The Ivorian entrepreneur Christelle Hien Kouame (pictured) won the 2021 Challenge App Africa with her edtech solution “Prenez les feuilles”. The solution is an educational platform for students in Côte d'Ivoire.
To make her idea a reality, the marketing and communications engineer invested funds from her communications agency to develop the solution and, once that was done, she officially presented it to the Ivorian Ministry of Education. The solution was then validated and made available to students, for homework and exams.
Later, Christelle Hien Kouame bettered her offer by including new learning tools to challenge students. "We then integrated three other components to our platform: motivation through rewards by offering gifts for quizzes and exercises completed correctly within a given timeframe, career guidance by talking about jobs with different career paths, and finally short podcasts about general knowledge broadcast via the WhatsApp channel," she said.
Through her startup, Christelle Hien Kouame wants to improve the national success rate. In addition to its educational role, the platform helps students who do not have all the textbooks, to have access to lessons on different subjects directly on their mobile phones. The objective of "Prenez les feuilles" is to give access to school programs to as many people as possible. The app is also intended to be the best tool for preparing for school exams.
In 2019, the edtech company Eneza Education bought the project. As one success leads to another, Christelle Hien Kouame won the 6th edition of the Challenge App Africa organized by the media RFI and France24 in 2021. The prize is worth €15,000.
Today, 6,000 students regularly use the online platform, and the app version launched in early March already has almost 2,000 downloads. Christelle Hien Kouame aims to reach students outside her country. She is already planning an expansion strategy, starting with Senegal by 2025.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Two Kenyan entrepreneurs, Brian Muriu (pictured, left) and Alistair Gould (pictured, right), have developed a solution to enable Kenyans living abroad to pay their bills back home directly.
The app -Tulix- allows better tracking of expenses and ensures the security of transactions. Often, the diaspora sends money for special purposes back home, but the amount ends up being misappropriated by the recipients. Tulix comes as an answer to this problem.
The app took part last March 10 in the Demo Day organized by venture capital fund Antler for early-stage companies. It provides access to over 100,000 businesses and institutions instantly and directly via the M-Pesa mobile payment service. It can also be used to pay for necessities such as hospital bills, school fees, etc. The Tulix wallet is reloadable with a bank card and users can define expenses and allocate the necessary amounts. They can also track their spending, which allows them to plan various financial allocations. When a transaction is completed, Tulix sends notifications via messaging and email to the originator of the payment about the status of the transaction.
Brian Muriu, who holds an Honors Degree in Electrical Engineering, explains that the idea for Tulix came from his own experience. "It usually started with me receiving a phone call from my relatives living and working in the United States late at night. They would call to inform me of the secret code I needed to use to retrieve the money they had sent via a service such as Western Union or Moneygram during their work break. The withdrawal process is often very tedious.”
Brian Muriu assures that the app keeps no record of payment information, including that relating to bank cards that may have been used to reload wallets. He claims that personal information is kept secure.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
While visiting Eco Park, Cameroon, Bryan Pemwoya realized that many people did not know about the gorgeous tourist sites his countries held. Thus, he decided to create TourCMR, an application that integrates, progressively, all 1,000 tourist sites listed in Cameroon. With the help of the AFCON, which took place in the country last January, the number of downloads of the app took off.
It took a decade for the former young innovator to become the boss of a tech company specializing in the modernization of agriculture. He has developed many solutions that facilitate the work and improve the yield of farmers.
In Niger, the company Tech-Innov has managed to build a solid reputation among farmers over the past nine years. The founder Abdou Maman Kané (pictured) has strived to make his company a national and global reference with the many innovations developed to help local farmers.
The computer scientist and entrepreneur made a name for himself in 2011 by winning the first place of the Orange Prize for Social Entrepreneurship in Africa and the Middle East with his remote-controlled irrigation system "Télé-irrigation". According to him, this idea, which came from his own experience as the son of a farmer, has been in his mind since 2005.
When he was younger, he noticed how difficult it was for his parents and other farmers to access water for their activities. They struggled to carry water several times a day over long distances to regularly water their crops. He then started to think of a way to help them. That is how he came up with the idea to not only improve their working conditions with ICTs but also put an end to manual watering.
In 2013, Abdou Maman Kané created Tech-Innov, a company specialized in the promotion and marketing of agricultural and irrigation technology solutions. With this startup, he marketed Tele-irrigation system, a hardware and software kit composed of a tank connected to a pump and a network of pipes installed in a field. The pump is connected to a box equipped with a SIM card. The farmer simply dials a code from his phone to activate it and start watering. Users can also access real-time information such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, solar radiation, air speed and quality to know when to water.
