Chief Minister to Participate in the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in Dakar

By Ishmael Bayoh

Sierra Leone’s Chief Minister, Dr. David Moinina Sengeh will be participating in this year’s Grand Challenges Annual meeting in Dakar, holding from 8-11 October at the Centre International Conference Centre Abdou Diouf (CICAD).

Under the overall theme of “Science Saves Lives,” this year’s Grand Challenges Annual Meeting will explore how the global health community can expand the frontiers of science and innovation to save and improve lives.

The meeting will feature a set of more than 15 scientific tracks, three mainstage plenary sessions, more than 20 roundtable discussions, poster sessions, creative moments, and over 100 side meetings focused on how collaboration, scientists and leaders across the Research and Development (R&D) space can accelerate innovation for impact.

The Chief Minister who is also Sierra Leone’s Chief Innovation Officer, will join world leaders, philanthropic and representatives of the private sectors with researchers and innovators to shape the future of science, emphasize the value of innovation and move ideas for accelerating R&D from conversation to action.

This is the first time Grand Challenges Annual Meeting is being held in Africa, and Senegal is now going to be the Regional Office for the Grand Challenges beginning next year 2024.

The meeting, which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its Grand Challenge Partners, has become the preeminent forum for global health R&D. It convenes a dynamic community of researchers and practitioners and provides a platform to learn about cutting-edge scientific advances, build new local, regional and global collaborations and explore how to build a more effective, inclusive and equitable ecosystem for global health R&D.

One of the meetings on the margins of the meeting that Dr. Sengeh will be having will be with Bill Gates.

On Tuesday 10th October, Dr. Sengeh will participate in a panel discussion on AI for the World: Advancing Inclusive and Equitable Use of Artificial Intelligence. The other panellists will be Bill Gates, Julian Rotich, Head of Fintech Integration- Kenya, and Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana, Minister of Health Rwanda. This session will be moderated by Larry Madowo of CNN.

There will be the launch of a Grand Challenges call-for-proposals focused on artificial intelligence funded by a broad set of Grand Challenges partners as this year’s Grand Challenges is celebrating its 20th anniversary. So far, Grand Challenges partners have supported over 3700 projects across more than 115 countries globally