Solutions (438)
The informal sector is an important segment of the African economy. Yet, actors are most of the time left to fend for themselves for various reasons. In Angola, an entrepreneur has decided to digitize the sector with a virtual marketplace.
Roque Online is a digital platform developed by Angolan eponymous startup founded in 2018 by Geraldine Geraldo. It is a virtual marketplace allowing traders to take their businesses to the next level. Its name is inspired by Roque Santeiro, a famous Angolan market active between 1991 and 2011.
“Our focus is to help anyone compete effectively in modern society. Whether you’re an informal market vendor, small business owner, or a large distributor, you can download our mobile application and start registering your inventory so we can start monetizing it on our website or through our partners’ e-commerce channels,” the startup explains on its platform.
The digital platform has a mobile app available on PlayStore and AppStore. To assess its services, users must first create an account and put up goods and services for sale. To boost the user base, the startup invites market women to offer their goods and services online. That way, it helps create additional income for the women, who were not aware of the existence of an online market where they could reach more clients.
Roque Online has become a reference marketplace to buy almost anything and get them delivered. From food products to services, customers can access anything they want from informal traders. This allows small family businesses to expand their consumer base and adapt to the changing business environment. In 2019, the startup won the first prize at Seedstars Luanda.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Ushanga is an initiative supported by the Office of the Vice President, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Cooperatives, the various county governments, and the Ministry of Public Service, and Gender among others.
Ushanga is a digital platform set up by the Ushanga Initiative and supported by the Kenyan government. It aims to help women in West Pokot, Samburu, Narok, Kajiado, Marsabit, Baringo, and Turkana sell their beaded accessories online.
Speaking during the launch of the platform, the Sports, Heritage and Culture Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed explained that the platform would expose the women’s “beautiful work” to the world, which will then respect their “intellectual capacity.”
In Kenya, every pastoralist community has its special way to make beautiful accessories. With the platform, they can present such diverse offerings to potential customers in the local market and also to international buyers. Earrings, bracelets, chest plates, rings, and belts are some of the items that will be available on the platform.
According to Hellen Nkaissery, chairperson of the Ushanga Initiative, “as pastoralists’ women, the women who are low in the radar, now they are being lifted up through the support of our government, through the program of Ushanga Kenya Initiative, and we are being put in a platform where other parts of the country have also been supported.”
In the framework of the Ushanga Initiative, the Kenyan government has decided to invest US$4 million to impact the lives of 5,000 women. Those women will be endowed with professional skills, leading to the creation of 60 cooperatives.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
African startups are increasingly relying on venture capital funding to support their growth but, that funding mechanism is still not accessible to every one of them. So, a Nigerian startup has come up with a solution that helps the ecosystem and also gets people to invest.
GetEquity is a digital platform developed by a Nigerian fintech startup founded in 2020. The platform connects African startups with investors to help fund their growth. According to co-founder and CEO Dike Jude, the startup challenges the status quo of startup financing and venture capital by democratizing access to startup financing, “thereby expanding the pie for previously underfunded, and underserved startups.”
It also allows users, be they individuals or institutional investors to invest in the local startups they like. To fulfill its mission, the platform has a mobile app available on AppStore and Playstore. Users can create their accounts through the app or web platform by filling in personal information and loading their wallets. Once those steps are completed, they can buy shares (as low as US$10) in growing African startups or sell previously owned shares.
GetEquity claims to have attracted more than 6,000 investors on the continent.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
E-commerce platforms have gained popularity with the Covid-19 pandemic because they are more convenient and save time.
Carniger is a website allowing users to quickly buy cars, motorcycles, trucks, and parts in Niger. The website was launched in 2017, by Africargroup, Africa’s first automotive marketplace.
To buy a product on Carniger, users have to visit the website, check the information of listed cars/motorcycles/trucks, and select what they like. Users either register or login in and contact the seller either through the website’s chat feature or by dialing the number listed. Buyers can also directly make counter-offers for the products listed.
