What if world-changing innovation took place on the continent of Africa? What if right now a little boy in a rural area was sitting with the next big energy-saving idea? What if that girl who developed an industry-shaking concept never gets the chance to bring it to the prototyping phase? What if Cape Town, which was not only named World Design Capital 2014, also gets nominated World Innovation Capital 2015?
These and many more topics were discussed at this year’s South African Innovation Summit held at the newly erected Cape Town Stadium. Its 7th year running and I was fortunate enough to acquire a delegate badge through my friendly relationship with the incredible team over at Wesgro.
Between the exhibitions, talks, presentations and continuous flow of conversation going on, it was quite refreshing to be able to observe and interact in the way that I did. Not only was I able to have interesting interactions with a few of the attendees, I was also able to view the stadium field. A first for me, as I was only there once before, with a Friend of mine for a Coldplay concert.
We had many influential speakers encouraging innovation; Patricia De Lille (Executive Mayor of Cape Town), Chris Whelan (CEO of Accelerate Cape Town), Gavin Mageni (Head of SABS Design Institute) and Nils Flaatten (CEO of Wesgro), to name but a few. Here in Cape Town and throughout South Africa, we have the means and have already come up with some great innovations, with global impact.
The upcoming Exponference my team and I are planning for the 14 October 2014 for one. LoveTheDoers is an ethos that can be embodied and MUST be lived, but it is also an organisation that inspires and initiates innovation through collaboration. Keet van Zyl from Knife Capital; in their “growing a business from R5 million to R50 million” panel discussion, shared with us a brilliant winning formula i.e. Success = Knowledge + Networks + Funding
We (LoveTheDoers) have the Knowledge, we have the Networks, all we require is the Funding and even that will come in time or even sooner than we expect, as we are ALWAYS innovating!
Unlike our Silicon Valley counterparts, that has produced the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube, we here in Africa are forced to take a different approach. Yes, to impact change on a global scale, we need to make a profit, but not at the expense of the people. If there’s one thing I have taken away from the 7th SA Innovation Summit, it is this: Innovation must occur out of a need to better the lives of our fellow humans.
I now leave you with this quote from Albert Einstein (Innovator/Doer):
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”
Keep learning. Keep smiling. Keep evolving. Keep DOing.
David-John Bailey | davbai24@hotmail.com | https://twitter.com/davbai83
(Revised edition. Originally published in The Magnifying Glass on 18 September 2014)
