As an experienced startup ecosystem builder, he launched his incubator to support entrepreneurs who want to solve Uganda's problems using digital tools.
Richard Zulu (photo) is a founding partner and leader of Outbox Uganda, an innovation hub based in Kampala. He founded the incubator, in 2012, to support businesses in their development stage.
Through Outbox -a Google for Startups’ partner- he helps new and aspiring African entrepreneurs interested in using technology to solve Uganda's problems. He provides entrepreneurs with a space to work, and access mentorship, training, markets, and financing.
‘It was about working with entrepreneurs, making sure they succeed, taking them through the process of how they go about the legal aspects, marketing, branding, building structures of a company and going as far as helping them to launch to market,’ he was explaining back in 2018.
With Outbox partners, he also organizes challenges to reward the best technological solutions in areas such as education, finance, agriculture, media, and entertainment. Through its project Primaa, the incubator is also building low-cost environmental monitoring stations to improve the availability of OpenData on air quality in African urban centers.
Richard Zulu is a former leader of the Kampala chapter of the Google Developer Group and a 2014 fellow of Acumen East Africa. He is also the director of the Kampala chapter of Startup Grind, a global community that aims to inspire, educate, and network entrepreneurs.
He entered the professional world, in 2010, working as a network administrator at Makerere University’s directorate for ICT support. A year later, while still at the ICT support directorate, he co-organized the Garage48 Kampala- a Bootcamp and startup hackathon series- and Start-up Weekend Kampala 2012, a tech Bootcamp.
In 2014, design studio IDEO.org hired him as the community manager of Amplify, its series of 10 design challenges focused on creating innovative solutions to pressing development problems. In August 2016, he officiated as a part-time innovative justice agent for Hiil, The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law. He has also worked as an Open Government Fellow at Code For Africa, an African network of labs that uses technology and OpenData to build digital solutions. In 2021, he joined Plan International as a human-centered design consultant for the Playful Futures program.
Melchior Koba
Yango is stepping up its actions in Cameroon. In July, the company launched a bike hailing service in Douala.
Last Wednesday, ride-hailing service Yango announced the upcoming launch of the IT education project Practicum in Cameroon to boost digital education.
The Practicum project will allow Cameroonians to acquire practical experience in modern and sought-after professions like computer science, coding and web development through experiments.
"As a carpooling application, Yango is constantly taking action to boost digital adoption. By providing access to this online platform, we want to continue our mission and expand Cameroonians' access to technology and knowledge by providing more learning options. In other regions, we have successfully implemented Practicum in several fields including education, rehabilitation, and advanced training. Our team is confident that they will achieve great results in Cameroon and train more tech experts to drive development in the local market," said Didier Theze, Yango Country Manager in Cameroon.
Yango entered the Cameroonian market on November 15, 2021. Within just one year, its popularity has grown significantly and, it intends to go up a notch by giving Cameroonians the opportunity to learn through Practicum, a US-based online platform. The platform organizes intensive boot camps that equip learners with essential skills to become more effective in the job market. It claims 87% of its alumni have found a tech job in the six months after completing the boot camps.
In Cameroon, though the effective launch date is still unknown, we know that the boot camps offered will include data analytics and web development as those professions are among the most in-demand in the region and contribute to the country’s economy. The courses to be taught in Cameroon were developed with contributions from Yango's engineers, who contributed their development and integration expertise for effective impacts.
Samira Njoya
The African startup ecosystem is currently dominated by the fintech segments, probably because of the continent’s low financial inclusion rate. The segment has become so attractive to investors with ever-rising VC financing and the number of innovative solutions developed by enterpreneurs is also on the rise.
Gwiza is a fintech solution developed by a Rwandan eponymous startup. It allows users to pay utility bills, manage their expenses, contribute to group events, donate to charities or even save money individually or join a group to save collectively.
Through its mobile -Android and iOS- app and USSD code (*737#), it allows users to carry out various financial operations or enter a password to access the collective savings group they belong to. Users who want to join new groups or create new ones can do so through the Gwiza Plus app or visit a nearby Gwiza office for more assistance.
