At the IASP African Division conference in Gaborone, Botswana this week, Dr. Neville Comins gave an interesting speech about innovation environments in Africa. Comins knows what he is talking about, being the former National Innovation Advisor of South Africa and having held positions as CEO of The Innovation Hub and Director of the CSIR.
Comins argued that Africa has been slow to develop science and technology parks with many failures and few success stories. However in his view, there are new models of innovation environments that may be more relevant for the African continent, and he makes a distinction between traditional science parks, activity-based innovation centres and third generation co-creation models. Below is a video of the speech. Enjoy!