PS. Amb. Simon Nabukwesi has today afternoon officially closed the inaugural Kenya Innovation Week at the Kenya School of Government, Lower Kabete.
While addressing delegates, innovators, and investors, the PS appreciated the CS. Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Prof. Magogha for fully supporting the great idea of the Kenya Innovation Week.
He also congratulated KeNIA CEO Dr. Tonny Omwansa for his sacrifice in turning the event and KeNIA into a success. He acknowledged the effort it took to bring together all the key players and thanked both the local and international delegates who showed their full support by attending the event.
At the same time, the PS urged all the key players to keep the innovation network alive since the ecosystem depends on every party. He further emphasized that learning, funding and innovation go hand in hand thus making the synergy crucial. He further stated that the Ministry of Education together with KeNIA they would create a database of all startups, innovations, accelerators and hubs.
The closing ceremony saw all summit leaders give a wrap-up of their summits and the way forward. Florence Kimata, summit leader, Startup Kenya Summit said that the take away of the summit is the need to link academic institutions to startups in Kenya as learners can get an opportunity to learn first-hand about innovation and running businesses. She also expressed the need for not only starting businesses but starting sustainable businesses.
Phillip Thigo, summit leader, Technology and 4IR summit highlighted four key areas that the summit took away; need for deliberate policy, investment in technology, capacity to keep scaling, and incentives.
The skills summit was summarized by emphasizing the need for institutions to equip learners with the skills that would be relevant to the current and future market. Commercialization summit concluded with emphasis on partnerships with leaders in the industry and call for investors and government to support with scaling of innovations.