Yves Mugabo, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Centre de Recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal
Vinet Coetzee, Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria
Abdoulaye Banire, Professor, UQAM & Chief Scientist My Intelligent Machines
Aminata Garba, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, Africa
Yabebal Fantaye, ARETE-AIMS Junior Research Chair
Peter Ngene, Assistant professor, Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University

Master of Ceremony: Mr. Israel Bimpe

Ms. Seema Kumar, Vice President of Innovation, Global Health and Policy Communication

President of Senegal

During the Presidential Panel, Heads of State will be given the opportunity to express their views on a White Paper jointly prepared in advance by NEF, the Sustainable Development Goals Center for Africa, the African Academy of Sciences and Carnegie Melon University Africa. This paper entitled “Laying the Groundwork for Knowledge Led Economies” will focus on regulatory framework, scientific culture and capacity, and partnerships and structured financing required to build knowledge led economies. During the panel, Heads of State and Former Heads of State will discuss their aspirations and commitments vis-a-vis the paper’s recommendations.

Moderator: Didier Acouetey, Founder and President of AfricSearch Group

Panelists:
H.E. Paul Kagame,President of Rwanda
H.E. Macky Sall, President of Senegal
Hon. Amina Mohamed, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Kenya
Mr. Thierry Zomahoun,  AIMS President and CEO & NEF Founder and Chair

Abdigani Diriye, Research scientist and manager at IBM Research Africa
Jonathan Esole, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Northeastern University
Rym Kefi, Associate Professor, Institut Pasteur of Tunis
Justus Masa, Leader of Electrocatalysis and Energy Conversion at the Center for Electrochemical Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany.
Sanushka Naidoo, Senior Lecturer, Department of Genetics, University of Pretoria
Maha Nasr, Associate Professor and researcher of Pharmaceutics and Industrial Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Egypt

Time: 10:00am – 11:15am
Organiser: SciDev.Net with the support of Robert Bosch Stiftung
Venue: Room AD11

Lead: Nick Perkins, Lead Technical Advisor (Development Communication and Extension) at CABI

This forum will bring together editors from a number of leading regional media titles to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing science journalism in Africa. The discussion will consider the media industry in Africa’s relationship with the scientific community, and explore the collective challenges faced by those seeking to communicate science to their readers.

The forum will take the structure of an informal round table discussion, together with a small audience of twenty interested observers. Steered by Nick Perkins, a professional with more than twenty years’ experience working with media across the globe, participants will be encouraged to share experiences, discuss common barriers to scientific journalism, and identify opportunities to facilitate better media-science collaboration.

Refreshments will be provided.

For more information please email sarah.hebbes@scidev.net

Editors attending:

David Aduda, Head of Business Development and Partnerships, Nation Media Group

Haruna Idris, Deputy Director Current Affairs and Special Assistant to the Director General, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (Radio Nigeria)

Juliet Masiga, Peace and Security Editor, The Conversation Africa

Andrew Meldrum, Acting Africa Editor, The Associated Press

Fulgence Sene, Editor and Head of Translation Desk, African Press Agency

Bothina Osama, MENA Regional Coordinator, SciDev.Net

Other names to be confirmed.

This plenary session will provide recommendations on how to unlock the full potential of this new emerging concept for Africa. The transition of African nations to industrial economies that do not produce waste and pollution will help accelerate its growth. However, each continent, country, region, city must design its own approach to a Circular Economy following its definition, principles and objects.

Moderator:  Kathryn Toure, International Development Research Centre Regional Director, Sub-Saharan Africa

Panelists:
Vincent Biruta, Minister of Environment, Republic of Rwanda
Flavia Schlegel, Assistant Director General for Natural Sciences, the United Nations Cultural, Scientific and Educational Organization (UNESCO)
Rocio A Diaz-Chavez, Deputy Director for Research and Energy and Climate Change Programme Leader at the Stockholm Environment Institute Africa Centre
Hans Bolscher, Senior Consultant Climate and Renewable Energy
Justus Masa, NEF Fellow

Climate Smart Innovations

Africa’s top 15 innovators, pre-screened by the NEF team and a smaller Scientific Programme Committee, will participate in the NEF Ci2i Challenge Top 15 Pitching Session. This includes five candidates per category: Climate Smart Innovations, Personalized Health Care Innovations and Deeptech Innovations. The Challenge of Invention to Innovation (Ci2i) is the NEF’s innovation competition. Judged by industry leaders and researchers, the NEF is looking for the best research based innovations with potential for impact and immediate scale up. Each innovator will have no more than five minutes to pitch their idea and/or product. The top six as selected by the judges will pitch to all participants in plenary on Day 3.

