UNGA76 Science Summit

Join us on Friday, 17 September for a live discussion of how advances in data and technology can help achieve UN Sustainability Goals #2 and #9, specifically:

#2: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
#9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Such goals are important to the future of our plan and humanity globally. Achieving occurs amid a background of the advancing speed, scale, and sophistication of new technologies and data capabilities that aid or disrupt our interconnected world is unprecedented.

While generations have relied consistently on technologies and tools to improve societies, we now are in an era where new technologies and data reshape societies and geopolitics in novel and even unanticipated ways. As a result, governments, industries, and other stakeholders must work together to remain economically competitive, sustain social welfare and public safety, protect human rights and democratic processes, and preserve global peace and stability.

Emerging technologies also promise new abilities to make our increasingly fragile global society more resilient. To sustain this progress, nations must invest in research, expand their digital infrastructures, and increase digital literacy so that their people can compete and flourish in this new era. Yet, at the same time, no nation or international organization is able to keep pace with the appropriate governance structures needed to grapple with the complex and destabilizing dynamics of these emerging technologies. Governments, especially democratic governments, must work to build and sustain trust in the algorithms, infrastructures, and systems that could underpin society. The world must now start to understand how technology and data interact with society and how to implement solutions that address these challenges and grasp these opportunities. Maintaining both economic and national security and resiliency requires new ways to develop and deploy critical and emerging technologies, cultivate the needed human capital, build trust in the digital fabric with which our world will be woven, and establish norms for international cooperation.

Data capabilities and new technologies increasingly exacerbate social inequality and impact geopolitics, global competition, and global opportunities for collaboration. The coming decade—the “GeoTech Decade”—must address the sophisticated but potentially fragile systems that now connect people and nations, and incorporate resiliency as a necessary foundational pillar of modern life. Additionally, the rapidity of machines to make sense of large datasets and the speed of worldwide communications networks means that any event can escalate and cascade quickly across regions and borders—with the potential to further entrench economic inequities, widen disparities in access to adequate healthcare, as well as to hasten increased exploitation of the natural environment.

The coming years also will present new avenues for criminals and terrorists to do harm; authoritarian nations to monitor, control, and oppress their people; and diplomatic disputes to escalate to armed conflict not just on land, sea, and in the air, but also in space and cyberspace.

Join us on Friday, 17 September for this live discussion as part of UNGA 76, co-hosted alongside the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center https://gtc.atlanticcouncil.org/

The world is undergoing a fourth industrial revolution at an unprecedented rate. Africa must proactively embrace it to ensure the communities benefit, and the youth succeed in the new world. Africa is yet to realize its potential in the digital space and leverage technology to build a more prosperous society. Urgent, bold, and coordinated action is needed so we can make this transformation successful. Leveraging these digital opportunities demands a new mindset and leadership. Like many new and mostly unknown opportunities, there are risks to mitigate and lessons to be learnt to ensure our future is safe and inclusive. To realize this newly identified opportunity it demands learning, collaboration, and partnerships, both within and beyond Africa.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly reduced economic growth and altered patterns of international economic interactions. While we are still in the midst of the crisis, there is real concern that the majority of macroeconomic effects will not be temporary, but will disproportionately shift long-term development pathways in low- and middle-income countries, offsetting some of the gains made towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in recent decades.” UNDP - Analyzing long-term socio-economic impacts of COVID-19 across diverse African contexts 2021.
 
The need to design innovative programs targeting over 50% of the African population i.e. its youth is critical at this preceding moment. Kilimanjaro Innovation Hub (KIH) is established with a broad social entrepreneurial vision of capacity building of the youths, empowering with business, entrepreneurial and digital skills to remove insecurity and instil confidence. KIH envisioned a nation free from unemployment and ensured fruitful engagement in the economic development of the country by attaining innovation, entrepreneurship and digital literacy.
 
Objective

• Building the skills of youth in ICT that will enhance their digital and marketing skills to promote commerce
• Training in business development, financial management and entrepreneurship;
• Provide a platform for startups working on innovation to transform their pilot-scale initiatives into impactful ventures
• Training in supply chain management in order to become connected and value add across the spectrum
• Mobilize funds from national & international organizations, multilateral and bilateral agencies, private sector for seed money and grant-making
• Creating collaborative and consortium partnerships for promoting entrepreneurship
• Extend initial support or tie-ups for startups to scale up their innovations
• Link the startup entrepreneurs with investors and financial institution to enable them to raise the seed capital
• Create inter-generation link through mentorship and coaching
• Bridge the gap between education –internship-to employment

Studies are showing the long-term effect of the economic downturn caused by COVID 19 pandemic will lead to an erosion of the gains made towards the SDG’s. While still there are a lot of unknowns the need to create economic empowerment for the youth will ultimately help to sustain the gains and lead to greater development. Kilimanjaro Innovation Hub envisions to be a real source to achieve the SDG’s in Africa. The Session will examine how:

• Creating an innovation hub in Africa will contribute to economic growth and partnership and creativity across the continent;
• Investing in skill and empowerment of youth helps to sustain the gains made towards SDG’s;
• Expanding talents on ICT will enhance youth digital and marketing skills to promote commerce in general and e-commerce in particular;
• Indigenous knowledge can be aided through technology and innovation to create sustained solutions;
• International cooperation and partnership flourished through innovation;
• Investment in economic empowerment of youth speed up the economic recovery from COVID 19 pandemic;
• Kilimanjaro innovation hub envisions to be a real source to achieve SDG’s in Africa.

www.kilimanjarohub.com