Apart from allowing group savings, fundraising and bill payment, Gwiza also enables insurance subscriptions. Despite its features, which make it a worthy alternative to mainstream financial services, the startup is not yet gaining much traction. According to Play Store data, its Android app has been downloaded less than 100 times. It is true that with its USSD technology, it could be more popular in rural areas but, without official figures, nothing much can be said about it.
The fintech startup is among the six selected to participate in the second cohort of the Fintech Incubation program organized by the Co-Creation Hub (CcHub), Google, the Rwandan Ministry of ICT and the Mojaloop Foundation. In December 2022, in the framework of the program, it will present its idea to potential investors.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
After his graduate studies in England, he returned to his native country to build his accelerator for effective support to techstart-ups.
Abdigani Diriye (photo) is a Somali-born computer scientist and tech innovator. He is, since 2014, the co-founder and director of Innovate Ventures, the first and leading startup accelerator in Somaliland and Somalia.
He co-founded the accelerator, in 2012, with two partners, to support “ambitious startups who use technology to change the world.” From inception to date, Innovate Ventures claims over US$150,000 invested in more than 54 startups. Its director also co-founded, in 2021, Bloom, a fintech startup that allows East Africans to save in US dollars and spend in local currencies. In 2011, he co-founded the professional network Worldwide Somali Students & Professionals, which he led till 2015.
From 2009 to 2012, Abdigani Diriye completed research internships at institutions including The Open University, Microsoft, and FX Palo Alto Laboratory in the US. He was then hired by Carnegie Mellon University as a postdoctoral researcher.
In 2013, IBM appointed him as a researcher and in 2016, he became the company's research director. With his team, he develops a machine learning approach that leverages new data sources to assess the financial profiles and credit scores of hundreds of millions of Africans.
From 2019 to 2021, he worked as a research manager at Amazon, where he helped develop new models that allow Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant, to speak more naturally with users.
Over the course of his entrepreneurial career, he has won several awards and recognitions. For instance, he was named among MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35. The following year, he was on the Quartz’s list of the top 30 African Innovators. In 2020, Choiseul Institute named him one of the 100 young economic leaders in Africa.
"I’m humbled to be included among CEOs and other business leaders in the rankings released by Institut Choiseul. I’m also excited that they are beginning to include scientists on the list, and recognizing the prominent role science will have to play in accelerating economic development in Africa," the computer scientist said while acknowledging the Choiseul ranking.
In 2017, Abdigani Diriye became a NEF (Next Einstein Forum) Fellow and TED Fellow. From August 2018 to November 2019, he was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Innovation Ecosystems.
Melchior Koba
In Africa, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the development of the e-commerce sector. The development calls for better structuring to streamline the sector and make it more efficient.
Lome will host a national e-commerce seminar from November 10 to 11, 2022. The seminar initiated by the Togolese Ministry of Trade is being organized in partnership with the World Trade Organization (WTO).
It aims to teach young Togolese entrepreneurs how to use new online marketing platforms amid the current acceleration of digital transformations and the rise of the e-commerce sector, which is presented as a major opportunity for economic actors.
New businesses are invited to register their interest in the seminar before November 7. According to the Ministry of Trade, women-led businesses are strongly encouraged to register.
Let’s note that a similar seminar is organized for actors in the textile sector, on the sidelines of the International Exhibition of African Textiles (SITA2022), being held in Lome (November 4 to 6, 2022).
Ayi Renaud Dossavi
In August 2021, Seychelles decided to accelerate its digital transformation for an efficient digital economy. The platform is one of the results of the strategy implemented in that regard.
Seychelles inaugurated, last Monday, "SeyID," its national digital identity platform. According to Vice President Ahmed Afif (photo), the new platform is one of the initiatives carried out by the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to accelerate the country's digital transformation.
"Having a digital ID through the SeyID platform will not only be a means of proving your identity digitally or accessing digital public or private services. It will also allow you to digitally sign documents, another growing requirement when transacting digitally. Through this platform, digital signing will be far much easier to do compared to what is the case presently,” he said.
According to the World Bank, in 2020, Seychelles’s GDP dropped to a negative 13.5%, due to the coronavirus pandemic, which disrupted economic activities. In February 2021, to diversify and expand its economy, the country announced plans to accelerate its digital transformation. SeyID is one of the results of that plan.