JUDGES:
Agnes Kalibata President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
Justus Masa NEF Fellow & Leader of Electrocatalysis and Energy Conversion
Wilfrid Lauriano do Rego Lead Partner – Energy & Power/Utilities, KPGM France
Bouchaib Boulanouar Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department, African Development Bank

Every year, brilliant young Africans are making inspiring new discoveries, pushing the boundaries of innovation.  This plenary session will help participants catch up with recent breakthroughs across the continent. Each Innovator will share their breakthrough in five minutes and take a few audience questions.

Moderator: Michelle Gregory, Vice-President of Content and Innovation, Elsevier

Panelists:
Arthur Zang, CardioPad
Ms. Temie Giwa-Tubosun, Life Bank
Brian Turyabagye, Co-inventor of the MamaOpe
Dougbeh Christopher Nyan, Liberian Doctor and Creator of Nyan Test
Cedric Atangana, CEO of Infinity Space, Builder of WeCashUp
Mahmud Johnson, Founder and CEO of J-Palm Libera
Grâce-Françoise Nibizi,  Founder, SaCoDé & Ageteka Project
Grace Nakibaala, Founder and CEO PedalTap
Ngalula Sandrine Mubenga, Founder and CEO, SMIN Power Group
Patrick Nsenga Buchana, CEO of AC Group Ltd

The speed and quality of developing science capacity depends not only on infrastructure and the technical training of people, but is intimately linked to the quality of leadership to lead change. It is widely accepted that the future of scientific development lies in enabling interdisciplinary, interconnected and often large, international teams. Furthermore, as economies become more and more dependent on knowledge and innovation, and considering tremendous societal challenges such as rapid urbanization, sustainable use of natural resources or climate change, the need for transdisciplinary science and research is growing. For both these developments, effective leadership in science and research is pivotal. The session will gather experts in the field of science leadership to discuss what capacities scientists of tomorrow need in order to lead.

Opening Remarks: Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European Research Council
Moderator: Katrin Rehak-Nitsche, Senior Vice-President of Science and Research at Robert Bosch Stiftung

Panelists:
Mamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, Minister of Science and Technology, South Africa
Howard Alper, Chair, Canvassing Committee, Global Excellence Initiative, and Distinguished University Professor, University of Ottawa
Tumani Corrah, African Research Excellence Fund (AREF)
Tom Kariuki, African Academy of Sciences (AAS)
Connie Nshemereirwe, Acutalise Africa

This session will be focus on the challenges ahead for fintech in Africa. Africa is fertile ground for new fintech services, which leverage the power of communities and digital technology to make financial services more relevant. Fintech businesses have developed into remarkable success stories. Innovators and fintech-preneurs have built new platforms that consumers can easily understand, trust, and in a click, can transact, borrow, save and insure. Despite the potential, even the most disruptive Fintech firms fail. Panelists will discuss this high failure rate and what can be done to mitigate risk.

Moderator: Jake Bright, Contributor on Africa at TechCrunch and Crunchbase. Award Winning Author of The Next Africa

Panelists: 

Claver Gatete,  Minister of Finance, Rwanda
Abdigani Diriye, NEF Fellow
Rose Muturi, East Africa Regional Director at TALA
Moussa Dembele, CEO, Danapay
Alice Kilonzo-Zulu, MD, Ecobank Rwanda

Improving health outcomes could rely on several technologies and practices including biotechnologies, patient care, preventive care, etc. Recently, with the emergence of big data and Artificial Intelligence, health data is being mastered to improve health outcomes in surveillance, cancer, heart disease, etc. Several challenges exist in implementing AI in health. In this discussion panel we will focus on the four main pillars Africa needs to benefit from AI in the health sector including (1) A broad discussion on how to Leverage AI in any domain (2) Review of successes few examples of successful cases and best practices (3) How various stakeholders can deal with the policies, participation and acceptance and finally (4) How to build capacity in the area of AI & health.

Moderator: Naser Faruqui, Director of Technology and Innovation, Canadian International Development Research Centre

Panelists:

Manuela Veloso, Professor & Head of the Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University
Abdoulaye Baniré Diallo, Professor, UQAM & Chief Scientist My Intelligent Machines
Naheed Kurji, President and CEO of Cyclica
Jean-Francois Gagné, Co-founder and CEO of Element AI
Joelle Pineau, Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar in the School of Computer Science at McGill University

This session will be introducing different Electricity-to-gas “pathways” including electricity to hydrogen, electricity to natural gas end-users, electricity to renewable content in petroleum fuel, seasonal energy storage to electricity, electricity to zero emission transportation, electricity to seasonal storage for transportation, etc. Electricity-to-fuel or Electricity-to-gas is indeed a promising option for storing interment renewables and distributed energy. It is a concept for the transition to increased renewable content of current fuels with a goal of transitioning to a sustainable low-carbon future energy system that interconnects power, transportation sectors and thermal energy demand all together. In this session, panelists will debate on barriers to adoption of these promising technologies, which ultimately will contribute in making the continent self-sustainable in energy.