Abdou Maman Kané also developed other solutions such as the smart bio-fertilizer, the drinking water kiosk in rural areas, automatic watering, and mobile weather. These achievements have earned him several awards including the second prize Climate Startup COP22, the third prize of the Young African Social Entrepreneur of Libreville (2015), the Hassan II World Grand Prize for Water (2015), the Medal of Ecological Creation in Nice (2013), and a medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva (2012).
Ruben Tchounyabe
Between the high prices and the poor condition of some real estate properties in African cities, people are finding it difficult to get decent housing. With his platform Spleet, Akintola Adesanmi facilitates renting through a home loan solution.
Former product manager at Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (currently known as Guarantee Trust Holding Company) and eTranzact, a payments company, Akintola Adesanmi (pictured, right) has a strong background in banking and fintech. Since 2018, he has been running Spleet, a startup providing a platform where people have access to home loans and a wide selection of properties.
The goal is to provide a solution that allows tenants to find understanding landlords. However, while Spleet was a good plan for tenants, it was not quite the same for landlords. It took the solution 15 months to integrate 16 landlords and about 101 spaces on the platform. The co-founder said he realized that most landlords prefer to receive their lease once rather than 12 times a year to mitigate the risk of default. He co-founded Spleet with Daniella Ajala (pictured, left).
“Growth was slow on the landlords’ side. We just couldn’t add as many landlords as we wanted to on time. But on the tenants’ side, we had great occupancy rates—an average of 90% month-on-month occupancy rates,” Adesanmi told TechCabal. So it became clear that this model would not be sustainable in the long run. After more than 3 years of trying to evolve his market, Akintola Adesanmi wanted to tailor his offering to both tenants and owners. To do so, he applied in 2021 to the accelerator program of MetaProp, a New York-based VC firm focused on the real estate technology industry. Spleet became the first African startup to complete the six-month program, which ended last month, and on March 15, the startup announced $625,000 in pre-seed funding led by MetaProp VC with participation from several investment bodies.
Spleet's new business model now allows tenants to apply for a loan to pay the full amount of the rent, then spread the repayment over up to 12 months. In this way, tenants can continue to pay the rent monthly and landlords who want annual payments can also be satisfied. This solution quickly won over new customers, and Akintola Adesanmi was able to get back on track. A beta version of Spleet's offering was launched this month, and it has already logged more than $10,000 in applications.
Now, the entrepreneur intends to make Spleet the go-to platform for residential real estate in Africa, especially since many African countries are affected by the housing deficit problem, with rental costs sometimes very high.
Aïsha Moyouzame
The head of two businesses, Brian Bosire designs tech solutions for agriculture, water, and sanitation. His solution HydroIQ has just been selected by the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program.
With a passion for emerging technologies and their application to solving Africa's biggest challenges, Kenyan entrepreneur Brian Bosire (pictured) gained early attention for his innovations in agriculture and water. In 2013, he founded Electrosoft, a startup focused on bringing technology to efficiency, convenience, and improved productivity in the energy, water, and sanitation sectors.
With his startup UjuziKilimo (which he founded in 2016), he has developed a tech tool that studies soils to inform smallholder farmers, who have limited access to knowledge, to better use resources like fertilizer and water. Brian Bosire's innovations have won him many awards, including the ASME Ishow African Award in 2015, and the Africa Innovation Foundation's Top 10 Young Innovators.
Brian Bosire founded another startup -Hydrologistics Africa (HydroIQ), which offers a virtual water network to provide consumers and utilities with a unique and transparent platform to manage their water consumption. This innovation earned him the one.org award in 2017, ranking him among the Five Young Africans Changing the World. For creating a connected object to manage water networks remotely, namely HydroIQ, his solution was named startup of the year in Africa and won a €10,000 prize awarded at the second edition of SOTYA in 2018.
In November 2021, he announced the launch of HydroIQ in Central America, specifically in Guatemala. “We are proud and challenged to continue providing quality services to the world. As the world's first virtual water network operator, we are proud to keep leading the entire water industry in Africa and beyond in developing innovative technology solutions to make every drop of water count,” he said. The entrepreneur was also appointed the youngest senator from Nyamira County in the Youth Senate Kenya. His contribution to youth leadership and entrepreneurship led to him being named a United Nations (UN) Youth Leader for the SDGs, and a member of the World Bank Advisory Group (S4YE).
