Innovation is recognised as key for driving new development pathways that address socio-economic challenges, including the intersection of today’s megatrends: the climate transition, digital revolution, and demographics shifts. In Africa, a key question remains: How can innovation become transformative in the face of these overlapping challenges and opportunities?

This seminar will discuss how African countries can leverage innovation not only as a technological change and upgrade, but as a vehicle for sustainable industrial development and structural change. Bridging insights from innovation studies and industrial development and policy, the seminar aims to offer new perspectives on how to harness Africa’s ‘innovation’ for sustained structural transformation and inclusive prosperity of the continent.

Keynote Speaker

Elvis Korku Avenyo is an Associate Professor at the DSI/NRF South African Research Chair in Industrial Development (SARChI Industrial Development) at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), South Africa and a Research Fellow at the United Nations University (UNU)-MERIT. Before joining SARChI Industrial Development, Elvis was a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at UJ and a Research Officer on the Inclusive Digital Model (IDMODEL) Project at the Technology and Management Centre for Development (TMCD), Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), University of Oxford. He was also a Global Excellence and Stature (GES) Fellow, and Open AIR’s Queen Elizabeth’s Scholar (QES) at the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development Unit, University of Johannesburg. He researches broadly on development economics with interests in industrial development, innovation, technical change, labour markets, firm behaviour, with a focus on developing countries. He has published in reputable academic journals such as World Development, Technovation, Applied Energy, Research Policy, European Journal of Development Research, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, and South African Journal of Economics. He has worked and co-authored background papers for several international organisations including the International Labour Organization (ILO-Geneva), African Centre for Economic Transformation (ACET), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Elvis obtained his Ph.D. in Economics of Innovation, Policy Studies of Technical Change and Governance from the UNU-MERIT/Maastricht University, The Netherlands.

Link to website: https://sites.google.com/view/elvis-korku-avenyo/home