganda
• Mr. Alan Kalton, Programme Director, IBM Research Africa
• Hon. Prof. Mary Teuw Niane, Minister of Education and Research, Senegal
• Hon. Shiferaw Shigutie, Minister of Education, Ethiopia

We will also be running interactive workshops simultaneously throughout the day, with some great organisations leading discussions, including IBM Research Africa, Elsevier, UNICEF, Promethean, African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), Mendeley, the World Bank, SciDev.net and the African Union.

Here’s what else you can expect on the day:

• Panel sessions: Two panel sessions headed by senior policy-makers, business leaders and prominent academics to get participants thinking;
• Workshops: Structured but interactive workshops on a range of key topics related to science, technology and innovation in Africa
• Open networking: Our partners and sponsors will support a number of open spaces for conversation to flow- and our drinks reception;
• Table groups: Discussion-led group working will be the basis of giving feedback to the panel sessions and creating out outcome report;
• One to One Meetings: Plenty of opportunity to arrange one-to-one meetings with the PEI on hand to support introductions and collaborations.

The PEI #ScienceAfrica UnConference is open and free to attend for all those passionate about African development and who want to help us build a movement for science on the continent. We hope that you can join us! You can register here for tickets.