Moderator: Paulina Jaramillo, Co-director of the Green Design Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

Panelists:
Gadi Taj Ndahumba, African Legal Support Facility
Peter Ngene, NEF Fellow
Wilfrid Lauriano do Rego, Lead Partner – Energy & Power/Utilities, KPGM France
Jean-Pascal Pham-Ba, Secretary-General & Spokesperson of Terrawatt Initiative
Veerle Berbers, Senior Advisor Impact Investing

Personalized Health Innovations

JUDGES:
Alma Scott Head, Africa Operations and Partnerships Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health
Clarisse Musanabaganwa Director of Medical Research, Rwanda Biomedical Center
Sarroukh Eddine Head of Philips Research Africa
Bernard Slippers Professor & Director, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute
Julien Cornebise Director of the London Lab, Element AI

Data Science & Deep Tech Innovations

JUDGES:
Michelle Gregory Vice-President of Content and Innovation, Elsevier
Josh Ghaim Chief Technology Officer, Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies
Kommy Weldemariam IBM-Research Africa, Kenya
Patrick McSharry Professor at CMU-Africa
Riverson Oppong Hello Tomorrow Ambassador

Youssef Travaly, Vice President, Science, Innovation & Partnerships, Next Einstein Forum

Wilfred Ndifon, Director of Research, AIMS & NEF Fellow

Pan-African Robotic Competition

The Pan-African Robotics Competition (PARC) is an All-African Robotics competition which brings together middle, high-school, and university robotics teams to participate in a competition around a challenge based on a real-world topic relevant to science and the sustainable development of Africa. The theme for 2018 is Innovation in Health Care.

Kevin Dzobo, Senior Research Scientist at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB)
Aku Kwamie,  Health policy and systems research consultant
Tolulope Olugboji, Postdoctoral research associate at the University of Maryland
Hamidou Tembine, Global Network Assistant Professor at New York University
Yvonne Mburu

The morning will start with an exciting peek session that will give scientists and researchers selected from all over the globe an opportunity to unveil their exciting discoveries. Their breakthroughs in all kinds of different fields have many important implications for human life.

Moderator: Eliza Anyangwe, Founder Nzinga Effect & Freelance writer

Speakers:
Oshiorenoya Agabi, Koniku, CEO, Koniku Inc
Douglas Wallace, Director, Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
Sayed Azam-Ali, Chief Executive Officer of Crops For the Future (CFF)
Chamindie Punyadeera, Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology
Samaya Nissanke, Assistant Professor,  Radboud University, Netherlands

Agriculture is the most important component of most African economies and has significant implications for food security and poverty reduction in the region. Climate Change Agriculture (CSA) is a conceptual framework focusing on sustainable increases in agricultural productivity and income, building resilience to foster adaptation to climate change and reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production, where appropriate. The potential benefits of CSA are clear but its adoption by smallholder farmers in Africa is slow. The panel will address factors influencing CSA adoption in Africa including the technical, social, political and institutional environment.

Moderator: Adam Sneyd, University of Guelph

Panelists:

Ousmane Badiane, Africa Director for the International Food Policy Research Institute
Sanushka Naidoo, NEF Fellow
Pierre Thiam, Co-founder of Yolele Foods
Agnes Kalibata, President, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
Simeon Ehui, Director, Food and Agriculture Global Practice, The World Bank

This session will address critical points for the continent to build a pipeline of researchers and innovators. They will focus on how to build scientific culture early. Panelists will look at global best practices and provide recommendations on how to strengthen early and tertiary education.

Moderator:
Nathalie Munyampenda, Managing Director, Next Einstein Forum

Panelists:
Mary Teuw Niane, Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation of Senegal
Romain Murenzi, Executive Director of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)
France A. Córdova, Director of the US National Science Foundation
José M. F. Moura, Philip L. and Marsha Dowd University Professor, CMU & IEEE President Elect
Aku Kwamie, NEF Fellow

This session will discuss the opportunities and risks of /for science in light of the global political developments. Every continent needs strong science and innovative solutions, as we are all facing awesome challenges, such as climate change, food production for a rapidly growing population, epidemic diseases or the decimation of other species. More than at any time in our history, we need to work together. We have developed the technology to destroy the planet, but not the ability to solve the problems. To do this, we need to break down, not build up barriers, between and within our nations.

Moderator: Ingrid Wuenning Tschol, SVP Robert Bosch Stiftung

Panelists:

Nelson Torto, Executive Director, African Academy of Sciences
Tatsuo Arai, Director for Special Missions, Department of International Affairs, Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
Rush Holt, CEO, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Peter Strohschneider, President of DFG, German Research Foundation
Theresia Bauer, Minister of Science, Research and the Arts, Baden- Württemberg State, Germany

This session will bring together experts and young talented scientists from Africa and across the world to discuss recent discoveries and trends in mathematics and physics. This will provide an opportunity for young researchers to learn the current state of the research in these fields. The NEF welcomes researchers from both theoretical and applied mathematics and physics to use this opportunity to exchange ideas with the leading scientists.

