Bridging innovation, cultural identity and impact.
A week ago, the Volta Technology and Innovation Summit was held in Ho featuring government, traditional leaders and industry captains like Alloysius Attah - Farmerline Group and Eyram Tawia - Leti Arts.
Almost concurrently, the Royal Edition of the Tech in Ghana Conference in Kumasi, also drew a delegation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and policymakers for a packed agenda of keynotes, deep-dive presentations, and product launches. My primary focus was for strategic alignment and to orchestrate "hot introductions" and discussions focused on scaling viable solutions in priority sectors like healthcare, agriculture and education.
My engagements included learnings from Evans A. - Special Advisor for the Ashanti Investment Trust, regarding the Kingdom's development vision, which includes the EthiCoin and new city developments being championed by the Trust and with Ibrahim Misto about catalyzing homegrown and home-focused innovation.
EdTech & HealthTech Synergy: Side discussions with Kwame Nyatuame Ghana Edtech Alliance, Cecil Senna Nutakor - eCampus Edu , and John Eyo - DrDoGood quickly identified and mapped avenues for crucial collaboration and integration between edTech and healthTech.
Advancing Healthcare: Engagements with David Hutchful - Yemaachi Biotech, Nana Kofi Quakyi, MPH - The Aurum Institute, and Auindrila Das - Gclinics spanned major aspects of the health spectrum covering policy, telemedicine, AI-supported diagnostics, and the critical needs for robust EMRs, community data systems, and sustainable health financing models. Also Terrance Tenkorang and Enow Veron N. representing Nova HQ, winners of the Hack54 #HealthHack, were hosted to pitch their personal health data management solution.
AgriTech: Scaling Farmer Aggregation: A conversation with long-time innovator Nana Opoku Agyeman-Prempeh - Grow For Me offered insights into agriTech, his work to democratize access to farming and creating a financially inclusive ecosystem where anyone can participate in the agricultural value chain.
We also witnessed the launch of the Privacy Seal by Dr. Arnold Kavaarpuo CEO of the Data Protection Commission - Ghana. This foundational step is essential for bolstering user confidence, ensuring data protection, and advancing national digital sovereignty.
A profound and forward-looking mandate came directly from the traditional leadership represented by Nana Addae Gyamera - Feyiasehene, issuing an urgent call for innovators to focus on building systems to project our culture to the global stage through the use of modern methods of storytelling like gaming.
In closing, While the importance of data is widely acknowledged, we must apply urgency to the first level of the data value chain: data collection. The common ground between technology and tradition lies in CultureTech, where our diverse ethnic history and culture assets representing a rich pool of innovation opportunities are influenced by emerging technologies like AI, AR, VR, and Blockchain for modernized preservation, showcasing, and viable global distribution.
Time to action these conversations.