Shaping Transformative Systems in South Africa

The goal is to connect innovation policy, entrepreneurship, transformative investment, and inclusive AI, bringing together policymakers, researchers, practitioners and partners across the African continent and Europe. In March, programme coordinators came together in Pretoria to advance the work package through workshops, strategic engagements, and a conference aimed at moving beyond isolated pilots toward systemic change.

The weeklong activities started with the Transformative Innovation Africa Hub (TIAH) hosting a Transformative Innovation Policy (TIP) regional workshop at the Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM), University of Pretoria, bringing together participants from a number of TIPC’s African member countries (Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa) and partners. The two-day workshop started with updates and perspectives from member countries and then focused on deepening shared understanding on experimentation, co-creation, resource mobilisation, and preconditions for TIP impact across African contexts.

The detailed workshop discussions revolved around:

- Approaches to experimentation and learning across initiatives, with a focus on moving beyond isolated pilots to"portfolios" of experiments that use knowledge co-production and long-term monitoring to ensure scalable impact. The five countries presented their potential experimentation topics, which were discussed by workshop participants.

- Defining the future TIPC Africa work programme, which aims to align TIPC membership with initiatives at DTL and UU aimed at accelerating just transitions across SSA. This builds on the institutionalisation of the TIP approach in South Africa, such as its STI Decadal Plan, to create a roadmap for wider continental application.

- Exploring priorities for collaboration. Discussions in this area explored approaches and opportunities to blend TIP with private investments that help to address gaps in the shifting global funding landscape and respond to geopolitical tensions. 

- Brainstorming resources, capabilities, andnetworks to support systems change, including identifying public and private funding sources to move beyond traditional development aid toward transformative investment partnerships. 

Building on the workshops, the team held strategic engagements with key innovation policy stakeholders and institutions. The engagements culminated in an AI workshop and fed into a full-day conference, which focused on three core areas of transformation bringing together a wide variety of actors. 

‍

Inclusive AI
Payal Arora and Wakanyi Hoffman presented the Inclusive AI Lab’s mission to build sustainable, Global South-led AI platforms, which treat users as creators rather than just data sources. The dialogues involved impact leaders Nadia Starr, Chief Executive Officer, ACQF Network and Lisel Engelbrecht, Global Top 100 Innovator in Data & Analytics.The discussions highlighted AI as a core digital infrastructure and the GlobalSouth as the future of where data is—shaping data ecosystems, labour markets, and public services across Africa. Emphasising a pan-African approach, the session explored how AI can be inclusive, competitive, trusted, and locally grounded – strengthening public services, labour markets and data ecosystems. 

Transformative Investment and TransformativeInnovation Policy
Johan Schot explored how deep transition pathways can guide the development of a circular and regenerative economy in SSA through remaking our socio-technical systems: shifting from linear to circular economies, from extractive to regenerative approaches, and from fragmented initiatives to coordinated, systemic change.

David Ismangil presented on Transformative Investment—which helps shape long-term societal transitions rather than funding isolated projects. 

Central to transformative investments is the Transformative Bundles approach. Transformative Bundles combine multiple coordinated interventions to amplify impact where investors and policymakers can actively steer societal transitions toward inclusive, sustainable, and regenerative outcomes.

• Place-based interventions: Targeting specific cities or regions to create locally grounded change.
• Blending multiple forms of capital: Integrating public, private, and philanthropic funding to support shared objectives.
• Coordinating actors: Bringing together policymakers, community groups, innovators, and investors to ensure collective impact.

‍

Entrepreneurship ecosystem 

This session examined how transformative entrepreneurship can drive sustainable development in SSA, featuring the Africa Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Index—a data platform for diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses for entrepreneurial developments and contexts. Erik Stam and Robert McDonald outlined the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem approach to foster transformative entrepreneurship and systemic change with Zimkhita Peter, CEO, Allan & Gill Gray Philanthropy, sharing local examples from South Africa.

This initial gathering kickstarted the programme of work, which is now being further defined and scoped.