If we’ve been quiet about our Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa research, it’s because Michel, Mark, and I have been busy drafting chapters for an upcoming monograph. In the book, we use our empirical data to work through some of the development hopes that have been associated with digital entrepreneurship, for instance, that Africa may leapfrog… Read More »
African digital entrepreneurs like Tayo Oviosu (see tweet in the picture) are forcefully pursuing the aspiration that African technologies will one day be used by millions of users around the world. We want to share a working paper that discusses this ambition. In the paper, we’re examining the possibilities for African digital firms to scale… Read More »
It has almost been a year since I finished the final draft of my dissertation about African innovation hubs. In the meantime, a number of publications have come out about hubs in Africa and elsewhere, some in high-profile venues (references are below). This probably signifies that hubs are becoming accepted as a unique and interesting organizational… Read More »
The Geonet team will attend next year’s Global Conference of Economic Geography (GCEG) in full strength, running two hopefully lively sessions. Both run under the larger theme “Digital Economies, Digital Connectivity, Digital Margins.” Papers can be submitted between 15 Nov 2017 and 15 March 2018 on the GCEG website (https://www.gceg2018.com). Digital Economies, Digital Connectivity,… Read More »
Digital entrepreneurship is on the rise across Africa. There is no question that the number of technology startups and the number of organizations trying to support them has multiplied in recent years. Many have taken this rise of activity to indicate a fundamental and promising shift. Already, The Next Africa has been proclaimed, and policymakers… Read More »
Good news: my dissertation on African technology innovation hubs is now complete! The permanent digital record (incl. a pdf for download) is here, and the hardbound copy will shortly be deposited with Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries as well. Friederici, N. (2016, October). Innovation Hubs in Africa: Assemblers of Technology Entrepreneurs. Dissertation, Oxford, UK: Oxford Internet Institute, University… Read More »
We are recruiting a full-time Researcher to work with us at the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) on a project that critically assesses the changing landscape of digital entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Researcher will conduct a grounded, comparative empirical study of digital entrepreneurship in African cities. We are interested in the practices of digital entrepreneurship,… Read More »
With tech entrepreneurship on the rise across Africa, efforts to support the agenda are evolving and diversifying. There has been quite a bit of debate—sometimes of the heated kind—about whether incubators, hubs, labs, and other support organizations work. In my view, what’s often missing from such discussions is a deeper understanding of what a hub… Read More »
Two of us just put out a last-minute CfP for next year’s AAG. This ties especially into Innovation Hubs pillar. Please share widely and submit by Oct 19 if you have suitable work in progress. — CfP AAG 2016: The productive power of connectivity and entrepreneurship discourses at economic margins AAG Annual Meeting, San Francisco,… Read More »
Use of the term “hub” has certainly been inflationary in discussions about innovation and entrepreneurship support. I believe that innovation hubs are a genuinely new (and exciting!) organizational form, but at the same time, “hub” has become a misnomer for many organizations where the label doesn’t quite fit, especially across Africa. This wouldn’t be such… Read More »