This year, Africa rose to the top A global technology ladder to drive an innovation-driven economy.
15Th Edition of Global Innovation Index (pdf) Recently released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Mauritius, South Africa and Morocco rank among the top African countries that have grown to become highly developed economies in the past few years.
Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe in the lower middle income category than expected Rwanda, Madagascar (which showed) Africa’s fastest internet), Mozambique and Burundi in the low-income group “showed superior results in innovation in terms of their development”.
South Africa outperformed expectations in the middle-income group, while Mauritius underperformed in the same group. Ghana and Senegal’s innovation performance is in the lower-middle-income group, as are Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Togo and Niger in the low-income group.
The rest of the countries, including Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy, and highly innovative Botswana, performed below expectations.
Guinea is the least innovative country this year in an index that surveys 31 African countries. Compared to the rest of the world, Africa is still the most innovative continent.
The most innovative countries in the world
The survey ranked Switzerland as the world’s top destination for innovation, followed by the US, while China and G7 members Japan, France, Italy and Canada failed to make the top 10 list.
In the year What will drive innovation in Africa in 2022?
In recent years, the continent has been significantly delayed Behind the digital transformation, but the COVID-19 that forced many employees to work from home, as A much needed stimulus Building industries around frontier technologies.
Therefore, business leaders recognize the urgency to create solutions around cloud computing adoption. blockchain developmentAnd Artificial intelligence When they develop their employees on these technologies.
Telecommunications companies in Africa They have rolled out 5G networks. In 2022 and It has decreased significantly The value of 4G mobile internet as a social network meta They found 16 countries with a suitable environment for conducting metaverse experiments.
Backed by a young, tech-savvy population, the continent held its own. The biggest smartphone installation Historically as 5G smartphone sales It’s more than 4G For the first time. More electric vehicles, and bicycles have also been developed. Their first trips This year on the roads of Africa.
The continent is a Regional Cyber Security Monitoring CenterMost technology companies have been investing in protecting Africa’s technology systems from cyber attacks.
More women too Overcame obstacles To join the African technology scene this year. Open bank It has started to take root in the continent this year.
And after years of banning crypto, many African countries have both a Crypto regulation in place or Coming in early 2023. Many central banks are thinking along the lines of creating a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). Nigerian leg.
It is also said that the startup ecosystem will reach its peak. 7 billion dollars in funding In the year 2022 as founders and innovators look for more ways to solve the continent’s challenges.
Seven of the 10 highest-valued VC deals in Africa were in financial services. South Africa and Egypt both had three concessions in the 10th over. “Africa still showed strong growth in Q1 2022, an increase of 43.5%, compared to Q1 2021,” the report said.
The study cites Mauritius company YOCC, which has received $200 million in venture capital to expand Africa’s digital infrastructure and open accessible data centers. Yoko Technology of South AfricaIt received $83 million to provide simple card machines and online payment tools, two of the continent’s top indicators of a thriving startup ecosystem by 2022.
Why did the creative output decrease this year?
Save for Botswana, Kenya and Egypt, the rest of the countries are down in innovation scores this year compared to 2021.
The authors of the report, Sumitra Dutta and Bruno Lanvin, attribute this to the war in Ukraine, with developing countries experiencing the worst economic crisis since the war.
While many of us are anticipating rapid post-Covid growth and trade, geopolitical tensions have taken a new turn with the Russian Federation – the Ukraine conflict and inflation also causing a global rebound. survey.
