Technology is the greater equaliser. Today a poor farmer in Kenya, using a phone, has access to more information than a US. President in the 1990s. Yet it can also create a massive divide if people, companies and nations do not innovate. Innovation is the road to a better future: South Africa is an innovative nation, but it needs to double down if it hopes to keep up.

This was one of the messages from the second annual Accenture Innovation Conference, held in Johannesburg last week. The event gathered South Africa’s top companies, technologists, media and thought leaders under one roof to discuss the role and future of innovation in South Africa and across the African continent. Accenture also used the opportunity to launch its third annual Innovation Index, reflecting on what gains have been made by local companies in the innovation space.

“One of the key things that seem to be driving innovation - culture - is very important,” said William Mzimba, chief executive of Accenture South Africa and Chairman of Accenture Sub-Saharan Africa. “A culture of innovation from the top is a key ingredient that will drive that innovation in the company.”

Unfortunately local companies are struggling to make this a reality. Though the numbers have improved from last year’s index, 57% of constituents were classified as laggards, 29% as innovation leaders and only 8% as Innovation Value Champions. This is concerning, since if Africa wants to retain its potential as a technology leapfrogger, it will need to ramp up innovation. With the fastest urbanisation rates on the planet and soon to be home to the largest global workforce, the continent has a lot of potential that it can harness.

One of the conference speakers, Siyabulela Xuza, went from tinkering in his mother’s rural village kitchen to becoming an award winning local innovator and Harvard alum. He said: “We as South Africans and Africans, we are all capable of global innovation and global excellence.”

Xusa takes innovation very seriously: “Unfulfilled human potential is terrifying. I had very few fears in my life, but one was when young people like myself, young Africans especially - black, white, male, and female - don’t fulfill their potential.”

The message does appear to resonate: 70% of employees see innovation as important to their jobs and nearly 80% of companies encourage innovative thinking, while 71% of leaders encourage innovative ideas to come from outside their organisations. Still, how does one make the leap from the right attitude to tangible success?

The various speakers offered a lot on this. According to Valerie Fox, a trailblazing entrepreneur and incubator expert, there is value in creating effective incubator spaces that extend across communities and companies. Recently helping establish the Tshimologong Precinct innovation hub in Johannesburg, she said: “We should build incubators to connect with communities in ways that we were never able to before, especially across industry and academic institutions, our youth and even people my own age. We’re all experimenting in this new realm, the fourth industrial revolution. It’s all new - a new frontier. The best thing we could possibly do is put our brains together.”

Attendees also had the opportunity to listen to JB Straubel, CTO and co-founder of Tesla Motors, as well as ask him questions. Straubel gave a quick history of the pioneering car and Technology Company, noting many of the surprise ways it cultivated innovation.

“In hindsight the things that we didn’t know were the most powerful,” he said. “We didn’t have the same limitations that many of the existing car companies had. We didn’t have a big rulebook on things we couldn’t do or the way it should be done.”

These insights, as well as the impressive collection of finalists and winners of the Accenture Innovation Index awards, certainly gave hope that innovation is growing. Yet it came with a stark warning. Speaking via satellite link, Salim Ismail, well-regarded technologist and founding executive director of the Singularity University, explained how dramatically the world is changing. For example, he said, autonomous cars will not only threaten car insurance since manufacturers are willing to take on liability, but the increased capacity on roads will hugely alter real estate values.

Ismail’s advice was simple: it is often the company’s own immune system that kills innovation, so find ways to spark the trend outside the confines of traditional structures.

The conference concluded with a sense of possibility, articulated by Mzimba: “We have hope. Certainly what I have heard at this conference - the speeches, the questions, the conversations - have confirmed at the heart of innovation we are going to leapfrog the world. I wish we could accelerate the momentum in this innovation movement that is beginning to happen in our corporations and across this continent. You can go to Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and you can feel it. Because digital has arrived.”

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