INSPIRE AFRICA Conference
I’ve been looking forward to finally making this announcement for more than two years now, and I can’t imagine a better day to do it than on World Product Day.
As you hopefully know, we are all about helping ordinary people create extraordinary products, and we are constantly on the lookout for untapped talent. There is of course potential talent everywhere in the world, but I know of few spots on the planet that have the concentration of smart, creative, hard-working, ambitious, and entrepreneurial people as Africa.
In fact, a small community in rural Nigeria saw the potential talent of a young Christian Idiodi, and they helped him to secure scholarships to attend university in the US, and Christian went on to become one of the most successful and effective product leaders in the world, and today he works tirelessly to help others develop their talents as an SVPG Partner.
We have been exploring ways of giving back to the community that provided us with Christian, and I’m tremendously excited to tell you of the first major in-person product conference for the African continent: INSPIRE AFRICA.
INSPIRE AFRICA CONFERENCE
The conference will be held September 18-21, 2023, at the Eko Convention Centre in Lagos, Nigeria. The conference is being run by the Innovate Africa Foundation, in partnership with SVPG and WorkNigeria.
For the first time ever, every one of the SVPG partners will be participating, as we hope to inspire and empower the African product community to build more tech-powered products in Africa, for Africa.
In addition to SVPG serving as a sponsor, we are each donating our time, and covering our own costs.
The Conference itself is on the first day, and we’re expecting a large group of 2000 product people, and will be followed by up to three days of hands-on workshops with tracks for Startup Founders, Product Leaders, and Product Practitioners (Product Managers, Product Designers, Product Engineers).
In addition to the SVPG Partners, several successful African founders, venture capitalists, and product leaders will also be speaking.
The conference is open to all Africa-based product people, and tickets can be purchased via the website. For the workshops, there is an application process as the space is limited and the content will be deep.
There is a nominal cost to attend the conference and the workshops, but we also have a substantial scholarship fund for those that need financial assistance. For calibration, the average Nigerian earns about USD $35/day.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
If you would like to help us in our efforts to develop the African product community, there are two options. First, if your company would like to consider being a sponsor, contact the organizer here. Second, if you would personally like to fund one or more individuals to attend via scholarship, we have set up a GoFundMe campaign to make this easy. A $100 donation will sponsor two African product professionals to attend the conference.
I’m sharing this article with the global product community because I’m hoping you can pass this along to any Africa-based colleagues you may have, and in general help get the word out, but also because I’ve found the global product community to be kind and generous people. We’ll try to keep everyone updated on how this event progresses.
About Innovate Africa Foundation:
Innovate Africa Foundation’s mission is to create opportunities for meaningful solutions to some of the most complex problems in Africa through enabling technology. We provide tactical community-enabling solutions in vulnerable social and economic communities to tackle unemployment, poverty, poor healthcare, insecurity, and financial exclusion.
About WorkNigeria:
WorkNigeria was established with a singular vision: to help the vast Nigerian workforce find meaningful jobs. We are on a mission to upskill job seekers in the best ways possible and help them grow within their careers. We have lofty goals – to put Nigeria back to work through the successful placement of 1M Nigerians in jobs each year.