His recent selection by the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program on March 14, 2022, will allow him to receive coaching to develop his HydroIQ technology, and expand his operations across Africa and beyond.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Gabougouni means "small kitchen" in Bambara, one of the national languages of Mali. This is the name Dienaba Traoré (pictured) gave to her initiative, which aims at promoting local and African cuisine across the world. The entrepreneur launched her blog in 2016.
Dienaba Traoré says she came up with the idea first to help Malians abroad and those who live in the country but have little or no experience of Malian cuisine. She then added recipes from other African countries to meet demand on the blog.
“On this platform, I wanted to share with the world, the African cuisine, especially that of Mali by adding my personal touch, as well as the culinary crossbreeding which allows valuing the products of the African soil,” she explains.
The Gabougouni platform presents recipes, videos, product sheets, nutritional advice, the organization of workshops, and various other contents. The blogger wants to present a nice image of African cuisine and break the preconceived notions that African cuisine is fatty and complex. Dienaba Traoré has been passionate about cooking and everything related to food since she was very young. After a scientific baccalaureate, she studied food processing, and “environmental and food quality, hygiene, and safety” in Dakar. This background allowed her to find a job in a company specialized in airline catering and airport assistance.
In 2017 she won the 3rd Orange Award for Social Entrepreneur in Africa and the Middle East in Mali. The blog has grown in popularity and now has more than 74,000 subscribers on Facebook.
Dienaba Traoré, who describes herself as a food safety consultant, photographer, and food stylist, now plans to create an online store specializing in the sale of women’s agri-food products in Mali and West Africa. She also plans to offer cooking classes, both in-person and remotely, and later on set up a "Culinary Hub" which will be a coworking space for cooking enthusiasts, professionals and agri-food companies.
Ruben Tchounyabe
The startup, which took advantage of the slowdown of cultural and sports activities during the Covid-19 crisis, has improved its services. Now, it seeks more users.
The first fully-Moroccan smart ticketing platform Guichet.com, with more than 1,000 events and shows organized in collaboration with various partners, also plans to conquer other high-potential markets on the continent.
Guichet Maroc SARL, the startup behind Guichet.com, secured last Friday, March 11, a $309,000 (3 million dirhams) financing from CDG Invest, the investment arm of the CDG group. The startup, which was founded in 2009 by Ahmed Tawfik Moulnakhla (pictured), said it will use the money to consolidate Guichet.com’s operations in Morocco, extend to the sports industry, and conquer new high-potential markets in Africa.
Guichet.com is an intermediation platform between the public and event promoters (plays, soccer matches, music concerts, festivals, training courses, etc.). It provides them with tickets and digital tickets which can be paid for online. It's quite a useful app, especially for people who are not fond of waiting in line when going to see movies. The platform also provides partners with an autonomous management and steering environment with real-time ticketing monitoring.
The platform has tens of thousands of users, has covered over 1,000 events and shows, in partnership with several exclusive partners like the Mawazine Festival, the Marrakech Laughing Festival, the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music, and the Oasis Festival.
In 2021, new features were added to Guichet.com. These include an option to purchase packages including accommodation, catering, and ancillary products for an event; there is also a store where partners can sell their products. The app is available on PlayStore and AppleStore.
Ruben Tchounyabe
People living in Africa, especially in rural areas, continue to face challenges in accessing energy and internet connectivity. This situation is a major barrier to the development of e-learning across the continent. Despite the various solutions developed to address the issue, a lot still needs to be done.
In 2020, Covid-19 affected education in several African countries. For several months, schools were closed and e-learning was the only way out. Unfortunately, the alternative distance learning solutions set up by the states were not always effective. To help governments in this strategy, Franco-Togolese Victor Agbegnenou (pictured) has developed an e-learning solution, Retice Renal Smart 80/20. The latter is a combination of digital tools, including a platform for management and synchronized exchanges with tablets and educational software, and offline infrastructure. It allows teachers to interact with each student via a connected tablet equipped with digitized textbooks and to deliver their lessons in person or remotely. Connectivity is provided by "PWCS" technology, a point-to-multipoint wireless communication system.
Lebon Ngounou, Managing Director of Retice Africa Sarl, believes that with this technology, students and teachers can stay at home and still attend class. The solution is adapted to rural areas and embeds energy storage units rechargeable with a solar lamp. Retice Renal Smart 80/20 received the 2018 ITBP Sorbonne Award and was recognized by Unesco and the International Organization of the Francophonie as a digital solution for education. It is also listed as one of the Top 40 digital technologies for education certified by the African Union in 2019.
