Catalysing the multiplier effect: Looking back at Catalysing Conversations 2021
A few weeks ago, on October 21 2021, we had the great privilege of hosting the third edition of our annual scaleup entrepreneurship summit, Catalysing Conversations. This year’s summit – themed “The Multiplier Effect” – was a great opportunity to bring together some of the boldest and most exciting entrepreneurs from Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa to discuss and expand on a wide range of topics that are critical to boosting socio-economic transformation in Nigeria and other emerging markets.
As with previous editions, the aim of Catalysing Conversations 2021 was to spread the mission of high-impact entrepreneurship, illustrating why entrepreneurs that Think Big, Scale Up, and Pay-It-Forward are critical for long-term economic transformation. The conversations also focused on themes of innovation, high-growth company dynamics, high-impact entrepreneurship, and the transformational power of technology.
The packed agenda was kicked off with an inspiring keynote speech from our Managing Director & CEO, Tosin Faniro-Dada, who spoke about catalysing high-impact entrepreneurship to drive long-term economic transformation in Nigeria. Tosin spoke about the emergence of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Nigeria over the last few years and the need to catalyse the powerful multiplier effects that shift economies from the ground up to make the change we all want to see happen.
In line with the theme of the summit, there was a strong focus on the transformative role of technology and entrepreneurship, and how it is driving tangible changes across the continent. The fireside chat on “The Transformational Power of Technology: Creating Value in the Logistics and Supply Chain System”, which featured Ife Oyedele (Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Kobo360) and Gaurav Biswas (Founder & CEO, TruKKer), explored the opportunity to drive greater business growth across Africa by using technology to address some of the longstanding problems that have held the sector back for so long, as well as some of the parallels between Africa and MENA’s logistic landscape.
Tosin Eniolorunda (Founder & CEO, TeamApt) and Pedro Conrade (Founder & CEO, Banco Neon) also explored the parallels between Brazil and Nigeria’s financial inclusion stories during their fireside chat which was titled “A Vision of Financial Freedom for Emerging and Frontier Markets”. As it has been widely reported, fintech is one of the most vibrant sectors in Nigeria’s (and Africa’s) entrepreneurial ecosystem, and Brazil has one of the most advanced central banking systems in the world, which has driven a lot of fintech adoption across the country. This provided an excellent backdrop for Tosin and Pedro’s conversation.
There were also other fireside chats that discussed “The Entrepreneurial Journey: Taking the road less travelled” with Babs Ogundeyi (Founder/CEO, Kuda) and Odun Eweniyi (Co-Founder & COO, PiggyVest) and “Raising a Unicorn: The Journey from Startup to Unicorn” with Ife Orioke (Chief Commercial Officer, Flutterwave) and Adolfo Babatz Torres (Founder & CEO, Clip).
The summit also featured TED-style talks delivered by Tito Ovia (Co-Founder & Head of Public Sector Growth, Helium Health), focused on “How Technology can close Africa’s Healthcare Gap”, Yanmo Omorogbe (Co-Founder & COO, Bamboo), on the topic “Invest Now; The Bills are never going to stop coming” and Tomi Majekodunmi (Co-Founder & CEO, Bankly), on “Financial Inclusion; The search for Alpha in impact”.
Atedo N A Peterside CON, Chairman of Endeavor Nigeria board, delivered the closing remarks where he thanked the speakers and sponsors for contributing to the resounding success of this year’s summit.
The events of the last couple of years have presented many challenges to many people across the world, but Catalysing Conversations 2021 was a great opportunity to focus on some of the positives and opportunities that have emerged in that time. There was so much to celebrate and much more to look forward to for next year’s event – particularly the opportunity to meet in person again.
If you were unable to join us for Catalysing Conversations 2021 or would like to catch up on the conversations, you can watch the replay on YouTube here.