We know well the dangers of man-made emissions and the negative consequences of some technologies on the environment on a global scale. UNDP has described the need for grassroots, frugal innovation and radically new approaches that fit the complexity of current development challenges and environmental constraints. Join this session for a knowledge exchange in achieving profit-driven frugal innovation, while bridging the gap between the North and the South through collaborative partnerships for the benefit of the climate.
This session was curated in partnership with Future Africa.
Executive Director, Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API)
Victoria is a lawyer , a governance and development expert and policy analyst with 10 years’ experience in the public and private sectors. She is an advocate for development policies targeted at entrepreneurial ecosystems in technology and frugal innovation. Before being appointed as Executive Director, Manya served on the management of YIAGA Africa initiative and OPA Foundation for three and four years respectively. She is also a researcher at the Institute of social studies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam.
She collaborates with local and international organizations and observer groups for peaceful, fair conduct and inclusive elections through technology in Nigeria. She was also instrumental to the engagements that led to the successful #NotTooYoungToRun campaign to reduce the age at which you can run for elective office in Nigeria. Victoria an OKP Fellow and graduate (Summa Cum Laude) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam is a specialist in Local Development Strategies (LDS) , a researcher with her core interests in entrepreneurship, frugal innovation, local development, inclusivity and diversity. She holds a masters in Governance and development policy.
Lead, Government Affairs and Public Policy, West and Francophone Africa, Google
Titi Akinsanmi
Lead, Government Affairs and Public Policy, West and Francophone Africa, Google
Inspire. Inform. Involve. Impact.These four simple but complexly connected words describe Titi’s life mission. An unconventional strategist - with an innate ability to connect what more often than not is boxed as disparate. Titi is a thought leader in public policy and affairs on the digital economic sector in Africa. She is focused on shaping the enabling environment needed for an innovating and thriving African digital economy and beyond. She has spent the last two decades discerning which, where, and how public policies are used to harness digital opportunities while mediating emerging tensions and addressing limiting gaps. Over the last 20 years, Titi has initiated, managed and led delivery on projects and initiatives for ICT & development, ICTs & Education, the Information Society, Internet Governance, Telecom Value Added Products & Services across 35 nations globally. She has engaged with dynamic policy processes nationally, regionally and internationally. This experience spans both the public and private sectors working and or consulting with a range of international institutions, including AfriNIC, the World Bank Institute, IICD, Mindset, UN-GAID, UNECA, SchoolNet Africa and MTech Communications. A Berkman Klein Fellow at Harvard University, Titi holds a Masters Degree in Public and Development Management and is currently pursuing a Masters in Law (LLM, Osgoode Law, York University). She married and blessed with 2 beautiful daughters. www.titiakinsanmi.com
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is currently the CEO and General Partner of Fund for Africa’s Future (popularly known as Future Africa), Africa’s largest seed stage investor which has invested millions of dollars into over hundred startups across Africa. Prior to that, he co-founded Flutterwave, a billion-dollar global payments platform connecting African businesses and individuals to the global economy and served as its Founding CEO from May 2, 2016, to October 5, 2018. In those years, he led the company to become one of the fastest growing payments technology businesses of all time, processing over $2 billion across over 50 million transactions.
Dr. Denton is an accomplished senior manager in the UN system, respected across the research and implementation branches of the organization. She has in-depth knowledge of natural resource management, and extensive experience of research and policy development, in the African region. Prior to joining UNU-INRA, Dr. Denton worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), based in Addis Ababa from 2012. Her research has focused on climate change adaptation looking at resilience systems – sectors such as agriculture, water and energy, principally in Africa. She has also worked at the intersections between
adaptation and mitigation, gender and development and energy poverty and development in Africa; and examined different types of renewable energy transformations in Africa.
Since 2012, her research has extended to climate mitigation looking principally at green economy and decarbonization strategies in Africa especially with regard to current efforts on greening the value chains vis-avis Africa’s industrialisation ambitions. She has an established track record in building programmes on the interrelationships between adaptation and mitigation in Africa, implications for stranded hydrocarbon assets and intersections between climate change, food security and trade towards green transitions.
Dr. Denton is a Lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on climate change and land, a Lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Working Group III, and was previously a Lead author for the Working Group II Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports and for the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy and Climate. Dr. Denton has written more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, reports, and books and holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Birmingham (UK).
In the last 25 years, Desmond has worked in Europe, the United States of America and across the West African sub-region with various industries, non-governmental and parastatal organizations as well as development partners to design and develop progressive management systems that support long-term sustainable development goals.
He is currently the C40 City Advisor for Accra and has successfully led the development and launch of the City’s first Climate Action Plan, compatible to the tenets of the Paris Agreement as part of Deadline 2020 and is the Advisor on Resilience and Sustainability to the Mayor of Accra.
Prior to his current role, he was Accra’s Chief Resilience Officer and led the development of the City’s first Resilience Strategy under the 100 Resilience Cities (100RC) program with Rockefeller Foundation
In Europe, he worked with blue-chip manufacturing enterprises to develop and implement strategies for proactive management in meeting environmental, health and safety standards and manufacturing quality specifications. He also led initiatives to meet governmental standards on the Climate Change Levy targets which further aided and improved the energy use mix requirements and standards set for beverage manufacturing industry sector.
In the United States, he worked on initiatives that promoted improved environmental compliance with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations in Region III, supported by the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP). The program initially started in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and was later rolled out across EPA Region IV from the 2008 academic year in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.
In Ghana, he had been a training and capacity building resource person on quality, health, safety and environmental management courses for clients in various sectors including universities and colleges, manufacturing, service providers, UNDP, WANGO and governmental institutions especial
Bright is the President of mPedigree, a social enterprise working on three continents in partnership with governments, Fortune 500 companies, and grassroots organizations to spread innovative, including patent-pending, technologies that secure communities from supply chain fraud. At Koldchain, he led pioneering work at the Harvard Innovation Labs to invent & patent organo-sensors for biomedicals. Besides his own primary work, he is an enthusiastic Advisor of other organisations. He serves on the Supervisory Board of Care International; on the Sustainability Board of UCB, a European biopharma pioneer; the Board of Directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar; and is the Vice Chair of the Africa Population Health Research Center. He previously served on the inaugural Microsoft Africa Advisory Council. As an early Director at IMANI, he has contributed considerably to its recognition as one of Africa's top 5 think tanks. He was on the 2016 Fortune 50 World Greatest Leaders list.