The platform is developed by WISeKey International Holding, a Swiss cybersecurity firm. It will give Seychellois the tools they need to prove their identity online, but it will also facilitate access to many public and private services that choose to integrate with the SeyID platform thanks to interconnecting application programming interfaces (APIs).
The SeyID app is already available on the Play Store. According to Finance Minister Naadir Hassan, “the SeyID platform is based on WISeKey’s WISeID platform which guarantees a high level of Digital Identity and online security.”
It “will be accessible through both web-based and mobile-based applications and both are supported with strong authentication techniques. This is to ensure the security of the SeyID platform users,” he added.
Samira Njoya
The informal sector represents a sizeable portion of African economies. The situation negatively affects tax revenues in all the countries concerned. In Gabon, some tech entrepreneurs have launched an interesting solution that is expected to increase civic-mindedness, and hence increase tax revenues.
Gatax is an automated tax management solution developed by a Gabonese eponymous startup. It allows individuals and companies easy access to tax information.
From a smartphone or a computer, users can register and subscribe to a Gatax package, then fill out the required forms to be informed about the tax system, their tax status, benefits, etc.
The information the platform gives users depends on their subscription. The basic subscription (the free package) gives users information on the tax system and their tax status. Apart from the free package, the startup has three premium ones. The most expensive package gives users complete control over their tax situation by providing details on how to contact tax directorates, how to fill out their tax returns, and receive periodic alerts to avoid penalties.
The startup, which is still being matured at the incubator SING SA, aims to conquer a local market estimated at XOF2.4 billion. It aims to optimize tax collection and fight tax delinquency while empowering SMEs.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
He launched his first business, in 2013, while still schooling. Throughout his ongoing professional and entrepreneurial career, he has received several awards and recognitions. His social venture has also earned him the trust of investors like Base10 Partners.
Kelvin Umechukwu (photo) is a Nigerian tech entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Bumpa, a social commerce startup that helps merchants set up their businesses online with no programming skills.
Through Bumpa, founded in 2021, he launched a platform that allows merchants to set up their e-stores using just a smartphone. They can also receive online and offline payments, manage inventories and accounting, fulfill orders, track sales, send delivery requests and engage buyers.
In October 2022, Bumpa, which already claims more than 50,000 SMEs served, completed a US$4 million funding round. It aims to expand its product offering by developing Bumpa 2.0, a more advanced version that will incorporate more social commerce solutions for SMEs.
“The goal is to do three things: connect, innovate and scale. Bumpa 2.0 for us as a startup is to connect all the relevant tools, channels, and places that SMEs need all in one place – the Bumpa app. It is also to innovate by bringing simpler, automated ways to do any business transaction or operation on the app. It is also to scale our user’s businesses, our position as key players in the African commerce industry, and to scale the capacities and reach of the employees and even we, the founders,” said Kelvin Umechukwu.
In 2017, the Nigerian entrepreneur, who is a partner of the Lagos chapter of the Google Developers Group since 2018, founded a social venture that facilitates partnerships and collaboration between innovators, builders, and entrepreneurs who solve local problems. His first venture was Cloudshot Technology Ltd, a tech organization founded, in 2013, to create innovative solutions leveraging technologies.
When Cloudshot Technology ceased operations (in 2017) Kelvin Umechukwu joined the web hosting company HostCabal working as a business developer, from January to June 2018. In April 2018, he joined the nonprofit educational organization TechQuest STEM Academy as a community manager. In September of the same year, the organization promoted him to the position of program manager before he became head of business development, in February 2019.
In March 2020, he was hired, as a program manager, by incubator CcHub Nigeria. In October 2022, he was one of the speakers at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Thanks to his ventures, he has won several awards and recognitions. In 2016, Cloudshot Technology Ltd earned him a Leadership Award. Two years later, the same venture earned him CodeFest Nigeria Partnership Award. Thanks to TechQuest STEM Academy he also won the IDOS Challenge 2019 sponsored by the foundations “Haus der kleinen Forscher” and Siemens. In 2021, Bumpa was named the Most Innovative Business Management Solution by the African Excellence Awards.
Melchior Koba
The Ghanaian headquarters is the first opened by the micro-blogging platform in Africa, sixteen years after its creation.
