THEMES OF THE 4TH EDITION
This winter, EMERGING Valley will once again be THE meeting place for stakeholders involved in innovation between Africa and Europe. It will be organized from the Aix-Marseille-Provence region. Join us in person or digitally for an original program that will explore the themes that have made the Summit a success. Come and get inspired by burning issues that are making the news of the Africa-Europe tech in 2021: will Africa be the new Unicorn Factory of the tech planet? Informal cities: what potential? Healthtech, the new Fintech? How can digital technology be used for protected areas ? Discover live the answers of our experts during the numerous plenary sessions, inspirational keynotes, Fire Side Chats and Masterclass scheduled on December 14th!
Women Entrepreneurship
Cultural and Creative Industries
E-Health
biodiversity 2.0
Financing
Sustainable Cities
Women Entrepreneurship
EMERGING Valley is deeply convinced that women entrepreneurship is the new engine of the digital revolution in Africa and the Mediterranean.
With more than 600 million female entrepreneurs, the highest rate of female entrepreneurs by continent, Africa has established itself as the continent of female impact entrepreneurs. While several studies tend to show that women have a better rate of return on investment and better operational efficiency at the head of their companies, the barriers to entry are still too numerous: fundraising, access to bank credit, cultural barriers, etc.
EMERGING Valley will serve as an advocacy to encourage and leverage entrepreneurship and African female leadership. With one objective: to accelerate the development of this new generation of women entrepreneurs committed to positively transforming the continent, through their societal impacts on the ground.
Biodiversity 2.0: African Techs for Nature!
Biodiversity 2.0 has been an emblematic topic of the Summit since its creation, and is back for this 5th edition with the historical support of the Bouches du Rhône Departmental Council. In the continuity of the World Conservation Congress, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and on the eve of the fateful deadline of 2030, debates will be about the technological initiatives at the service of nature.
The preservation of the oceans, the subjects of conservation, data collection and identification of protected areas will be central, with the rise of drones and aerial surveillance, artificial intelligence, modelling and mobile monitoring applications.
At a time when threats against the territories of Provence, the Mediterranean and Africa are not weakening, technology must allow us to better understand the environments that surround us, to better protect them, and to invent the regenerative solutions that will preserve future generations.
Cultural and Creative Industries
As demonstrated during the last edition of the summit, it is time for the African Creative and Cultural Industries, to unleash their digital acceleration and to overcome borders.
Digital technologies (immersive technologies, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, 3D printing, etc.) have underestimated consequences on the processes of creation, production, dissemination and the relationship with audiences.
If in certain cultural sectors, the relationship to technology is inherent to the production of works (cinema, video games), in others, digital technologies appear as an answer to the challenges risen by performance, accessibility and diversification. All of them contribute to the emergence of a new cultural economy of the 21st century.
From Marseilles to Lagos, via Cairo, an overview of these new forms of culture and creation.
Financing: from Dakar to Lagos, the era of Unicorn Factories?
While the year 2020 was said to be difficult for African start-ups, the continent has managed to contradict all predictions with a 44% increase in the number of deals compared to 2019.
An extraordinary resilience that highlights the strength and dizzying growth potential of the continent's startups. The month of September 2021 confirmed this trend with the arrival of the very first French-speaking African unicorn, fintech Wave. It joins the very select club that includes seven unicorns in Africa to date, all Nigerian and Egyptian.
These success stories are paving the way for their peers, and once again highlight the importance of supporting these high-potential start-ups. Structuring the ecosystem, early-stage, impact financing and new forms of credit: these are all issues that need to be addressed to enable Africa to become the next unicorn factory.
African E-Health
African e-Health - which experienced unprecedented development during the Covid-19 pandemic - and its innovators will be in the spotlight at the 5th edition of EMERGING Valley. The global pandemic has created a new generation of impactful entrepreneurs who innovate to save lives.
From scientific research to the dematerialization of medical records via the democratization of teleconsultation in the most remote African rural areas: African healthtechs are on the rise. Proof of a widespread and lasting enthusiasm for digital health solutions produced on the continent, fundraising by African healthtech startups reached unprecedented records in 2020 and 2021.
How Europe can draw inspiration from the agility of new African e-health solutions, at a time when COVID-19 has revealed to us the weakness of Western healthcare systems in the fight against epidemics? We will discuss it on the occasion of this 5th edition of EMERGING Valley.
Sustainable Cities
How can African Tech put itself at the service of planning authorities to build the city of tomorrow ? The sustainable and connected city will be at the heart of the subjects to be addressed at the 2021 EV Summit.
In a context marked by the generalization of the informal economy on the continent, the reflection will focus on new urban innovations providing essential services to the populations of large African cities, in a more inclusive and affordable way. This is the rationale for new initiatives such as Med'Innovant Africa which strengthen and support the scaling up of SmartCity entrepreneurs.
In Africa, digital innovations have already shown their ability to disrupt entire sectors of the economy, to provide solutions from and for the field directly to citizens, where traditional structures no longer work. Come and discover those who are shaping the sustainable city of tomorrow during a plenary, a digital workshop and a fireside chat organized in partnership with EPAEM!In partnership with the Euroméditerranée Public Establishment