168th SPICE Meeting - following the 5th Global Forum of infoDev

Rustenburg, South Africa
1 – 3 Jun 2013

The Fifth Global Forum on Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship, held in East London, South Africa, May 27 - 27, 2013 attracted more than 800 participants. About 90 minutes flight south from Johannesburg East London offers great beaches. The Forum was the opportunity to learn from each other and to listen to leading thinkers and drivers in business incubation. The main streams of the forum were Maximizing Mobile: Making the Mobile Revolution Reach Everyone; No Risk, No Gain: Models for Innovation Financing; When Does it Work? A Practice Lab on Incubation; Green and Profitable: Innovation for Green Growth; the African Women Entrepreneurs Roundtable; and Innovation Ecosystems and the Right Policies.
Important features of the Global Forum were the Dragon’s Den Pitching Competition for innovatiove technology start-upds, the infoDev Business Incubation Management Training, and the "Training of Trainers" that led to certifying new trainers.
After the Global Forum a small group of team members went off for two days in “real Africa” somewhere near Rustenburg, north of Johannesburg in the “Kudurus Game Lodge” (http://kudusrus.co.za/). This was a perfect environment for discussing the outcome of the Global Forum, lessons to learn, and projects to start. Little Lions, Zebras and Kudus in the garden is not the impressions SPICE Members from the Northern Hemisphere have every day. This meeting had not been organized as a SPICE Meeting, but 5 out of 8 participants were members of our network: Leon Lourens who had organized the meeting and hosted the group, Larisa Brovarska, Julian Webb, Steven Giddings, and Heinz Fiedler. With five members present at the campfires (and other opportunities) according one of the SPICE “Golden Rules” this can be counted as SPICE Meeting No 168.


Host:
Contact: Leon Lourens send mail