As issues surrounding infrastructural defficit accross Africa continue to attract attention, Innovate Africa Foundation has convened enterprise giants, global tech leaders and product managers to accelerate Africa’s product economy, Oluchi Chibuzor reports
The Pan-African technology and business landscape reached a pivotal milestone at the recently concluded Inspire Africa Conference, which held recently in Lagos, where Innovate Africa Foundation (IAF) stood at the center as the primary enabler, convener, and capability engine for the continent’s product ecosystem.
Beyond delivering a world-class gathering, the Foundation reinforced its core mandate: to build product leaders—whether enterprise innovators, founders, or hands-on builders—who power Africa’s product innovation economy. By offering full scholarships to over 450 emerging product managers and builders, IAF enabled rising talent to learn alongside industry veterans, access expert-led coaching, and connect directly to high-growth market opportunities.
Demonstrating deep confidence in IAF’s mandate, key industry leaders Paga and Interswitch have supported the conference since 2023. Their sustained commitment highlights the increasing awareness by enterprises on the vital importance of investing in gatherings such as this, which offer programs designed to train, coach, and deploy product leaders; who are able to drive innovation and address Africa’s most complex economic and operational challenges through innovative products that tackle real issues and deliver tangible value for businesses.
Proving its position as more than just a “talk shop,” the Inspire Africa Conference convened an unmatched cross-section of institutional, policy, academic and enterprise stakeholders. Key notes were delivered by Olu Akanmu (Executive in resistance, LBS), Petra Willie (Product Leadership Coach) and Charity Ibhadon (Global Product Director, WPP). High-level delegations in attendance included, senior representation from the Mastercard Foundation, the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Senior Faculty and Leadership from Lagos Business School (LBS) and more which highlights the goal of bridging the gap between public policy, digital infrastructure, and talent development and sustainable economic mobility, through ecosystem convening.
A major highlight of the conference was the exclusive, closed-door CPO & C-Suite Summit, led by Christian Idiodi (Partner, Silicon Valley Product Group), with executive leaders responsible for growth and profitability across Africa’s largest enterprises. Participating executives from Africa’s foremost enterprises and industry giants—including Nedbank, Absa, Access Bank, Stanbic IBTC, MTN, and Paga—engaged in sessions which focused on moving away from feature-heavy output toward driving measurable business outcomes. The sessions emphasized how embedding disciplined product strategy directly optimizes capital efficiency, helping enterprises eliminate wasted R&D spend by validating what to build before committing resources. By empowering executive teams to manage product-led organizations, leaders gained actionable blueprints to streamline cross-functional alignment and accelerate high-yield innovation in increasingly competitive markets.
Simultaneously, the Practical Session for Product Managers brought together top-tier global and regional product experts such as Roger Norton, Petra Willie, Annu Augustine Abiola Laseinde and Nkem Nweke who delivered a hands on workshop for product managers from Visa, Moniepoint, Accion Microfinance, First Bank, and more.This session went beyond theory, emphasizing practical and actionable frameworks, exploring real-life application of modern product management techniques, tools, and methodologies to enhance business outcomes and develop customer-centric solutions that drive meaningful results for organisations.
More than 100 founders were in active attendance, gaining direct access to battle-tested frameworks from globally renowned product, business leaders and successful startup founders. Sessions were anchored by industry experts including Chidi Afulezi,Managing Principal · redKola, Akachukwu Okafor, CTO, Shuttler, Joycee Awosika Founder of ORÍKÌ, Ayo Alaba theFounder of GoPaddi, Olawale Oladunni, Global Senior Director, Product Design & UX Research, Delivery Hero, Herzt Fauzan, Founder, Train of Thought, Charity Ibhadon, Global Product Director, WPP and Ope Oyinloye, COO, Paga offering hands-on masterclasses in scaling ventures, validating product-market fit, and navigating complex economic terrain.
A standout highlight of the conference was an immersive, highly practical Canva Workshop, designed to demonstrate live problem-solving techniques to the hundreds of product managers in attendance. Facilitators guided participants through leveraging Canva’s native AI capabilities to build rapid, high-fidelity prototypes and conduct real-time testing. Product teams and startups learned first-hand how to experiment, test hypotheses, and validate ideas before writing a single line of code—offering enterprises and early-stage ventures a significantly more cost-effective, low-risk approach to product development. This hands-on session served as a blueprint for the conference’s broader Product Showcase model, proving how technology brands can actively engage the Pan-African tech community. By partnering and featuring their platforms in live, interactive showcases, product and software companies can convert attendees directly into active, long-term power users across the continent.
Building on this momentum, Innovate Africa Foundation has officially announced the roadmap for IAC 2027, which will be held in four major African tech hubs: Lagos, Cape Town, Nairobi, and Casablanca.
Partnering with IAC offers product companies a direct pipeline to onboard thousands of active users, while corporate partners gain an unparalleled platform to build institutional capacity, and donors can fund high-impact scholarship programs, drive systemic economic mobility in Africa and shape the continent’s product innovation economy.
As Africa’s premier, foremost product conference, IAC stands apart from generic technology gatherings by focusing relentlessly on execution, workforce development, venture building, and sustainable growth.