IDIA Global Summit 2025
IDIA organized its first ever Global Summit at iHUB in Nairobi, Kenya from 1-3 December 2025 to mark its 10th anniversary year and the official launch of the ecosystem model that it had gradually constructed over this period. Attended by approximately 150 delegates spread across 20+ countries and with representation from all six of IDIA’s ecosystem communities, the Summit provided an opportunity to review the events of 2025 and co-create IDIA’s longer-term strategy at multiple levels. Over the course of the three days, delegates enjoyed keynote presentations, panel discussions and workshops focused on advancing shared tools and frameworks as well as co-creating new forms of collaboration and partnership.
Special networking receptions were also convened for Summit delegates at the private residences of the High Commissioner of Canada for Kenya and Ambassador to Uganda and Somalia; the UK Deputy Ambassador and the German Ambassador.
The Summit also featured a special one-day Leaders Forum, bringing together 25 CEOs, Chief Innovation Officers and senior government officials from across the IDIA ecosystem for a high-level discussion unpacking the challenges that the international development community were experiencing and the future priorities around which they might provide new forms of shared leadership under the IDIA umbrella.
There was something unusually honest about the IDIA Global Summit in Nairobi - the perfect reflective close out of the year. Maybe it was the deliberate slowness of the conversations. Maybe it was the amazing Bayo Akomolafe reminding us that "the times are urgent - let us slow down." Or maybe it was just the courage of a group of people refusing to default to the usual language of "scale" and "impact" without first asking: Whose scale? Whose impact? For what reality? We need more spaces like this. Less about declarations. More about shared design. Less panel talk. More ecosystem rehearsal.
To IDIA, thank you for the pause.
For allowing the unpolished, the unresolved, the difficult. For trusting the collective intelligence in the room.
-Ian Lorenzen, Executive Director of Growth Africa
In a moment defined by global constraints, the dialogue was not about limitation, it was about new mindsets, deeper partnerships, and pathways to impact at scale. As IDIA looks toward shaping its next decade, we are energized by the collective commitment to turn these insights into action, driving the growth and impact of African innovators across the continent and beyond. Thank you to the IDIA Secretariat and all participants for convening this brilliant and necessary summit.
-Wilfred Njagi, CEO of Villgro Africa