The two-day conference featured panel discussions, workshops and innovation labs in areas such as financial services, health care and digital content creation intended to “drive impact in African innovation.”
YAIS founder Abigail Ndikum, a Yale undergraduate student, told VOA the conference was “designed for young bright minds and African industry experts across various sectors to come together and work on case studies related to those experts’ industries.
FILE - Abigail Ndikum, Yale undergraduate student and founder of the Yale Africa Innovation Symposium, pictured (undated).
“The end goal is for our experts to take the solutions back to their businesses, organizations, and communities and set them in action,” she said in a letter detailing the symposium’s mission.
The keynote speakers included Fatima K. Mohammed, the permanent observer of the African Union to the United Nations, and Amara Konneh, a Liberian senator and senior Africa advisor for the World Bank.
“I refuse to accept that you are future leaders. I see you as leaders now. And you need to grab it,” Konneh said in his remarks.
Speakers such as Stephanie Busari, CNN senior editor for Africa, and Angela Kyerematen-Jimoh, Microsoft Africa national digital transformation lead, introduced their industries and explained some of the challenges they face in their fields and how to solve the problems.
FILE - Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States, hosts an innovation lab on diaspora affairs for the Yale Africa Innovation Symposium in New Haven, Connecticut, March 2, 2024.
Panelists Kadmiel Van Der Puije, chief executive officer of The Voice of Africa media company, praised the conference for fostering “connection with aspiring youth dedicated to making a difference in Africa.”
FILE - Government strategist Maudo Jallow (L) pictured with Amara Konneh, a Liberian senator, and Fatima K. Mohammed, the permanent observer of the African Union to the United Nations, during the Yale Africa Innovation Symposium in New Haven, Connecticut, March 1, 2024.
YAIS director Ndikum said she hopes young people are inspired to come together andmake a positive difference on the continent.
“I want Africa’s youth or people who are passionate about Africa, to step up and be leaders,” she said.
“We need leadership, we need people who are willing to put their own desires to the side in the interest of bettering the continent. Whether it be your own people, whether it be your nation, whether it be the continent as a whole, let’s stand together as pan-Africanists and fight for each other’s causes and believe that we hold the key to changing the continent into a form that we want to see it in.”