BIO AFRICA Convention promotes development of young biotech innovators

“The continent must develop and secure its own biotechnology supplies”

We enter the BIO AFRICA 2022 season in a world that is fundamentally different from the one we had, when we hosted the last physical Convention in 2019. The BIO AFRICA Convention was launched five years ago as a contribution to mobilising society to strive for equity in distributing the fruits of biotechnology innovation. The principles were that a concerted effort of building strategic capital through coalitions of the global progressives, pivoting the latent talent of the marginalised (women and youth), and forging partnerships across the continent would provide a capacity equivalent — if not better — than the imported solutions. The declaration was that where health and food security are concerned, crafting value alliances, and rethinking innovation strategies, Africa could begin to develop and secure its own supplies.

The founding philosophy of life sciences innovation for Africa’s development is as relevant today as it was five years ago. The Covid-19 crisis was a signal of what was to come concerning the injustices of global inequalities, detected when the global North closed its ranks on access to diagnostics and later vaccines. A new term entered our everyday language: vaccine nationalism, which had always been there, but it took the desperate situation of the Covid pandemic to shine a light on it. Unleashing latent intellectual capital was key to the strategy, and inclusivity through women and youth needed priority. On a coalition basis, there needed to be an acknowledgement that the government could not do it all on its own as it required new, additional partnerships. Fortunately, the pandemic became a pivot for designing a shared future.

It is within this context that the first showcase of what the future of biotechnology could look like is presented here. The four featured Innovations are a snippet of what the BIO AFRICA Convention 2022 in Durban will showcase in its first Start-up Stadium. These companies and many others prove that these “blue sky” ambitions set out a few years ago will be realised. Welcome to the preview of BIO AFRICA 2022, taking place from 27 to 31 August, at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Durban International Convention Centre.