The Nairobi Innovation Week (NIW) 2024 is exactly 51 days away, and organizers are pulling out all stops to ensure its success. The overarching goal for this year’s event is Cultivating humanity through responsible innovation ecosystems. This is a multipronged approach aimed at integrating the rapid advancement of technology with responsible innovation practices that prioritize human values and societal impact.
Responsible innovation encompasses not only the development of new technologies but also the consideration of their broader implications on individuals, communities, organizations, and the environment (Schwarz et al., 2020).
By fostering a culture of respectful and responsible innovation ecosystems, individuals and organizations can create sustainable solutions that benefit society (Ponte et al., 2019). The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences presentations during the Nairobi Innovation Week 2024 (NIW24) will set the stage for exploring how innovation ecosystems can be leveraged to cultivate humanity, promote social good, and drive positive change in a rapidly changing world.
What are we saying here? It is simple. This is all about technology with not just a human face but the kind motivated by the heart—a value-driven enterprise.
The need for hard-nosed technology that is holistic and impacts human experience therefore makes it significant to have the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences participate constructively in the Nairobi Innovation Week.
Essentially, it is a chance to debunk the myth that only the hard sciences lend themselves to innovation. Actually, in its most basic sense, innovation is nothing more than something new, or the introduction of something that did not exist before.
Accordingly, newness or novelty cannot possibly be restricted to hard science. Innovations thrive in an ecosystem, not least to the extent that innovations often are technologies that aim to transform the human experience.
As the NIW draws closer than ever, there is no need to emphasize just how important it is for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences to rise and be counted.
With possibilities spread across at least 12 sub-themes, you can’t miss something to pique your interest and stir up your passion to innovate.
Themed “Cultivating Humanity through Responsible Innovation Ecosystems”, the presentations aim to underscore the critical role of Arts and Social scenes within innovation ecosystems.
These are some of the sub-themes that have been identified for the presentations:
- Ethical Leadership in Innovation Ecosystems
- Responsible Innovation and Sustainable Development Goals
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Technology and Innovation
- Corporate Social Responsibility in Innovation Ecosystems
- Ethics and Privacy in Innovation Ecosystems
- Responsible Innovation and Economic Growth
- Innovations and Environmental Responsibility
- Human-Centered Design and Innovation
- Ethical AI and Machine Learning Practices
- Responsible Innovation Culture
- Respectful Translation of Knowledge and Innovations
- Indigenous Knowledge and Local Innovation Ecosystems
Potential presenters are asked to submit/upload their topic abstracts (150 words maximum) to https://bit.ly/NIW24-FASS by 29th, March 2024.