By: Nana
Appiah Acquaye
Innovation partners,
government representatives and industry stakeholders from Zambia, Botswana,
Malawi, Liberia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe have gathered in Lusaka for the
Pan-African MineTech Hub Exploration Technology Pre-Incubation Workshop to
explore how African innovators can develop practical solutions to mining
challenges.
The workshop, organised
under the timbuktoo Africa initiative, focused on opportunities to turn
Africa’s mineral wealth into homegrown technology and enterprise.
Discussions on Africa’s
mineral innovation landscape and Zambia’s mining and mineral exploration sector
examined ways to strengthen exploration, connect industry needs with technology
development and build a pipeline to prepare innovators to progress towards
incubation.
Participants also explored
industry needs, technology gaps and exploration challenges, as well as pathways
for testing and validating solutions against real-world requirements.
Through collaboration among
government, industry, universities, development partners and the timbuktoo
UniPods network, the initiative aims to help promising African innovations move
from identifying challenges to developing solutions that can be tested, adopted
and scaled.
