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The first Pollination Africa Summit opens in Arusha, Tanzania on 29 September, bringing governments, researchers, farmer networks and industry together for three days under one theme: harnessing pollination for food security, biodiversity and livelihoods. BeeSTAR, the Australian bee technology company, has been officially invited and will speak on day two in the summit’s Innovation, AI and Technology track.
Why the summit matters
Africa holds some of the world’s most fertile land and its fastest growing agricultural potential, and food security remains the region’s defining challenge. Tanzania, the host nation, is one of Africa’s strongest beekeeping countries, and officials have linked its decade of food surplus directly to healthy bee colonies working as natural pollinators, while warning that habitat loss and pesticide misuse are putting those pollinators under growing pressure. The summit, convened by SAADIT with regional partners, aims to bring pollinator protection into national development planning across the continent.
What Beestar will present
Ray Kwon will present lessons from years of continuous hive monitoring in Australian commercial beekeeping, and a vision for localised precision pollination: digital pollination infrastructure built region by region around local crops, climates and beekeeping practices, rather than imported unchanged from elsewhere. Alongside the talks, BeeSTAR will run smart hive demonstrations for delegates, as reported by Tanzania’s Daily News in its summit preview.
“Industrialisation came to the West first. Digital beekeeping does not have to. With the right infrastructure, trusted data and local partnership, African beekeeping can move straight to the front of the queue.”
Ray Kwon, Founder and CEO, BeeSTAR
From Tanzania to the continent
The summit will also feature HIPI2030, the 1 Million Hive Impact Pollination Initiative, which is organising beekeeping groups in Arusha and Tabora with plans to scale across East Africa. BeeSTAR’s discussions in Arusha will focus on the foundations that make such programs durable: data ownership, data protection, and how trust is built into digital agriculture from the first hive.
References
Pollination Africa Summit 2026, official site. https://www.pollination.africa/
Daily News Tanzania, summit preview. https://dailynews.co.tz/tanzania-set-for-africas-first-pollination-summit-for-protection-of-bees-and-butterflies/