Digital knowledge exchange within Africa’s innovation ecosystem – What is happening in Lagos?

Over the past few years, Africa has witnessed a proliferation of technology hubs. Nonetheless, while these fledgling technology ecosystems are potent for fostering the region’s socio-economic development, only a few of the technology startups emerging from within these have had the digital entrepreneurial capacity to scale into global enterprises. A critical missing gap is that the process of knowledge creation, adoption, and transmission within the digital entrepreneurial ecosystem remains unclear, with the need for more empirical studies in this developing context. Within this purview, digital ecosystem scholars have argued the importance of more in-depth research in unravelling the processes of learning and knowledge transfer, and the complementary interrelationships between critical stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem. This talk examines the knowledge development process concerning the Lagos digital innovation ecosystem. It explores, within this context, how indigenous and local knowledge can more effectively be integrated with foreign capabilities in the evolution of the region’s digital innovation ecosystem.

Raymond Onuoha is a Technology Policy Scholar and Consultant. His research, consulting and teaching focuses on the institutional and policy challenges in the evolution of the digital economy and technology innovation in developing countries, with a specialization on Africa. He also works as a Research Consultant with regional ICT policy and regulation think-tanks – Research ICT Africa (RIA), South Africa, IT4Change (India), and The Portulans Institute (Washington D.C., USA) – conducting multidisciplinary research on digital governance, policy and regulation and the facilitation of evidence-base to inform policymaking for improved access, use and application of digital technologies for social and economic development in Africa. Raymond is currently an AfOx Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), South Africa – where he is assessing high-integrity and trust identification schemes across Africa.