African Real Estate and Infrastructure Summit has is scheduled to be held at the Sandton Convention Centre, Gauteng, South Africa from 25-26 October, this year. Th e summit will attract leading lights in the built environment and property professionals, architects, project developers, investors, town planners, and city and municipal managers from all over the continent. It has theme that will focus on “Developing Future African Cities”, and will specifi cally addressed housing issues in the modern day.
“Over the next 20 years, growth in Africa’s urban population will increase the demand for more infrastructure, including transport, housing, hospitals, schools, retail, industrial and fundamental facilities,” says Benjamin Jones, Event Manager of African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit. He adds: “to meet this ongoing demand, public and private sector stakeholders will need to adapt their strategies to develop and fund projects that will need to meet the specific demands and challenges of African cities.” The summit will take place at the Sandton Convention Centre from 25-26 October. JLL, the global fi nancial and professional services fi rm specialising in commercial real estate services and investment management, is the offi cial content sponsor for the event.
Simon Ardonceau (MRICS), JLL’s Head of Strategic Consulting, Sub-Saharan Africa and speaker at the African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit, says: “driven by strong fundamentals such as sustained economic growth, favourable demographics, emergence of a middle class and rapid urbanisation, the real estate sector is bound to grow.” In November last year, the inaugural African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit in Cape Town provided an innovative space for more than 300 sector experts gathered for interactive sessions that focused on key case studies of visionary city planning, investment opportunities in the commercial and residential real estate sectors across the continent as well as the challenges of urbanisation. A key fi nding of the conference was that Africa’s cities are facing an urban ‘polycrisis’ and that there is a need for a new urban agenda and an opportunity for innovative solutions to address urbanisation challenges. The summit was voted Africa’s best Confex (half conference, half exhibition) earlier this year by the AAXO ROAR event industry awards. During the same week as African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit, the Property Buyer Show also comes to Gauteng from 27-29 October at the Sandton Convention Centre. Th e Property Buyer Show, which took place for the fi rst time in Cape Town in April this year, is a unique exhibition aimed at fi rst-time residential property buyers or real estate investors. The innovative exhibition layout is designed to walk buyers through the property buying process and meet with Developers, Agents and Financial Service Providers. Th e African Real Estate & Infrastructure Summit and the Property Buyer Show are organised by the multi award-winning Spintelligent, well known for organising exhibitions and conferences across the continent in the infrastructure, energy, mining, agriculture and education sectors. Longstanding flagship events by Spintelligent include African Utility Week, Future Energy Nigeria (formerly WAPIC), Future Energy East Africa (formerly EAPIC), Agritech Expo Zambia, DRC Mining Week and EduWeek. Spintelligent is part of Clarion Events Ltd, based in the UK.