The website also has a buy now and pay later service that connects potential buyers with specialized institutions for vehicle financing. To access that service, interested buyers must submit a valid Nigerien ID card or passport, justify a permanent source of income, and provide a bank statement dating six months before the financing request. Then, they fill out a form to quickstart the process.
Let’s note that the platform also facilitates insurance subscriptions.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Tech solutions have become handy tools in most sectors. In the education sector, platforms are also proliferating to help learners in their curriculum.
Ennajah QCM is a digital platform developed by Bibliothèque Ennajah, which allows students in clinical clerkship and residency training access to specialized books and courses. It helps students check their knowledge with multiple-choice questions.
Ennajah QCM "is a virtual platform that allows quick access to all the MCQs needed to pass the various Setif clinical clerkship and residency evaluation exams. It, therefore, facilitates the simple and accurate review of the skills developed by students,” Bibliothèque Ennajah explains.
The platform is accessible through a mobile app currently available on Playstore only (the iOS version will be available soon, according to Ennajah). Users have just to register by providing the information required. Once completed, he/she can start answering the multiple-choice questions or even personalize the questions to answer by filtering the sources, courses, modules, exam years, and pass rate.
Currently, Bibliothèque Ennajah claims 86,616 MCQs on Ennajah QCM and over 10,000 app downloads.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Africa’s fintech sector is currently attracting huge amounts of investment capital. The reason for that interest is the continent’s poor financial inclusion and the startups offering interesting alternatives.
Motito is a Ghanaian fintech startup founded in 2020 by Tobi Martins. The startup allows its users to buy products and pay in installments from partner brands.
In its own words, it gives users “the chance to buy items for personal and business needs without breaking the bank.” It also promises partner brands “to turn window shoppers into actual paying customers” and increase their order value by 40%.
The startup has a mobile app (available on Android and Ios phones). The app, called Motito PayLater allows users to access all the services the startup offers. To access those services, users must first register and activate their accounts by filling in the information required at each stage of the process.
Once they activate their accounts, they can visit the online stores of partner brands, make purchases and select the payment plans most suited to their income flows. The maximum installment period is three months, however.
With Africa’s credit access challenges, solutions like Motito’s are needed to combat financial exclusion. In June 2022, the fintech startup was selected with eight others to participate in the second edition of the Norrsken Impact Accelerator.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Digital jobs are now popular because of the technological revolution, which was accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. In Africa however, there is still a digital skill gap. Some edtech startups want to close that gap.
GOMYCODE is a teaching concept developed by Tunisian edtech GoMyCode to teach advanced programming and digital courses. It includes a mix of projects and exercises to allow learners to master the skills taught. Half of the courses are taught online and the other half at the 20 offline centers the startup has in its markets, namely Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Nigeria.
For Amine Bouhlel, co-founder of GoMyCode, the teaching concept has notable impacts. “There are a lot of impact and mass-market players. We are targeting a wide range of students. So our courses are not just for graduates, professionals, or people from a specific social class. [...] GOMYCODE programs target mass markets, and our blended model makes us accessible and affordable, which you don’t see a lot,” he explains.
The concept is taught by over 500 teachers who teach in 12 languages. The startup has launched more than 25 training paths with professionals. Its fees vary between US$250 (for 3-month courses) and US$750 (for 5-month courses). For every student trained it guarantees placement with one of its over 100 partner institutions. Currently, it claims it has already secured placement for 80% of its over 10,000 learners.
Currently, the startup plans to attract more than 100,000 learners and open an additional 50 offline centers in Africa and the Middle East in the next two years. For that purpose, early this month (June 2022), it raised US$8 million to expand its presence. Its target markets are South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Saudi Arabia.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
In Gabon, the coronavirus caused a decline in blood donations, which were already not enough to meet demand. Ntchina wants to reverse the trend and help save more lives.
