Our Purpose

We bring together purpose-driven organizations from Europe and Africa to collaborate and co-create. – It´s time for new ways of doing business.

NextAfrica is an African-European initiative by Ecotec (A), Identifire (A) and LivingLab (Ken). NextAfrica connects companies and people from both continents and motivates them to a new way of learning, developing and doing business together.

Why?

We are facing an interconnected global society that ends the dominance of the Western World. While Europe struggles with the consequences, most African countries are on the rise. They have become part of global economic value chains and are leapfrogging from an agrarian into digital societies. The growing African middle class defines new standards for education and business – with great entrepreneurial spirit. Self-confident and sustainable.

It´s time to redefine African-European collaboration to tackle Africa’s, Europe’s and humankind’s big challenges.

What?

Organizations from both continents can learn from their differences:

  • from social cultures versus individualistic cultures
  • from an optimistic and pro-active African youth versus mature but quickly ageing societies
  • from dependencies on certain people versus functioning institutions
  • from autocratic structures versus human rights-based democracies
  • from a digitalization happening on a greenfield versus a digitalization hampered by old technologies and vested interests
  • from a risk-taking entrepreneurial societies versus risk-averse welfare states
  • from a fearless use of data versus an overcautious approach in data use
  • from no fear algorithms taking over versus a future angst

How?

By connecting the dots and leveraging the potentials we open up new horizons, new networks, new insights, new ways of looking at the world. We create opportunities for companies and people with an entrepreneurial mindset.