Chinese Billionaire Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma launches African Young Entrepreneurs Fund. Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma announced the creation of a US$10 million African Young Entrepreneurs Fund, during the Youth Connekt Africa Summit co-hosted by UNCTAD and the Government of Rwanda.
“I want that fund supporting African online businesses,” said Mr. Ma, who is Special Adviser to UNCTAD for Youth Entrepreneurship and Small Business. “The money is set. World Bank to Support 20 Digital Start-ups from Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa: World Bank Scheme to Support Africa's Top Digital Entrepreneurs. Photo: Facebook Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's first stop in Nigeria was the Co-creation Hub Nigeria (CcHUB) in Yaba.
He spoke with children at a summer coding camp and entrepreneurs who come to CcHub to build and launch their apps (file photo). Pitch Hub Africa 2017 : Cap sur Yaoundé et Libreville, après Abidjan et Dakar. Afrique : les investissements étrangers dans les start-ups ont atteint un record de plus de 367 millions $ en 2016, selon Partech Ventures. Aujourd'hui, force est de constater que le continent africain est en train de connaître une véritable ascension dans le domaine de l'informatique.
Cette situation se traduit par le nombre sans cesse croissant des jeunes entreprises évoluant dans le domaine des technologies de l'information et de la communication et dont les activités ont permis d'enregistrer beaucoup de succès. SingularityU East Africa Global Impact Challenge 2017 for Startups in East Africa (Funded to Attend the Global Solutions Program at Singularity University. – Scholarship. Application Deadline: 10th March 2017 Are you an East African with a moonshot innovation to a global grand challenge that leverages exponential technology and has a potential to impact a billion people in 10 years?
The purpose of the SingularityU East Africa Global Impact Challenge is to foster moonshot innovations and startups that positively impact the lives of people living in East Africa, with an ability to scale and impact a billion people worldwide in 10 years. What moon shot innovation would you develop to solve a global grand challenge (environment, energy, water, food, health, disaster resilience, governance, learning, space,security, prosperity) using exponential technology that would impact the lives of a billion people in the next 10 years? The Prize: Avec africa-meet.com, un togolais veut connecter l’Afrique entière. (Togotopinfos.com) L’évolution des technologies d’information et de communication ainsi que l’avènement d’Internet féconde l’imagination de la jeune génération africaine.
C’est ainsi que les réseaux sociaux sont adoptés et sont devenus pour une grande majorité d’africains les nouveaux lieux de prise de parole. [INTERVIEW] – Zakaria FAHIM : HUB AFRICA, la 1ère plateforme des investisseurs et entrepreneurs en Afrique démarre son Road Show 2017. Croatian Startups Looking for Opportunities in Africa. New business opportunities for Croatian entrepreneurs.
New venture capital fund, supported by several technological entrepreneurs from South Africa and Europe and managed by Matija Rukavina, business angel who is the first investor in the Croatian startup Agrivi, offers to Croatian startups investments from 20,000 to more than 500,000 euros, reports Poslovni.hr on January 18, 2017. Matija Rukavina, director of the 800 Ventures Fund, says that he is pleased with the initial interest of young Croatian technology companies. However, he stressed that, due to the very complex regulations, they do not act as a classic investment fund but rather as a network of investors. “In the first phase, we were contacted by ten startups from Croatia which are not only interested in the capital, but also in expanding to the African markets, and that is precisely the added value that we can offer them”, says Rukavina.
Less startup funding in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa led a 30% decline in Africa — Quartz. Nairobi, Kenya Adan Barre, a 20-year-old Somali refugee, was meant to be en route to Kentucky from Nairobi on Sunday (Jan. 29).
Eight years after being selected for a resettlement process in the US, he had finally gotten approval to leave Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, located in northeastern Kenya, for his new American home. But with a stroke of a pen two days earlier, US president Donald Trump had brought that dream to a halt, with an executive order on immigration that barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Somalia, from entering the US for the next 90 days, and a ban on the admission of all refugees for 120 days. Initially, the ban appeared to include US permanent residents from those countries—they were later exempted.
The decision and its unclear wording sparked protests at American airports, confused airlines and their crews, and left refugees in a state of despair. Somalia will be especially hard-hit by the suspension of refugee admittance. Egypt, Morocco are leading a rise in North African startup investment — Quartz. Nairobi, Kenya Adan Barre, a 20-year-old Somali refugee, was meant to be en route to Kentucky from Nairobi on Sunday (Jan. 29).
Eight years after being selected for a resettlement process in the US, he had finally gotten approval to leave Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, located in northeastern Kenya, for his new American home. But with a stroke of a pen two days earlier, US president Donald Trump had brought that dream to a halt, with an executive order on immigration that barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Somalia, from entering the US for the next 90 days, and a ban on the admission of all refugees for 120 days. Initially, the ban appeared to include US permanent residents from those countries—they were later exempted. The decision and its unclear wording sparked protests at American airports, confused airlines and their crews, and left refugees in a state of despair. Somalia will be especially hard-hit by the suspension of refugee admittance. Pan-African Bitcoin Startup BitPesa Raises $2.5 Milion. BitPesa, a prominent bitcoin payments startup that initially launched in Kenya in November 2013 before expanding its presence in countries in Africa and beyond, has announced a $2.5 million Series A round of funding.
