In Africa, local startups are facing strong competition from unicorns and other major companies. Nevertheless, despite their limited resources, they offer interesting solutions to the population.
Ahoko is a digital platform developed by an Ivorian startup. It allows individuals to rent cars, ranging from luxury vehicles to functional vehicles. It simply connects car owners looking to generate additional income with users looking for safe and reliable cars to rent at competitive prices.
To access its services, a user needs to set up an account on its web platform. But, without the account, he/she can still browse the available cars.
The platform boasts an interesting fleet. Whether it's for a wedding, an in-country working trip, or a visit, users can find the cars that suit them best. Using the search bar, they can search for the cars that match their budget and needs.
To rent a car without a driver on Ahoko, one needs to be over 25 years old at the beginning of the rental period, have an over-2-years-old driving license, or provide sufficient solvency guarantees of solvency/guarantor who will bear the costs in case of accidents.
In 2021, the start-up was one of the six Orange Fab winners. It thus benefited from technical and financial support from the Ivorian subsidiary of the Orange group. Currently, the startup operates in Abidjan and San Pedro but, it plans to expand to the rest of the country and eventually launch a sub-regional expansion.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
He strongly believes that with technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, he can optimize the efficiency of healthcare services. This is why he joined forces with one of his colleagues to launch DoctorAI, a health tech startup that connects patients to healthcare professionals.
Kevin Muragijimana (photo) is a Rwandan physician who graduated from the University of Rwanda in 2019. He is the CEO and one of the co-founders of DoctorAI, a medical technology company that wants to modernize healthcare services in Africa.
The company, founded in 2019, uses artificial intelligence to detect breast cancer, chest, and heart diseases, and malaria parasites (among other conditions) from X-rays and blood-smearing tests with accuracies exceeding 90%. It plans to offer other services such as telescreening, telehealth education, telepharmacy, and telemedicine. Its app, which integrates all of its existing services, allows laymen to voice their health concerns, doctors to improve community wellness, pharmacists to easily dispense drugs, and researchers to impact the world.
“We are offering other services that will be available later, like online consultations with specialist doctors and licensed pharmacists. The market will also include telemedicine and telepharmacy. We plan to go global. We have made our distribution channels so smooth in a way that our software programs within the DoctorAI app are available to everyone with a smartphone, anywhere in the world,” Kevin told Disrupt Africa in March 2023.
Aside from being the CEO of DoctorAI, the latter is also the coordinating medical consultant of AFRI-ONC, a cancer information and research institution. He is also a doctor at the Rwandan Ministry of Health. Before founding his company, he interned at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Bicêtre in France in 2019.
Melchior Koba
To boost agricultural trade in Africa, in the current digital transformation age, changes are needed. In that context, the partnership aims to introduce the use of digital technologies to improve production.
Microsoft Africa Transformation Office (ATO) and OCP Africa recently announced a new collaboration to boost farmers’ skills and productivity. The partnership was announced during the 5th United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) held in Qatar.
The partnership aims to improve smallholder farmers’ skills and boost their access to information through agri-digital services by building on OCP Africa programs such as the agri-hub concept, which aims to support millions of farmers.
“Technology is the key factor to enabling and increasing access to finance, equipment, and sustainability for rural farmers, empowering local farmers in Africa. Our partnership with OCP Africa will help to directly impact smallholder farmers and improve production,” said Wael Elkabbany, Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster General Manager.
Despite rapid urbanization, agriculture-related activities still provide a livelihood for about 60 percent of the continent's working population and account for 15% of GDP. According to UN agencies' forecasts, farmland is expected to expand and productivity to increase through better use of technology and the implementation of smart and precision farming techniques.
Thus, by partnering together, Microsoft and OCP also aim to develop a digital agriculture platform to improve farmers’ productivity and operation management. The partnership also includes the adoption and integration of technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, agricultural data platforms, and Azure application modernization in the agricultural sector, leading to precision agriculture.
According to Mohamed Anouar Jamali, CEO of OCP Africa, the collaboration will, among other things, expand OCP's reach and have an even greater impact on food security across Africa.
Despite the Tanzanian government’s efforts, the country is still facing a huge digital gender gap. Nevertheless, the country is upping actions to remove barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing digital tools.
The Tanzanian government and the World Bank have reaffirmed their commitment to supporting women’s access to digital technologies.