US microblogging platform Twitter has officially inaugurated its Ghanaian headquarters in Accra. It was announced on Tuesday, October 1, by Kafui Sokpe, Senior Associate Director of Twitter Africa. The new headquarters will allow the firm to coordinate the activities of Twitter Africa.
“A year ago Twitter entered Africa via Ghana. Today we officially opened Twitter’s Africa HQ in Accra, and for the first time all [Twitter users] in the region left their home desks and convened to work as one team. Worth celebrating amidst all the back-to-back news headlines,” Kafui Sokpe tweeted.
On April 21, 2021, Twitter announced that it chose Ghana as the headquarters for its African operations due to the country’s appointment to host the AfCFTA secretariat and its openness toward the internet.
"As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our services across Africa,” the platform explained in a statement.
It also indicated it hired 11 people in Ghana, inviting more people to join. With this new office, Twitter follows its biggest rival, Facebook Inc, which opened its first African office in Johannesburg in 2015 and announced, in 2020, a second office in Lagos. The initiative is in line with the growth strategy of Twitter, which aims to become more involved in the communities that fuel daily discussions across the continent.
Samira Njoya
Morocco is currently developing its human capital to become a global tech hub. To do so, it is partnering with various actors.
The Moroccan Ministry of Industry announced, Tuesday (November 2), two memorandums of understanding with international consulting agency Capgemini.
The memoranda aim to create the conditions required to train tech talents and develop the local engineering talent to make the country a leading destination for tech investments.
In a press statement, the government explained that the MoUs would help create 1,500 additional highly skilled jobs in the engineering sector by 2026. The “investment embodies the growing confidence in Moroccan skills and confirms the attractiveness of the Kingdom as a technological and engineering destination of choice for outsourcing,” added Minister of Industry Ryad Mezzour (photo, left).
According to a study financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Morocco is faced, for years now, with a shortage of engineers and technicians. To address the issue, the government has inked partnerships with several international companies to develop diversified skills and competencies in a range of innovative sectors. In April, the country signed four more MoUs for investment projects that are expected to create over 5, 000 jobs in the outsourcing sector.
CapGemini launched its Moroccan subsidiary in 2007. Since then, it has become the largest tech company in the country. According to Idriss Elasri (photo, right), Managing Director of Capgemini Engineering Morocco, the company hired 800 new staff in 2021 and 1,100 in 2022.
Samira Njoya
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Over his decades in the international business world, he has launched many ventures but, through DizzitUp, the most recent one, he wants to leave a strong social impact on the African population.
Solofo Rafenombolatiana (photo) is a Malagasy telecom engineer and entrepreneur. He is also the co-founder and CEO of DizzitUp, a startup founded in 2018, in Togo.
The said startup offers an international marketplace through which Africans, wherever they are, can finance, sell and buy essential renewable energy, food, health, education, tech, and financial products and services anywhere on the continent.
The marketplace was initially built to facilitate access to energy and financial services. In 2021, during an interview with French media Paris Singularity, its CEO explained that the idea germinated in mid-2017, when he noticed that Mada, a small village where he has been a teacher, still had no access to electricity thirty years after he left.
For the businessman, now in his fifties, poor access to energy and financial services is hampering development in Africa. So, apart from its energy-as-a-service business, DizzitUp also developed a decentralized and secure digital infrastructure based on blockchain and stablecoin for instant transfers and payments. The infrastructure allows users to pay or send funds anywhere in the world without being burdened by any constraints.
On October 28, 2022, Solofo Rafenombolatiana was honored, in Lome, Togo, for DizzitUp, which was among the six finalists of the fifth Ecobank Fintech Challenge. Nevertheless, DizzitUp is just one of the many ventures launched by the serial entrepreneur.
In 2000, in Paris, he founded Mobiligense SA, a SaaS mobile value-added services editor and operator. Eight years later, he launched Beezbox SAS, a Paris-based social customer relationship management service provider. In 2014, he also founded Sunny Live Music, a jazz concerts and festivals organizer.
He started his international professional career in 1986, working as a sales support engineer for Wang France. Two years later, he joined Hewlett-Packard as a sales and marketing manager.
After a stint, between 1997 and 2000, as the vice president and general manager at Bull Information Systems, he founded his first company. Concurrently, from 2003 to 2004, he was the vice president and director of Technicolor’s (formerly knowns as Thomson) mobility business unit. Between 2011 and 2013, he was the marketing and digital media director of AFM-Telethon, a French non-profit organization against muscular dystrophy.
