Events

It starts from an uncomfortable question: what if the entrepreneurship model we keep exporting, Silicon Valley with its venture capital, unicorns and scale-at-all-costs, is the wrong template for most of the world? When Erik Stam and Phumlani Nkontwana asked 100 entrepreneurs and ecosystem-builders across Ghana, Kenya and Rwanda what they actually wanted, almost none said unicorns or rapid scaling. They wanted entrepreneurship that keeps value local, serves food security, lowers barriers for people from poor families, and strengthens their communities. Success, defined from within. 

From there this afternoon opens into the deeper question: Whose knowledge counts when we decide what development and innovation are for, and what can locally grounded pathways from the Global South teach the rest of us, rather than the other way around? 

Erik Stam's keynote is answered by four scholars who turn the entrepreneurial-ecosystem lens into a question of power and knowledge: Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (University of Calgary, epistemic coloniality), Olugbenga Adesida (Africa Innovation Summit, African innovation ecosystems), Kwamou Eva Feukeu (Max Planck Institute, futures literacy), and Angela Moriggi (University of Padova, co-creative visioning). It closes with an open conversation, with online participants invited to put their questions in the chat.