On Tuesday, March 7, at a conference on women and technology held in Dar es Salaam ahead of International Women's Day, Nape Nnauye, the minister of information, communication, and technology, said the government and its partners are working to build a more inclusive and equitable future for women in technology in Tanzania.
The government has established a broad ICT program to involve women in the digital sector, we learn. According to Nape Nnauye, the Ministry of ICT plans to provide short and long-term training to 450 ICT professionals employed in the government, mainly women, starting in the 2023/2024 fiscal year.
Also, the government will soon unveil the National Digital Economy Strategy which is almost completed. The said strategy will lay out the country’s 10-year plan to develop its digital economy while closing the digital gender gap.
According to the Tanzanian ICT Commission, there are 1,011 registered male ICT professionals in the country against only 170 women. So, much remains to be done, according to Nathan Belete, the World Bank's country director for Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
By funding Tanzania’s digital projects, the World Bank wants to raise the number of Tanzanian women engaged in the digital ecosystem.
Samira Njoya
Moving goods to and from Europe has always been a challenging task for African merchants. A tech entrepreneur with ties to both sides of the Mediterranean decided to launch a solution to solve the problem.
Cloudfret is a digital solution developed by a Moroccan startup. It allows African merchants to quickly contact carriers to send or receive their goods from Europe.
The solution claims to be “the first digital platform that links the two shores of the Mediterranean by connecting shippers to an extensive and reliable network of carriers from Europe and Africa.”
Through its mobile (iOS and Android) app, users can set up their accounts and create freight orders in just a few clicks. They can also book trucks and track their goods in real time. In its bid to make life easier for both merchants and transporters, the solution sets up an environment where merchants can trust the transporters they are booking and are also ensured of getting the best rates. It also boosts transporters’ income by optimizing “empty truck returns” and ensuring them fast payments. Indeed, the solution uses an algorithm to identify empty carriers on their way back, therefore ensuring good deals for merchants while allowing carriers to monetize the empty returns.
In addition to road transport, it also offers sea transport on demand. To facilitate the process, it requires transport documents to be digitized.
According to PlayStore data, its Android app has been downloaded less than 100 times, which hints that the app is not yet quite popular. Nevertheless, in May 2022, the startup raised $1 million to support its growth in Africa and Europe. Also, in 2021, it was among the 16 finalists of the VC4A's Venture Showcase.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
With her all-woman company, she wants to inspire and guide more Senegalese women into digital professions. She is also planning several impact projects.
Ndeye Saly Dione (photo) is a Senegalese web and mobile developer. Concerned about women’s digital inclusion, she founded tech startup LingeeruTech in 2022, after graduating from the third cohort of Sonatel Academy, a free coding school.
LingeeruTech is a combination of a Wolof and an English word. It means “tech queens.” Truthful to its name, it works on strong impact projects, mostly with women, to identify daily challenges facing populations and address those challenges.
In an interview with We Are Tech, Ms. Ndeye explained that she launched LingeeruTech to get women involved in the ongoing digital transformation. "It all started with an observation I made [during my training] at Sonatel Academy. In my class, there were not many women. Even when I was a web and mobile development intern at water utility SEN'EAU, I was the only woman on the team. […] In my close circles, I didn’t have a female that could serve as a role model in the digital sector. By setting up that startup, I want to serve as that role model and show young women who are still studying or struggling with professional orientations that women can work in the digital industry,” she explained.
The young entrepreneur indicates that she plans to launch a training center where women and young girls who usually drop out of school early can be introduced to coding and digital tools. The aim, she says, is to give women the skills they need to work with dignity.
Currently, with her team, she is developing two key projects. The first is Fayy Fepp (pay everywhere in Wolof), a fintech solution that aims to help businesses and merchants easily accept mobile payments through QR Coding technology.
The second one is Samamënmën, which means “my skills” in Wolof. It aims to enhance the skills of every Senegalese to enable them to sell their skills and get hired based on those skills, not on the diplomas they have.
Melchior Koba
Cabo Verde’s 2030 national development strategy places digital transformation at the heart of development in every socio-economic sector. In the finance sector, digital tools are expected to boost competition and improve financial inclusion.
Cabo Verde will soon adopt a bill governing the establishment and operations of digital banks. Indeed, the country submitted a draft bill that will be reviewed by the parliament during its parliamentary session scheduled for March 8-10, 2023.