Melchior Koba
Fintech is currently the most dynamic segment of the African tech ecosystem. It attracts a significant portion of financings and aims to foster financial inclusion on the continent.
Kiwe is a fintech solution developed by an Egyptian eponymous startup. It allows its users to transfer money in real-time, and quickly pay SMEs. It also helps event managers collect payments.
"We are strong believers in empowering freelancers and business owners by helping them identify their targets, level up their customer experience, and accept online and offline payments. Our vision is for KIWE to become a verb interchangeable with any word that speaks of payments. We strive to have our customers reach out to their phones instinctively whenever a receipt is printed, a cheque arrives at the table, or a friend’s pay-back is due," Kiwe explained in a release in 2021.
To fulfill its set mission, the startup developed a mobile app, accessible for Android and iOS devices. Once downloaded, the app allows users to register their accounts to start making transactions. In addition to the features mentioned above, the app also allows one-scan transactions, positioning itself as a pretty handy tool for making any type of payment. On PlayStore, it has already been downloaded more than 5,000 times.
Last month, it raised an undisclosed amount from vaIU, a subsidiary of universal bank EFG Herme Holding. "With its unique offering and simplified, engaging user experience, Kiwe will benefit greatly from leveraging our vast and ever-growing network of vendors. Hence, this is an investment that promises growth for all," said Habiba Naguib, Head of Strategy and Market expansion at valU.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
According to the report "Data Center Market in Africa - Industry Outlook and Forecast 2020-2025" (ReportLinker), the African data center market is expected to grow at a 12% annual rate and reach US$3 billion in 2020-2025.
Pan-African data center operator Raxio Group announced, Monday (October 31), the launch of construction works for its first data center in Grand-Bassam, 30 km from downtown Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The foundation stone of that infrastructure will be laid tomorrow, November 3, we learn.
"Our primary mission is to help lay the foundations of the African digital economy with groundbreaking technologies aimed at ensuring the performance, security and service levels required to meet information systems’ security needs,” it explains.
Raxio group unveiled its plan to build a data center in Côte d’Ivoire, in October 2021. The plan was in line with the continental expansion plan it launched, in 2019, to meet the African growing demand with ten to twelve more data centers. In the framework of that expansion plan, it currently operates a 1.5MW facility in Kinshasa, while others are under construction in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda.
According to the group, Côte d'Ivoire is the fastest growing economy in Francophone West Africa. This is notably why it chose it to host its first Tier 3 data center in the region so that it “will serve customers in Abidjan and the wider UEMOA region at a time when digital transformation, data and content consumption, and connectivity are all increasing at historic rates.”
The data center, scheduled to be operational by Q3-2023, will be headquartered at the ICT and biotech park VITIB, in Grand-Bassam. According to the company, Raxio Côte d'Ivoire will offer “customers an optimized environment for their IT equipment in a state of the art, modular facility, fully equipped with industry best in technology, security, AC/DC power compatibility and redundancy.”
Samira Njoya
In recent years, Africa’s booming tech ecosystem has attracted several investors. This dynamic environment encourages the development of various tech solutions to address local issues.
Nawali is a real estate platform developed by a Senegalese start-up, founded, in 2018. It allows the African diaspora to easily acquire real estate properties (from lands to turkey houses) in countries where it is currently active: Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, Mali, and Côte d’Ivoire namely.
The platform functions like a marketplace where real estate properties are listed, allowing users to acquire any property they are attracted to.
The startup has developed several funding mechanisms allowing buyers to either pay in cash, by installments, or by joining Nawali tontine (a mutual savings scheme that allows users to save collectively and purchase properties at the end of the savings period when they collect the amount saved.)
Nawali also offers its buyers eco-friendly houses made of raw earth bricks. It recently launched a project aimed at building an eco-city in Southern Cameroon. In July 2022, the startup opened a funding round to raise €460,000 to support the project. According to its founder, Aïta Magassa, apart from helping create massive jobs for qualified workers, the project, which is “perfectly adapted to the needs in Africa,” would allow the African diaspora to reclaim its lands.
Adoni Conrad Quenum