The inaugural edition of the High Growth Africa Summit held at the Landmark Event Centre, Victoria Island on the November 18, 2016.

Hosted by growth and impact facilitators, Starta and Ingressive, the summit was exclusively dedicated to teaching entrepreneurs how to build, scale and fund high growth businesses in Africa.

Delivering the Keynote address, ‘From Zero to One Billion Dollar companies: What I’ve learnt’, Afam Edozie of Grow Africa shared a wealth of knowledge gained from his vast experience with a variety of companies. Speaking on growth focus, he advised founders and entrepreneurs on the need to emphasise a particular problem, develop a practical solution and dominate it.

In the spirit of discussion, the event moved to a panel session on the topic, ‘Why Government doesn’t get startups’; moderated by Dotun Olowoporoku of Starta, panelists included Omobola Johnson, former Minister of Communication Technology, now with TLcom Capital; Tomi Davies, member of the African Business Angels Network and President of the Lagos Angel Network; Kareem Sudanki of the National Office for Content Development in ICT; and Jill Moss of the United States Agency for International Development.

The panelists agreed that, among others, engagement and constant interaction between the government and stakeholders in technology were important to facilitate the catalytic role of the government as well as maximise its impact.

The summit was rounded off with masterclasses on topics and issues of interest to technology founders and entrepreneurs. Speakers and facilitators included Adebola Williams of Red Media Africa, Afua Osei of She Leads Africa, Ebi Atawodi of Uber Africa, Yvonne Wassenaar of New Relic, Rob Withagen of Asoko Insight among others.

Organizers Starta and Ingressive hope that the inaugural edition of the summit will be a precursor to numerous editions in the future as they hope to support and facilitate the growth of African startups, particularly in the technology sector.