17-19th March 2025, Cape Town. The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) arrives into the Western Cape in pursuit of transformative social and innovation legacies for the forgotten continent of Africa. 150 innovation professionals from 29 countries connect through 75 presentations and workshops with Africa`s academic, consulting, and research communities. Its mission – to connect world-leading professionals in innovation management to community leadership, to reduce social inequality through education, and to inspire the co-creation of innovation ecosystems through international start-up capital attraction.
Davenport: “Consultants end up being our technology transfer agents”
3 half-days of intense education and networking were matched by 3 half-days of local outreach into the community for the international delegation to connect first-hand with the local townships, and public sector organisations, in order to unearth opportunities to address social challenges and to inspire sectoral capacity building.
Several key outcomes had already emerged through the connections made including an opportunity to spawn an entire generation of engineers designing, building, and programming robotics using the services of one of the delegates – a computer scientist from Romania. Further, how electronics firm Samsung and the University of the Western Cape are collaborating to accelerate pathways for young people to be placed into software and AI development roles in just 10 months via a program entitled Future Innovation Lab, the European Network of Living Labs was actively seeking to co-create innovation ecosystems for start-ups, while on the public sector front the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (EASM) is now regularly feeding learnings from the ISPIM events, including this – the first held in Africa – directly into its senior government training programs.
ISPIM continues to deliver similar impacts in the wake of its events and educational programs, read more here.