KA Technologies, the company created by Victor Agbegnenou to deploy the solution, has been working to equip nearly 150,000 students in Togo since 2020. The solution is already deployed in Senegal in two municipalities and Nigeria in the state of Kano. The company has already obtained the formal agreement of the Ministry of Basic Education and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of Cameroon. Talks are ongoing for an upcoming launch in the country.
Ruben Tchounyabe
In 2008, The Kenyan government started deploying a development vision that runs until 2030. Digital technology, a part of this vision, hadn’t attracted much interest in the past but the narrative has changed now.
Kenya's Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Youth and Innovation has announced the elaboration of a national digital master plan. The 10-year plan, which was the focus of a validation workshop held last Friday, aims to advance Kenya’s socio-economic development by leveraging technology.
The strategy focuses on the following areas: digital infrastructure, digital services, and data management, digital skills, digital innovation, and digital business. It should help the country create wealth and jobs, in line with its 2030 Vision adopted on June 10, 2008.
Lucy Mulili (picture), Administrative Secretary at the Ministry of ICT, representing the Cabinet Secretary for ICT, Joe Mucheru, explained that “the document draws heavily on the 2019 National ICT Policy, which explains how ICT as a foundation creates a robust economy and thus improves the lives of Kenyans.”
The Kenyan government's strategic actions under the National Digital Master Plan reflect a commitment to advancing digitalization which the World Bank sees as an asset for development–and clearly demonstrated by Covid-19.
Under the new plan, Nairobi is set to, among others, lay 100,000 km of fiber optic cable–52,000 km for the government and 48,000 km for private companies– to provide reliable and affordable connectivity for all. It also plans to provide 1.2 million laptops to schools, train 350,000 teachers in the use of technology, and connect 40,000 schools to a sustainable Internet network. The plan should cost Sh5 billion ($43.7 million) to implement.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
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Less than two months after raising $10 million, mobility fintech Moove Africa secured additional resources to fund its expansion on and off the continent.
Moove Africa, a Nigerian-created fintech company that makes it easier for African entrepreneurs to access financing for new vehicle purchases, announced on Monday, March 14, that it raised $105 million in equity and debt in a Series A2 financing. The deal brings to $174.5 million the total funds raised to date by the company founded in 2019 by Nigerian-born Britons Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi.
“Less than two years ago, we discovered this white space of mobility fintech and launched Moove. After surpassing 3 million trips in Moove-funded vehicles across Africa, rolling out our service in six new African cities, and connecting mobility entrepreneurs to the ride-sharing, e-logistics, and delivery markets, we are now leading this growing Fintech sector... We are thrilled to have the support of investors around the world who will help us take our model to the world,” commented Ladi Delano.
This new fundraising comes less than two months after Moove Africa obtained a $10 million financing facility from UAE-based investment firm NBK Capital Partners. The money, raised on 1 February 2022, was aimed at supporting the West African expansion of Uber's exclusive partner for vehicle financing and provisioning in sub-Saharan Africa.
The mobility fintech plans, over the next six months, to continue its expansion into seven new markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The company, which is present in six African cities, also intends to build new partnerships while expanding its range of vehicles.
In Africa, less than 5% of all new vehicles are purchased with a loan compared to 92% in Europe, Moove Africa complains. On the continent, the vehicle ownership rate is below 44 cars per 1,000 people, compared to 640 per 1,000 in Europe and 816 in the United States, the mobility fintech continues. According to the company, Africa’s low ownership is due to a low penetration rate of borrowing, which it believes has limited the ability of more than 1 billion Africans on the continent to purchase new vehicles. According to Ladi Delano, millions of entrepreneurs in emerging markets have limited or no access to vehicle financing, even though the market opportunity is vast. The two-wheeler rental market is estimated at $80 billion in sub-Saharan Africa, according to data provided by Moove. Yet the continent recorded fewer than 900,000 new vehicle sales in 2019, compared to 17 million in the United States.
Chamberline MOKO
Born in Senegal, Karima-Catherine Goundiam (pictured), also of Moroccan descent, grew up and studied in France and the United States before moving to Canada in 2000, according to information relayed by ONFR+. Until 2014, she worked for large companies, including the audit and consulting firm Deloitte. She then ventured into entrepreneurship in 2015 and founded Red Dot Digital. With her company, Karima-Catherine Goundiam seeks to put digital networking at the heart of business transformation and help companies build a strong digital strategy.
Her biggest accomplishment is a global digital business matchmaking platform called B2BeeMatch. Launched in 2019, this solution made its real debut in Europe in 2020 during Covid-19. “I remember presenting this project in Europe in January 2020. The response was quite cold and perplexed: nobody saw the advantage of going digital since we could see each other physically. A matchmaking application did not seem to be an immediate need," she says.
