CTCN Director Jukka Uosukainen will speak at the panel and roundtable discussion “When to copy and when to innovate? The Role of Innovation in Replication” during SEED Africa Symposium (September 28-29, Nairobi, Kenya). The event will be attended by around 500 enterprises, researchers, practitioners, investors, policy makers and representatives of the civil society from all over the continent.
Currently, impact investors, award schemes, incubators and accelerators all highly focus on searching for the most innovative entrepreneurs across the continent. Innovation leads to competitive advantage and this in turn to higher profits. At the same time, by its very nature, innovation demands experiments, high risk investment and being resilient in case of failure. Considering that replication of proven ideas and business models could be a way of increasing impact, how do we foster innovation at the same time? What are the boundaries of replication, how can it be innovative, and when should it be completely set aside? The panel discussion outlines the range between innovating and simple copying. It introduces successful alternatives to both extreme ends and identifies current gaps in supporting those concepts. The discussion will also be attended by the representatives from African Institute of Technology, Anuel Energy, Solar Federation.
SEED is a global partnership for action on sustainable development and the green economy. Established in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg by the UN Environment Programme, UN Development Programme, and International Union for the Conservation of Nature, SEED sets out to stimulate and support innovative, small-scale and locally-led enterprises which integrate social and environmental benefits into their business model. SEED annual Symposia are part of SEED's efforts to foster the Green Economy at the grassroots and to encourage the growth of socio-environmental entrepreneurship in Africa, largely supported by the European Union, the Government of Flanders, and the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety and SEED’s corporate partner Hisense.