Masiyiwa made the remarks in an exclusive interview with CNBC Africa.com.

“Africa will become the global innovation hub in the next 25 years partly because in about 25 to 50 years’ time half of the world’s population will be Africans with most expected to be young ,” he said.

Over the past few years great innovations globally have been spearheaded by young people with notable examples of Google and Facebook founders who started their innovation while studying.

The AU is hosting the first ever AU-Private sector meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The event will see the launch of Business-to-Rescue Fund and among others set to attend the showpiece will be Econet’s Strive Masiyiwa, Shoreline Energy’s Kola Karim, Aliko Dangote of Dangote Group, Africa Rainbow Minerals’ Patrice Motsipe, MTN CEO Sifiso- Dabengwa and Standard Bank’s Sim Tshabalala.

Masiyiwa said the list of people was growing dramatically and now had reached 30.

“Africa is becoming conscious of synergies that exist between entrepreneurship and development,” he said.

 

Source : http://www.cnbcafrica.com/