According to the preamble of the government bill, digital banking institutions will have to comply with the requirements prescribed in the money laundering and terrorism financing prevention acts and other applicable regulations.
The government believes that digital banks can be highly beneficial to the country’s economy. They can for instance boost competition, expand the product offering with advanced and specialized products and improve access to financing for SMEs. In that regard, the draft bill wants to regulate the activities, make the funding processes more efficient, and keep the interest rates charged for loans to various clients in check.
In Cabo Verde, seven banks operate with a general commercial license, employing nearly 1,300 workers. They recorded historic profits of 42.5 million euros in 2022, up 26.5 percent from the previous year, according to Central bank provisional data reported by Portuguese news agency Lusa in late February.
Samira Njoya
In Africa, the e-commerce sector is booming. Such solutions are multiplying by the day to offer increasingly interesting services and solutions to populations.
Copia is a business-to-customer (B2C) platform developed by a Kenyan start-up. It allows retail merchants and individuals to stock up on food, beauty, electronics, etc.
“Copia is designed specifically to serve this high growth but underserved consumer base who want access to high-quality products at the best prices,” explained Tracey Turner, one of the founders of the startup behind the solution.
Users can make purchases via the Android-only mobile app or on the web platform. They can create accounts on the platforms but, it is not a requirement to make purchases. “[…] You can shop without an account. You just provide us with your email and phone number at the time of ordering. You do need an account to view your Order History. This is to protect your privacy,” the platform states.
Copia also allows customers to have various products delivered to their families in remote areas. The platform serves several small towns and thanks to this service, residents in remote areas are not obliged to travel to big cities to get certain products. It created a USSD code that allows people with no access to the internet to order products on the platform. For the time being, it accepts only M-Pesa payments. It delivers the orders to relay points for free, allowing users to collect them. Nevertheless, it plans to launch home deliveries, which will be paid services.
Currently, the platform claims a network of over 40,000 digital agents, nearly 2 million customers, and over 13 million orders. According to Play Store statistics, its mobile app has already been downloaded over 100,000 times. The startup behind the platform was founded in 2013, in Kenya. In 2021, it launched in Uganda with plans to expand to other African countries. Since its creation, it has raised $100 million to accelerate its growth.
Adoni Conrad Quenumv
Thanks to the e-tourism company she cofounded some four years ago, she allows Tunisians and foreigners to take a dip in the past of some Tunisian cultural locations. The XR reality company has earned her several awards and distinctions.
Houda Bakir (pictured) is the CEO of Historiar, a deep tech startup. The startup, founded in 2019, combines artificial intelligence and augmented reality to offer a digitized version of some Tunisian centuries-old historical and archeological sites, allowing tourists and curious individuals to visit them using tech equipment.
During the 46th edition of the Dougga International Festival, held in August 2022, guests were able to gauge Historiar's expertise by going back several years in time to contemplate the archaeological site of Dougga. In February 2023, this expertise earned Houda Bakir a spot in the fifth edition of Orange Fab Tunisia’s acceleration program.
The CEO, born in Carthage, Tunisia, is a graduate of the National Higher Engineering School of Tunis (ENSIT). In 2009, she earned a master’s in electrical engineering and, about seven years later, she obtained a Ph.D. in electrical engineering with a specialization in medical image segmentation. Since 2021, she is the Vice President of Tunisian Startups, a network of entrepreneurs that aims to create a friendly environment for successful and budding entrepreneurs alike. In 2018, she co-founded Super-Viz, a startup specializing in artificial intelligence and computer vision.
A post-doctoral researcher at ENSIT's Productics Research Center laboratory since 2013, Houda Bakir founded Grace Light Tunisia, an interior design and IT service company. She led the company -founded in 2013- until 2014.
The Tunisian entrepreneur started her professional career in 2009, as a contractual assistant professor at ENSIT. Some months later, she became an assistant professor. Then, in 2014, she joined international IT consulting firm Intellixx as a consultant. In 2016, she was hired as a senior research and development engineer at Datavora, a data management company for online commerce companies.
Thanks to Historiar, Houda Bakir took part in several international events, including the Digital Tunisia Days organized on the sidelines of the Expo 2020 in Dubai. In 2021, the company won the Best EdTech Solutions Provider award issued by the digital publication MEA Markets.