Moderator:  Prof. Neil Turok, Founder of AIMS & Director of the Perimeter Institute

Panelists:

Jonathan Esole, NEF Fellow
Yabebal Fantaye, NEF Fellow
Prosper Ngabonziza, Scientist at Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany
Amanda Weltman, South African Research Chair in Physical Cosmology
Prince K. Osei, Project Developer for Quantum Leap Africa (QLA)

For this session, panelists will be looking at the concept of smart sustainable cities from the angle of city flows and urban planning. Within a city, there are two major classes of systems including flows that run through a city’s infrastructure and services. The former, city flows, include among other waste through sewerage and municipal waste systems and energy through electricity grids. In line with this, panelists will debate on challenges and opportunities for the continent to adopt waste-to-products technologies.

Moderator: Christian Benimana, Director, Rwanda Programs, MASS Design Group

Panelists:

Edgar Pieterse, South African Research Chair in Urban policy & Director of African Centre for Cities (ACC)
Eliane Ubalijoro Professor of Practice, McGill University
Hamidou Tembine, NEF Fellow
Gaetan Siew, Chairperson of the Port Louis Development Initiative and Special Envoy for UN Habitat
Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Special Advisor, Smart Africa

Opening remarks:

Youssef Travaly, Vice-President, Science, Innovation and Partnerships, Next Einstein Forum

Panelists

Amna Abdalla Mohammed Khalid (Sudan), Postdoctoral researcher at Georg August University Germany

Arielle Kitio Tsamo (Cameroon), Founder of the CAYSTI

Dr. Keita Alpha Kabine, (Guinee) Postdoctoral Researcher within the UMI233,  Translational Research on HIV and Infectious Diseases (TransVIHMI) of the Research Institute for Development (IRD)

Dr. Rose M. Mutiso (Kenya) Co-Founder an d CEO of Mawazo Institute

Dr. Abdoulaye Sidiki (Mauritania), Engineer in Acoustics and Fluid in the speciality of Ultrasound’s Non Destructive Testing of Paris Diderot University

Raissa Malu (Congo DRC)  Head of Technical Support Unit at the Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Professional Education

Dr. Obidi Ezezika (Nigeria) Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Interdisciplinary Centre for Health and Society, University of Toronto Scarborough; Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto

Dr. Lwidiko Edward Mhamilawa (Tanzania) Medical Doctor and Co-founder of ProjeKt Inspire

Dodzi Fabien Aglago (Togo) Founder and Director General of the Scientific Laboratory MOBILELABO SARL

Ian Nyasha Mutamiri (Zimbabwe) Founder and Engineer of Purple Trust

This plenary session will discuss the next generation of healthcare strategies and mechanisms that integrate diagnostic information collected from multiple sources combined with state of the art technologies. Currently, on the continent, the field of healthcare is primarily focused on late stage disease including treatments applied relatively late with suboptimal health outcomes. Instead of curing diseases after the fact, we must focus on preventing disease before it strikes by building a true culture of health and disease prevention. Advancements in science and technology are helping us understand disease risk, detect disease early, enable preventative interventions as well as matching medication to the genetic properties of a patient. In this plenary session, panelists are expected to review the barriers that prevent wide deployment of personalized health in Africa (skills gaps, reliable infrastructures for state of the equipment, etc.) and make concrete recommendations to support African governments and local authorities in making informed policy decisions to transition to a culture of precision health, which will improve health outcomes and the health system as a whole.

Opening remarks:  Paul Stoffels Johnson and Johnson Chief Scientific Officer

Moderator: Nina Dudnik, Founder and CEO of Seeding Labs

Panelists:
Agnes Binagwaho, Vice Chancellor at the University of Global Health Equity
Kevin Dzobo, NEF Fellow
Genya Dana, Head of Precision Medicine at the World Economic Forum
Seema Kumar, Vice President of Innovation, Global Health and Policy Communication, Johnson & Johnson (J&J)
Tracey McNeill, CEO of babyl Rwanda

MODERATOR:
Seema Kumar, Vice President of Innovation, Global Health and Policy Communication, Johnson and Johnson

Announcing NEF Ci2i Winners

Kigali Declaration

Youssef Travaly, Vice President, Science, Innovation & Partnerships, Next Einstein Forum

Closing Remarks

Mr. Thierry Zomahoun, AIMS President and CEO & NEF Founder and Chair
Hon. Eugene Mutimura, Minister of Education, Republic of Rwanda.

Offered by the Government of Rwanda