As the pandemic acted as an accelerator of digital transformation within companies, B2BeeMatch quickly became an indispensable tool. In only one year, the platform grew rapidly and, in January 2021, it became bilingual, which allowed it to integrate the Francophone community and to develop partnerships, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, and the Fédération des gens d'affaires francophones de l'Ontario (FGA).
Beyond her entrepreneurial activity, Karima-Catherine Goundiam is the vice-president of the British Canadian Chamber of Commerce. She also intends to broaden her understanding of the business world, she says, by participating in numerous tech conferences. Also, she teaches at European universities and advises Canadians on technology and management. Through her multiple actions, she wants to inspire the young generation, especially on the importance of diversity in tech.
While access to business opportunities and financing is still a challenge for black entrepreneurs, Karima-Catherine Goundiam admits that being a black francophone businesswoman has been an asset. Her uniqueness makes it easier to be remembered. "I was able to turn everything that could make me statistically an underachiever into an asset, to be a person who struggles to be even more successful. I don't take no for an answer. I'm resilient enough to go into a market where no one expects me to," she adds.
B2BeeMatch is based on a particular approach, which eliminates biases, blind spots, perceptions, and all those prejudices that block the focus on skills, diversity, and innovation. On the platform, it is possible to find future business partners, subcontractors, clients, and even funds. Based in Toronto, the platform is already present in over 45 countries. Comforted by this success, the entrepreneur announced she is launching a second version of the platform in early March.
Aïsha Moyouzame
The digital is bringing fish farmers the opportunities to improve their business and profit. It also allows them to own an essential part of the value chain.
When Dave Okech (pictured, left) started fish farming in Kenya in 2016, he immediately noticed the problems plaguing the sector, including low productivity and lack of technical assistance. Interested in technology, he develops digital tools to help address these obstacles.
He then created AquaRech in 2018. The solution is a package made of a mobile app, a connected thermometer, and a web platform. The mobile app incorporates a centralized database system that connects fish farmers, fish traders, and feed suppliers. It is available on Android and allows users to calculate the amount of feed needed by the fish population based on the water temperature. This data is collected via the connected thermometer installed in the fish breeding tank. Having an idea of the amount of food needed by their fish, farmers can directly contact producers via the web platform without going through intermediaries which made the process tedious.
Using Dave Okech's solution allows fish farmers to reduce the production period from 13 to 8 months, increase yields, reduce production costs by 30% and increase profits by 25%. The promoter has received numerous awards for his many efforts in the fish farming industry in Kenya. These include the Mandela Washington Fellow 2016, the Acumen Fellow 2019, and the Global Farmer Network Fellow 2020.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The 1st Miss Geek in the history of Senegal and 2nd Miss Geek Africa 2018, she proved to be a very talented young woman. She currently holds a management position in a research institute on agricultural and rural policies and intends to train other young women in ICT.
Ndeye Fatou Mboup (pictured) is interested in disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and blockchain. She is the current innovation and ICT project/program manager at IPAR (Initiative de prospective agricole et rurale) and is specialized in creating digital solutions based on the SDGs. The serial entrepreneur, as she describes herself, is the CEO of TSG Tech and the co-founder of the startup E-Wanacc.
Ndeye Fatou Mboup has participated in training in Senegal, Rwanda, Spain, Uganda, Germany, and Egypt, as part of the digital entrepreneurship program AFRIMAC or Disrupt BootCamp organized by the YES (Young Entrepreneur School) of Nice-France. A member of FESTIC (Association of Senegalese Women in ICT) or Enablis (Network of SME entrepreneurs in Senegal), where she was a consultant, she has won many national and international competitions since 2017.
Winner of the Challenge of the 1000 entrepreneurs of Africa of the 2020 Africa-France/Sustainable City Summit, Ndeye Fatou Mboup also won the national competition for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), organized by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Economy. She was also elected the first-ever Miss Geek Senegal in 2018 and recently won a bronze medal at the Challenge Innovation Forum in Qatar in November 2021.
Her remarkable career has earned her congratulations from the highest levels of the State. "Warm congratulations to our young compatriot Ndeye Fatou Mboup, from Initiative prospective agricole et rurale, for her bronze medal at the Challenge Innovation Forum in Qatar. I also congratulate the Institut Supérieur de Management of which the winner is a graduate," President Macky Sall tweeted.
Ndeye Fatou Mboup aims to represent women leadership around the world and is committed to working for the professional development of girls and women in ICT.
Aïsha Moyouzame