As for Ms. Bakir, in 2022, she was named one of the seven North African female tech founders to know by online media Exclusive Africa. Ventures Africa also named her one of the twelve North African female tech founders to know. Still, in 2022, she won the first prize in the Startup Bootcamp organized by Réseau Entreprendre Tunisia and Qatar Fund for Development.
Melchior Koba
In Africa, under banking is a key issue. It greatly affects merchants, but tech entrepreneurs are gradually stepping in to solve it.
Rouzo is a fintech solution developed by Nigerian startup Owafara Fintech Services. It allows small businesses access to loans provided by individuals and other businesses. The solution is in line with Owafara Fintech Services’ goal of empowering more than 1 million small businesses in Africa with the funding and support that will allow them to grow, become self-sufficient, and add value to the economy.
“Rouzo is a portfolio managed platform that allows smart individual and corporate investors to invest in portfolios that are used to provide financing for small businesses.[…]By investing on Rouzo, investors generate a healthy return and contribute to economic development by empowering small businesses to grow and expand,” the platform explains.
Via its web platform, users can create their accounts to access the services offered by Rouzo. Individuals can invest funds in Rouzo, which will lend them at attractive rates to micro and small businesses that meet the necessary requirements. The interest generated by these loans will be shared between the fintech and the individuals who deposited their money.
Thanks to Owafara's expertise, Rouzo can easily get businesses that want to work with it evaluated. The fintech company has a special preference for women-owned businesses because it was itself founded by a woman. " As a female-founded Company, we also understand how women relate with finance and we are especially committed to helping women who are majorly underserved get access to loans and business support to grow," Rouzo explains.
" Eighty percent of our current loan book is to unbanked women micro-entrepreneurs," said Owafara Fintech Services’ founder in 2022. Rouzo claims more than 150,000 completed transactions and nearly 5 billion naira (about $10.9 million) lent. In 2021, it was one of 16 companies selected in the first cohort of the ShEquity Business Accelerator (SHEBA). In 2022, the institution helped the startup raise funds for its goals. The amount of the deal was, however, not disclosed.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
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Since November 2022 when he assumed office as Governor of Osun, Ademola Adeleke has initiated several projects aimed at anchoring his territory in the digital age. The latest move is the deployment of 64 kilometers of optic fiber.
The Governor of Osun State in Nigeria, Ademola Adeleke, announced on Monday, March 6 the deployment of a 64 km fiber optic cable in the state.
Speaking at a program held at the Adolak Events Center in Osogbo, the state capital, the governor said the NGN16 billion (about $35 million) project will accelerate digital transformation in various sectors and make the state’s digital economy one of the best in Nigeria.
“In line with the new National Broadband policy and the urgency of internet Fiber connectivity for Osun state, this government is waiving payment for Telecom Right of Way in return for free connectivity to our schools and health centers when the broadband project is completed,” the governor said.
In addition to the implementation of the fiber optic project, the Osun State governor disclosed several other projects ongoing in the state. Ademola Adeleke announced the inauguration of the first 15-member Digital Economy Advisory Board, whose mission is to support the state in its plan to transform Osun State’s economy.
The governor also informed the audience of a new partnership with ICT company Oodua Infraco, for the execution of the state's digital economy projects. The said partnership will identify and apply information and communication technologies in various sectors.
In the same vein, the Osun governor unveiled the recently launched Osun Google Mapping project, which aims to ensure businesses and landmarks are added to Google Maps. To date, the mapping coverage is over 50%, up 20% within four months, according to the governor.
Osun State plans to forward a Start-up Bill to the State House of Assembly for validation in the coming days. "This will be my first Executive Bill I will be forwarding to the State Assembly after this event. The Act is programmed to ensure that new start ups promoters and entrepreneurs secure desired mentoring and financing. The law once domesticated will enhance the goals of both the ICT and the Tech Innovation policy," governor Ademola Adeleke said.
Mining is a key sector in the South African economy. It is therefore important to digitize and simplify processes and provide new solutions for the sector.
Last Thursday, Swedish IT company Ericsson announced an agreement to provide its “Ericsson Private 5G” solution to global simulation software specialist Comsol in South Africa.
