Technology speakers to drive future theme at Innovation Durban Festival
From 4 to 6 October at Moses Mabhida Stadium
The Innovation Durban Festival from 4 to 6 October at Moses Mabhida Stadium aims to provide a platform to discuss factors to help sustain the city’s competitiveness.
Technology experts from global and local partners will share their skills on the role youth can play to enhance Durban’s social and economic profile.
The work of talented youth who were winners of the Innovation Challenge held earlier this year will also be profiled. The three-day conference will bring together creative minds from different sectors to deliberate on a number of innovative and people-centered development based topics.
Themed ‘Creating a future Durban’, the festival will display a collaboration of local innovation and development in urban renewal, information and communications technology as well as infrastructure sectors with a touch of electric art and design.
The festival will feature a number of esteemed business specialists, including Jonathan Ayache, general manager of Uber and Dr Craig McLeod co-founder of Build, a website company that works closely with Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Running simultaneously with the festival will be youth seminars aimed to help the youth address socio-economic challenges using modern devices. Topics include ‘Internet for all digital divide’ by Durban Global Shapers as well ‘Revolutionary technology’ by The MakerSpace.
Ethekwini Mayor Zandile Gumede said innovation has been identified as one of the key drivers of local economic development and job creation, and as such, the municipality has initiated the Innovate Durban programme to enhance economic growth and job creation.
“This is one of the key programmes we use to enhance the culture of innovation in business, urging aspiring entrepreneurs to drive the radical economic transformation agenda in eThekwini. With the Innovation Festival we want to ensure our residents are exposed to important knowledge and skills to improve their quality of life,” said Mayor Gumede. She was confident the line-up of experts would prove invaluable to the youth and other participants. “They will lead the way on how we can work together towards creating a sustainable and competitive city while building a nurturing environment for generations to come,” she added.
