By Precious D. Freeman
Mobex in partnership with Development Oriented Consulting (DOC) of Africa has launched tech innovation conference and awards which is aimed at transforming lives and livelihoods among many other objectives.
Giving the details of the program, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Mobex Africa, George Spencer Quaye, explained that Mobex Africa Tech Expo & Innovation Awards is a festival of innovations and ideas harnessed under a single platform that seeks to drive Africa’s digitalization agenda through conversations to inform policy and decision-making processes for the socio-economic growth and development of economies.
At the program held in Monrovia yesterday, Mobex Africa’s CEO noted that the theme of the innovation is “Harnessing the Power of Innovation: Technology as a Catalyst for Accelerated Growth and Development” the black tie gala dinner night will acknowledge, honor and celebrate African innovations.
According to him, it is the single largest technology trade show in West Africa, hosting conferences, exhibitions, demonstrations, and master classes, and creating opportunities for local tech innovators and startups to attract investments for their ideas.
He further stated that the Innovation Awards is an industry-specific scheme created to honor excellence, innovation, and creativity of enterprises and individuals helping transform lives and livelihood, solving socio-economic problems with the deployment of technology and ICT skills and know-how.
Giving the aim of the innovation awards, he explained that the goal is to harness Information, Communications technology tools, skills, and innovations to create jobs and engender investment, provide solutions to societal challenges, and propel socio-economic transformation at a faster pace in Africa.
“Mobex Africa Innovation Awards is a celebration of Africa’s innovations and solutions, a night which honors innovators and challenges us to seek African solutions to our socio-economic challenges will be celebrating your inspirational and enterprising story,” he said.
The keynote speaker, Christopher Ssali, thanked Mobex Africa who were able to organize a platform to digitized and change the financial problem in Liberia.
According to the General Manager of the Lonestar Cell MTN Mobile Money, most organizations know that they must become a digital enterprise if they are to remain competitive. New digital technologies and massive amounts of available data have made it possible for companies to improve their efficiency, gain useful insights about their customers and reach new markets.
The power, reach and popularity of mobile devices mean that mobile technology is often the cornerstone of a company’s digital transformation strategy.
He continued that a digital transformation is not something that most companies can refuse to embrace, as technology advances and customers become increasingly demanding, all successful enterprises will need to make the move to digital. Choosing mobile technology as the starting point for a digital transformation can be an excellent way to launch your digital initiative.
“On the one hand, using cash for purchases and credit repayment carries the risk of theft, which will not only negatively affect credit-constrained entrepreneurs but will also limit access to credit for those entrepreneurs who are connected to the network. Using mobile money, on the other hand, comes with certain transaction costs but reduces the risk of theft to zero.
He furthered that mobile money increases both the share of entrepreneurs with access to and who are willing to use trade credit and the amount of trade credit provided.
“There are two reasons for that, first, for a borrower the cost of theft is higher when purchasing inputs, because if the initial endowment is stolen, the entrepreneur suffers not only the endowment loss, but due to credit market frictions the ability to borrow during that particular period,” he said.
“Similarly, for a debtor at the trade credit repayment stage, theft is not only associated with the loss of current value of cash but also the highly important loss of future credit market access. The use of mobile money and the use of trade credit thus complement each other, as the benefits from avoiding the risk of theft are higher for trade credit borrowers,” he explained.
He stressed, “Lower costs of the mobile money technology, and thus wider take-up, will therefore broaden the use of trade credit and ultimately production of firms.”
Meanwhile, the Mobex Africa Tech Conference and Innovation Awards 2024 was officially launched by the Deputy Ministers from the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Commerce.