The combination of Ericsson's high-end connectivity solution and Comsol's mining and systems integration expertise will provide the mining industry with robust standalone 4G/LTE and 5G connectivity, and help Comsol's customers optimize and simplify business operations through data creation, collection, and analysis.
“We are thrilled to offer Comsol our pre-packaged and pre-integrated private network solution, Ericsson Private 5G. With its reliable, fast, and secure connectivity, Comsol’s customers will have the platform to enable innovative smart solutions for better operational efficiency and safety,” commented Todd Ashton (photo, left), Vice President and Head of Ericsson South and East Africa at Ericsson Middle East and Africa.
The agreement gives Comsol the right to resell the Ericsson Private 5G high-speed wireless network solution. It will enable Comsol to expand its corporate activity within the local mining sector, which is one of the key investment sectors in South Africa.
The country is the world's largest chrome and platinum producer. The latest Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) data on mining production shows that total production has increased by 11.2% in 2021 compared to 2020. In that key sector, “Comsol will utilize the PoC solution to experiment and test various use cases for mining and other industries, including Augmented Reality, Autonomous Vehicles, and Fixed Wireless Access.”
Samira Njoya
She is a business leader with experience in the financial and crypto industries. As the head of Binance in Francophone Africa, she will lead efforts to democratize access to crypto assets and blockchain in the region.
Carine Dikambi (photo) is the regional director for Binance in Francophone Africa. Appointed in June 2021, the executive is "responsible for defining, launching and leading expansion plans, operations and partnerships across Francophone Africa."
"Binance is a digital marketplace (an exchange) where people can buy, sell and exchange cryptos. In addition to being a crypto exchange (the largest in the world by volume), Binance is a blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a suite of financial products, and we continue to build key facets of the blockchain ecosystem and contribute to the development of broader industry infrastructure," explained Carine Dikambi in 2022.
Born and raised in France, Carine Dikambi holds a bachelor's degree in banking and finance from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Paris Descartes University. She also holds a Master's degree in Management Science from the University of Paris-Sorbonne. A graduate of New York University, where she earned a postgraduate certificate in financial risk management, she started investing in cryptocurrencies in 2016. About four years later, in 2020, she moved to Cameroon to promote digital finance in Africa.
Her professional career began in 2010 when she joined Société Générale Corporate and Investment Banking as an associate. A few months later, she also became a financial analyst.
In 2011, she became Vice President of the Institutional Clients Group at Citi Bank. Then, in 2013, she was named director of risk and information management at fintech company American Express, before being promoted to director in 2016. She held this position until 2021 when she joined Binance.
Since 2018, she has been an IoT and blockchain mentor for Startup Weekend Paris, a 54-hour event that allows different groups to pitch their startup ideas. In 2010, she received the SGCIB Leadership Development Program Class Award. Then, in 2015, she received the Rookie of the Year award at American Express.
Melchior Koba
The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the African countries with the largest rural-urban connectivity gap. In that context, the post-Covid-19 growth in demand for broadband connectivity coupled with the country’s large population is attracting local and foreign investments in the digital sector.
In the coming months, more than 2.5 million people living in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will benefit from a faster, cheaper, and more reliable internet connection. A financing agreement to this effect was signed on Saturday, March 4, between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group (BCS).
Under the agreement, BCS will receive $10 million to deploy 1,200 km of fiber optic cable out of the 20,000 km that it plans to install in Southern, Central, and Eastern Africa over the next three years.
The investment will help connect areas with poor or no access to broadband internet. It will create jobs and connect 319 schools and 70 hospitals and health centers. According to Yonas Maru (photo, left), founder and CEO of BCS Group, it "will go a long way to ensure implementation of the MOU between the Government of DRC and BCS to connect over 1,900 schools, 1,640 public hospitals and government institutions along the BCS backbone and metro fiber infrastructure."
“The Digital is such a powerful driver of equity, inclusion, and growth, that the EU has made it a pillar of our Global Gateway strategy. Expansion of the fiber-optic infrastructure will enable local communities, schools, and hospitals to benefit from mobile broadband, which ultimately means new opportunities for learning, business, jobs, and healthcare,” said Thomas Östros, Vice-President of the European Investment Bank.
The funding was officially announced last November at the AfricaCom 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa. It is the EIB’s first quasi-equity investment and its second cooperation with BCS. In 2018, the institution provided an $18 million long-term loan for BCS.
Samira Njoya