Get ready! The annual Viva Technology festival is happening in Paris next week. It promises to be the most surprising yet, featuring keynotes from the CEOs of CISCO, Engie, IBM, Microsoft, and Uber. Expect them to mix with startup entrepreneurs, developers and designers you’ve never heard of. President Emmanuel Macron of France and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda are speaking on May 24th, and we are also excited about Nigerian entrepreneur Tony Elumelu, who is expected to come by a dedicated Afric@Tech zone where TRUE Africa will be discussing all things Africa, including a fun world cup competition with partners Sokkaa, Koosmik and MIT.
We will be there, participating in discussions and conducting interviews, explaining the many different ways technology is changing the African continent. We will engage with the new African leaders—many of them still in their twenties—who have demonstrated the power of technology to provide access to services and products that most of the African population did not previously have access to. We will find out why major multinationals such as SANOFI and Orange are betting on—and investing in—a new generation of African entrepreneurs.
Look out for some of our favorite speakers in the Afric@Tech zone, including Afua Osei, co-founder of She Leads Africa (Nigeria), Peris Bosire, co-founder of FarmDrive (Kenya), Sarah Toumi, CEO and founder of Dream in Tunisia, and Christina Sass, co-founder and president of Andela. We are also super excited about Aaron Fu, managing director of Mest in Accra, and Rémy Rioux, general manager of AFD (Agence Française de Développement) in Paris. At the end of day, the best innovation is about empowerment, but let’s hope we can also have a lot of fun discovering new products and services coming from Africa, and the rest of the world.
VivaTechnology is taking place from May 24th to 26th, in Paris.