Ntchina is a digital platform that matches blood donors with recipients. The platform was first presented to the public by its developer (the eponymous Gabonese startup Ntchina) in 2021. On Tuesday, June 14, 2022, on the sidelines of World Blood Donor Day, it was officially launched.
Alvine Yeno, Ntchina’s founder, explained that the platform is the result of a sad experience. Indeed, one of her relatives suffering from lupus needed a blood transfusion but none of the calls for donors issued by her family yielded a result. “It was difficult finding donors. Calls for donors made on social media and to other relatives were not successful… I then asked myself what I could do to make that search more effective and help those in need. So, I started developing the project,” she explains.
The platform has a mobile app (available on AppStore and Playstore) that allows access to all of its services. Users can either register as donors or recipients by filling in a set of information including hometown and blood type. When donors with specific blood types are available, the platform can send alerts to users who activated that option. “Our mission is to facilitate blood donation for better care to those in need, notably sick people, pregnant women, accident victims, etc,” Alvine says.
Her startup also developed an online game to raise awareness of the importance of blood donation. Her initiative is highly important given that in Gabon, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, blood donations have declined. Before the pandemic, authorities used to collect about 23,000 blood bags yearly. The volume was not enough to meet demand but, with the coronavirus-spurred decline, the gap between supply and demand has widened considerably. With Ntchina (which means "blood" in Myene), the gap could be reduced and more lives saved.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
In some parts of the African continent, it is still hard to access healthcare either because of the lack of healthcare personnel or their distance to health centers. Some tech entrepreneurs are trying to fix that.
Clafiya is an e-health platform that allows access to affordable healthcare in Nigeria. It connects patients in rural and peri-urban areas to community health workers.
The platform was developed by eponymous healthtech startup Clafiya founded in 2020 by Itoro Inoyo and Jennie Nwokoye. Its goal is to allow everyone to access healthcare. As its co-founder Itoro Inoyo explains, health is a fundamental human right so, no one should be left out no matter their race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
As internet connection is not always available in the areas targetted by Clafiya founders, the platform is accessible via a USSD code (*347*58 #). Users can then dial the code, register by providing a set of information, and book primary care anytime they want.
The healthcare packages offered by Clafiya cost between US$4.9 and 12. Each of the packages allows access to different primary care and services including blood pressure and blood sugar level screening, primary care consultation, rapid malaria, and typhoid diagnostics. If the case is serious, the patient is referred to a medical specialist, either online or offline.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
During the coronavirus pandemic, the number of e-learning platforms exploded. Two Beninise techpreneurs have decided to ride on that trend and revolutionize foreign language learning.
Nors is a mobile app developed by Benenese startup Phoenix Group, allowing users to learn foreign languages. The mobile app is available only for Android phones. It has four notable menus. The first is aimed at making the user learn specific words and phrases related to topics like family, emotions, relationships, the human body, and sickness. The second menu is for those who want to learn how to converse. This menu presents a set of conversation scenarios and how to respond. The third menu shows practice videos in which actors practice the real-world conversation scenarios users learned. The fourth menu is for networking, enabling users with common learning goals to practice and converse together.
To easily attract users, Phoenix Group set a sponsorship program rewarding users with points for every user they invite. The aim is to make Nors the go-to platform for language learning in Africa in the next three years. The app is free for every user, both registered and unregistered. Unregistered users can learn the languages they want through Nors but they cannot access technical resources or interact with the learning community.
Let’s note that Phoenix Group was founded in 2020, by Serge Atchoua and Essou Fulgence. Before developing the e-learning platform Nors, it developed Gala Space, a mobile platform on which users can promote their products and events.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
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Years back, Rwanda initiated a plan to make the country an important tech hub. The result of that ambition is the sheer number of startups, which are developing solutions to address local challenges.
Fixa is a Rwandan startup that links companies with pre-vetted blue-collar workers. The startup was founded in 2020 by Tafara Makaza.
