It is now ten years since the Economist newspaper declared Africa to be “the hopeless continent”. Today, the same magazine offers a different prognosis, building on the World Bank’s prediction of growth rates for sub-Saharan African economies that will be twice those of Europe. This is in the context of a severe and prolonged recession in North America and Europe and a growing realization that the epicentres of development are shifting eastwards, and southwards. Today, I will reflect on what this may mean for some aspects of a small part of innovation. The qualifiers are deliberate; predicting the future in our complex, interconnected world in hubris
