The Labs have two primary objectives: innovation and partnership. Innovation will come through driving creative conversations with our customers and partners through open events and rapid prototyping. Partnership involves collaboration and co-creation with startups and other partners to put new technology and business models into practice. The Labs provide capabilities across the many disciplines that constitute data science and deliver tools, analyses, dashboards, visualizations and proof-of-concept applications.

"Thomson Reuters Labs is an engine of innovation for our company, leveraging creative partnerships to deliver real solutions for our customers," said Mona Vernon, vice president of Thomson Reuters Labs. "Through our growing Labs network, we continue to connect Thomson Reuters best-in-class data sets and professional expertise with innovation communities around the globe."

Ian Merrington, chief executive officer of CiTi (The Cape Innovation and Technology Initiative) and The Bandwidth Barn said, "We are delighted to welcome Thomson Reuters to our FinTech cluster. Combining their deep industry expertise with our own incubation initiatives, we look forward to pursing our shared mission of innovation in business and technology throughout Africa."

The Lab will officially launch at the Africa Summit 2016,  a pan-African networking and knowledge sharing event for executives, startups and investors looking to grow their business on the African continent.  The Africa Summit runs October 13-14, 2016. The winner of theAfrica Startup Challenge will be presented with a $10,000 prize at the Thomson Reuters Lab launch on October 14th.