The Africa Digital Finance Summit (ADFS) kicked off in Nairobi and will be taking place as from today the 22nd to February 22 to 24, 2022 in Kenya.
The 3-day hybrid summit which is themed, ‘The Future of Finance in Africa; our pathway to financial freedom’ will incorporate a thought-leadership conference featuring governments, central banks across Africa, prominent executives representing global Fintech operators, start-ups, professionals and decision makers across the world in the financial, economic, technology, fintech and block chain industry to deliberate and forge a pathway towards the future of finance in Africa.
Officiating the summit, Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs Chief Administrative Secretary Maureen Mbaka noted that the government, through the Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs, has embarked on its digital transformation journey that informed the formulation of the country’s digital economic blueprint.
“The digital economy strategy, derived from the digital economy blueprint, seeks to remodel the approach to digital inclusion. It thus seeks to transform Kenya into a digitally adaptive, skilled, and innovative workforce that will not only comprehend, adopt, and move with global trends but chart their own digital pathways towards inclusive growth and development,” said the CAS.
She at the same time stated that the government has in place the digital literacy program aimed at imparting digital skills to young minds from an early age, which has seen the distribution of over 1 million digital devices in over 22,000 public schools, and the training of over 300,000 teachers.
Mbaka said that the Government of Kenya launched the Ajira Digital Program, under which free training on how to work online is provided to the youth on the platform ajiradigital.go.ke. There, the youth learn how to take up the opportunities provided by the gig economy.
The CAS said, “I encourage innovative youth in the country to take advantage of one of our programs known as the Huduma Whitebox, a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to present, share or sell their idea, innovation, invention or solution.”
Through the website, whitebox.go.ke, the youth can forward their innovations and ideas for promotion and support including facilities being awarded to qualified start-ups.
“This is a Summit for bold, visionary leaders who are willing to disrupt as much as they are willing to create, who know what to give up as much as what they expect to gain,” says Mary Njoki, CEO and Founder of Glass House PR, the organiser of the Summit.
She said the summit will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor which took place last year and which brought in over 50 keynote speakers and a pool of over 1000 participants.
“The inaugural summit which was themed “Decentralised Finance” set the pace for finance conversations in Africa especially now when the continent is facing economic and technological advances at an incremental pace,” she added.
By Hamdi Mohamud