On its platform, it explains that its “aim is to ensure corporations have access to reliable help and management solutions for workplace projects of all sizes while supporting service providers with more job opportunities, social protection, and formal training.”
Apart from providing businesses with reliable workers, Fixa also allows site supervisors to conveniently measure attendance and productivity. With the Fixa mobile platform, supervisors can assign workers to specific tasks when they need to, access performance history in real-time, and take instant decisions when a worker is underperforming.
It also allows businesses to manage their blue-collar workforce, and instantly brief all the selected workers on project details or even updates. To subscribe to Fixa services, businesses and supervisors have to book a demo (a video conference) with the sales team to present their projects.
Currently, Fixa claims over 300 workers in its network, and some fifty job requests are processed weekly.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
In most African countries, the digital transformation prompted by Covid-19 has continued unabated after the pandemic. This is also the case in Gabon, where entrepreneurs have partnered with the electric and water utility SEEG to develop a tech solution that makes life easier for prepaid meter users.
Orema is a mobile app developed by the eponymous Gabonese startup founded by Jean Claude Birane Ndiaye and Scarlett Pindji. It allows users to manage their prepaid electric meters right from their smartphones or a web platform.
The solution was developed when co-founder Birane Ndiaye noticed how difficult it usually was to load prepaid meters during the rainy season since such meters are generally installed outside. With Orema, users no longer have to move an inch to check their prepaid meter balance and monitor their consumption in real-time. They can also load the meter via mobile money. All they have to do is to install a smart control box next to the prepaid meter, install the mobile app, or connect to the smart box via the web platform.
Since its launch, Orema’s developer has received several awards. In 2019, it joined Gabon Digital Incubation Company (SING SA)’s fourth accelerator program, Innovation Cohort 4.0. The following year, it won the first prize in the national digital business competition.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Africa’s agriculture sector is still largely under-exploited despite the important volume of arable lands on the continent. Some of the problems contributing to that fact are poor agricultural practices and traditional cultivation methods. To address the problems in that vital sector, startups are developing innovative solutions.
Wefly is an Ivorian agritech startup founded in 2017 by Joseph-Olivier Biley and purchased by Jool International in 2021. Thanks to its agricultural engineers and its tech solutions, the startup allows users to set up, manage and optimize plantations. To fulfill its mission, it developed several products including WeFly GIS.
WeFly GIS is the digital solution developed by the agritech to provide farm owners (notably those who are unable to devote their whole time to exploitation tasks) with adequate tools to optimize their productions. Among other things, the solution - accessible through a web and mobile platform- allows the collection, analysis, and storage of farm exploitation data. It also enables farm owners to geo-locate their workers, trace production and timely identify exploitation problems. The startup also offers drone services like weather forecasting, soil needs, and cartography.
To access its services, farm owners must first register by providing a set of information including the type of exploitation (a cooperative or a sole-ownership), contact details, and farm location. Then the user needs to buy annual licenses.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of having alternative solutions in key sectors of the economy. In Senegal, Njureel is helping improve access to healthcare.
Njureel is a Senegalese healthtech startup that allows remote access to healthcare via its eponymous digital platform. It was founded in 2019 after its founder, Awa Ndiaye lost one of her relatives to a lack of proper healthcare.
Currently, the platform has no mobile app but users can easily register on its website using mainstream browsers and book teleconsultation with doctors. The consultations are held via Whastapp videocalls. The startup also offers psychological Tele counseling to violated women and legal guidance if necessary.
To educate women on sexual and reproductive health, Njureel developed a program called Sama Bajene. In the framework of the program, the startup claims to have trained more than 60 community health workers, carried out over 500 medical consultations, and impacted more than 800 women.
Since its launch in 2019, the healthtech has received numerous recognitions and awards. They include the Hack the Goals Senegal Award, the 2020 President of the Republic’s Grand Prize for digital innovation, the Innovation for mothers at risk in Senegal 2020 award, and the third prize for the Jigeen Ci-Tic competition.
Adoni Conrad Quenum