Event Details:

Abstract

Young people are the best investment Africa can make. It's not only the future that belongs to the youth of Africa. Today's Africa belongs to the youth " Akinwumi Adesina.

Many of Africa's best and brightest become bureaucrats or NGO workers when they should be scientists or entrepreneurs." - Jennifer Brea

Technology is viewed as Africa's only opportunity to leapfrog in economic and social growth. This has led to the rise of tech innovation hubs as the nexus point where entreprises with innovations that would change the world are built. In most African countries, the benefits of these hubs which are; closing the gaps in infrastructure, connectivity and technology development, are still a reserve for the capital cities and very few are offered to the developing cities.

In Kenya , James Odede , a passionate entrepreneurial technologist, took a courageous risk four years ago to start LakeHub, a state of the art technology innovation hub in Kisumu, a developing city that had no previous opportunities for technology. Today, LakeHub boasts of a community of over 2,000 entrepreneurs, developers and a growing startup scene. The hub is committed to bridging the technology gap that exists between Africa's big cities and rural cities. To date, LakeHub has worked with Google, UN-Habitat, UNESCO, Safaricom, Pluralsight, Andela and local organizations to support Youths in Kisumu and western rural Kenya with the resources they need to innovate.

James will share his journey of creating the ecosystem of technologists, entrepreneurs and investors from a grassroot approach while using low resources.

Bio

James is a Kenyan technologist and a serial entrepreneur. The Co-founder and Director of LakeHub, James has brought together the tech community of Western Kenya, raised funding from Google, overseen the implementation of a Computer Science for High School (CS4HS) students program, and built the region's first co-working space.

A graduate of Maseno University with a Bsc. in Computer Science, James is passionate about technology for social development, technology start-ups, clean energy and committed to bridging the technology gap that exists between Africa's big cities and rural. James is an Acumen Fellow and a Mandela Washington Fellow. In 2015, James was awarded the top 100 most influential people in Kenyan technology scene by iHub.