Archived Newsroom • Press Release |
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ITU Telecom World 2012 sets platform for young innovators: tomorrow’s
leaders
Rwanda announces young innovator conference:
Transform Africa
Dubai, UAE, 18 October 2012 – The Young Innovators
Competition at ITU Telecom World 2012 came to a conclusion in Dubai following
five days of workshops, mentoring and pitching sessions which ended with a
lively debate between young social entrepreneurs and leaders of industry,
government and academia. Finalists of the Young Innovators Competition were
joined by 2011 competition winners and a distinguished panel featuring Minister
of Rwanda Jean Philibert Nsengimana, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun I. Touré,
Karim Lesina, Executive Director of AT&T, Osman Sultan, CEO of du; Ali Jazairy,
Head of Innovation and Technology Transfer at WIPO; Didier Fass of LORIA Nancy;
Sarah Lamb, Consultant, Technet, and Founder of Girl Geek Dinners.
"You are all winners and future leaders in an industry where the future is
bright and the sky is no longer the limit," Dr Touré said. The debate
highlighted education; political will; business incubators; and commitment from
the corporate sector to employ young people on merit as most important factors
in enabling success. Mr Jazairy said, "You can build a flagless revolution based
on innovation and knowledge, and we will follow you."
"As young innovators, we need investment, mentoring and advice to get our
projects started," said competition finalist Linkest Diwan, whose Crisis
Communicator project offers a total disaster management system. "I'm really
happy the ITU Young Innovators Competition exists. It provides innovators with
social purpose a leg up, coaching and exposure. If there were more programmes
like this on the planet, I believe the economic and environmental crises we have
would be over in a day."
The Minister for Youth and Information and Communication Technologies of
Rwanda, Mr Jean Philibert Nsengimana announced the launch of Transform Africa, a
conference and exhibition for young entrepreneurs from Africa and around the
world, to be held in Kigali, Rwanda, 18-22 March, 2013. He explained that the
conference will invite young ICT entrepreneurs from across Africa to training,
development and workshops, plus high-level ministerial round table discussions
and connections with investors in Rwanda and beyond. "The number of mobile
subscriptions in Africa has doubled in the past six years," said Mr Nsengimana.
"In Rwanda, the increase has been ten-fold over the same time period. Transform
Africa will catalyse the transformation of the economic landscape of
enterprises.”
The annual Young Innovators Competition offers young social entrepreneurs the
chance to shine an international spotlight on their innovative and creative
ICT-based projects or concepts to drive socio-economic development. The twelve
finalists were selected to attend ITU Telecom World 2012, the leading global
platform for knowledge-sharing, debate and networking in the ICT community, on
the basis of the business viability and potential social impact of their
projects.
Thank you for registering for ITU Telecom World 2012 in Dubai. We hope it
provided you interesting content. To stay in touch with ITU throughout the year
we highly recommend you sign up to our new Video Newsroom, your one-stop-shop
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For more information, see
http://world2012.itu.int/
or contact:
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Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU
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Sally Moore
AxiCom
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