The global innovation economy remains largely defined by agglomeration dynamics. Worldwide, 19 ecosystems dominate the innovation landscape, increasingly concentrating innovation demand (corporates) and supply (scaleups) ' attracting further growth capital (investors). Yet something is happening below the surface. Over the past decade, the composition of the Global Innovation Ecosystems Life Cycle Curve changed dramatically, as the number of scaleup ecosystems worldwide has more than doubled. In this new scenario, emerging innovation economies hold the potential for disrupting the agglomeration paradigm, toward a new scheme of interconnected networks of specialized local innovation hot spots. Among them, there is also Africa. While the continent still lacks ecosystems at the most advanced stages of maturity, it now counts four ecosystems at the startup stage and 40 at the standup stage, compared with respectively 25 of those 10 years ago, according to a recent analysis of the...
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