The Series A round was led by noted US-based industry investor Draper VC, alongside participation from existing investors including the Digital Currency Group, Blockchain Capital, Pantera Capital Management, BnkToTheFuture, Zephyr Acorn and FuturePerfectVC. US venture capital firm Greycroft LLC joins as a new shareholder and investor. BitPesa CEO Elizabeth Rosielleo revealed that the funds will be used to focus on customer acquisition and the company’s growth with a focus in Nigeria, BitPesa’s largest market. African Agripreneurs Take the Spotlight. Photo: AfDB The series of workshops for "Agripreneurs" were organized by the AfDB's Agriculture and Agro-Industries Department (OSAN), which is led by Chiji Ojukwu and supported by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, as well as the Ministry for the Promotion of Youth, Youth Employment and Civic Engagement in Côte d'Ivoire.
On Friday 2nd December 2016, close to 25 young African agricultural entrepreneurs from various countries in the continent were welcomed at the AfDB's headquarters in Abidjan as part of a seminar and series of experience-sharing workshops. The event was organized by the Bank's Agriculture and Agro-Industries Department (OSAN), which is led by Chiji Ojukwu and supported by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, as well as the Ministry for the Promotion of Youth, Youth Employment and Civic Engagement in Côte d'Ivoire. The minister Sidi Timéoko Touré gave the opening address. Germany and African Tech Startups are Partners in Innovation.
Germany is lending support to African startups, and, in turn, taps into African innovation Representative from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development speaks at the Hub Conference in Berlin. Pitch your startup to investors at RiseUp in Egypt. Kenyan startup launches water monitoring tech. Kenyan startup Tech Water Solutions has launched a solution that uses GSM and sensor technology to monitor water levels in tanks and reservoirs. Launched in August after months of testing, Tech Water Solutions’ Tank Mkononi water monitoring system allows users such as residential owners, hotels and restaurants to monitor water levels in their tanks and reservoirs from any location using their mobile phones.
When water levels go below a programmed threshold, the system sends SMS alarms to up to 10 mobile numbers alerting them of the low level. The system can also be set to send timed SMS reports on water levels at specific hours or intervals throughout the day. Founder Kelvin Gacheru told Disrupt Africa the idea for the system had been inspired by the regularity of water shortages in Nairobi, and the resultant effects. “During this emergencies, water providers and tankers charge exorbitant prices and take advantage as they know people need water urgently,” he said. #AfricaCom: Africa's tech startup funding landscape in numbers. Tom Jackson, co-founder of Disrupt Africa, shared some of the report findings as part of the Ericsson AHUB stream at the AfricaCom conference that kicked off in Cape Town yesterday.
Top six destinations According to the report, 125 African tech startups raised $185,785,500 over the course of 2015 – equating to an impressive average of around $1.5 million per startup. Breaking the funding down into countries, South Africa came out on top with $54,568,000, which is 29% of the total amount of startup funding raised on the continent. In second place is Nigeria with $49,404,000, making up 26.6% of the total. Interestingly however, Jackson noted that owing to a large portion of South African funding going to one company, Nigeria in fact raised a higher average funding amount per company than any South African startup did. Kenya’s FarmDrive to use weather data for credit assessment. Kenyan agri-tech startup FarmDrive has partnered farming insurance firm ACRE Africa to utilise weather data for the provision of credit and insurance products to smallholder farmers throughout the East African country.
FarmDrive, which leverages alternative datasets to create comprehensive credit scores for farmers to allow them to have access to financial services, has had a big year, having recently won the Thomson Reuters Startup Challenge and raised funding from Mercy Corps Social Venture Fund and Engineers Without Borders Canada. The startup has now partnered ACRE Africa in order to create accurate and data-centred products for the unlocking and securing of credit for farmers in Africa.
FarmDrive will incorporate ACRE Africa’s comprehensive weather and climate data into its credit scoring algorithm to increase the predictive accuracy and suitability of the scores and products. Nigerian Startup Fashpa Revolutionizes How West Africans Buy Clothes. Returning to her childhood city of Lagos in 2004 after attending a British university, Honey Ogundeyi ventured out to Balogun market on a colleague’s advice to find a pair of sturdy black heels for her consulting internship.
That was enough to convince her Nigerian fashion needed to go online. “There’s no changing rooms; there’s no return policy; there’s no exchanges; there’s no authenticity. 'The home of unicorns': Nigeria's Yabacon Valley shows startups the road to tech success. Coders learn from the pros at CC Hub’s CodeCamp, an immersive four-week course that ends in an internship.
Photo by Co-Creation Hub When Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg visited Lagos’s burgeoning tech and startup hub it confirmed what Nigerians already knew: Yabacon Valley is the future. The Africa Report feels the full force of acceleration To the uninitiated, the young men and women eating lunch from noon onwards at the White House – a teeming restaurant in the Yaba area of Lagos – are simply chattering about boring work routines. Step closer, and you will hear the high-tech jargon more often heard 12,500km away in the San Francisco Bay area. Nearby Cafe Neo hosts those higher up in the hierarchy. While low oil prices sink the naira, the country is counting on other sectors to diversify the commodity-dependent economy. BitPesa automates payments between Africa and China. Nigerian startup Aajoh beta testing AI e-health innovation. Nigerian startup Aajoh is beta testing an e-health tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to diagnose patients.
Aajoh chief executive officer (CEO) Simi Adejumo was one of nine African entrepreneurs selected to attend the MITx Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp in Cambridge, Massachusetts in August of last year. This startup wants to create one million jobs in Africa - Ventures Africa. This startup is powering Uganda’s motorcycle taxi industry. Nigeria’s Black Friday sales test the e-commerce models of startups Jumia and Konga. 500 Startups is planning a tour of four African cities in March 2017. Nigerian agri-tech startup wins She Leads Africa demo day. Naija247news - Can Africa sustain this tech startup momentum? Africa ideal market for startups - Tiller. Tesla is acquiring part of an interesting startup trying to light up Africa through its SolarCity acquisition.
Kenya’s Cloud9 is a startup for adventure seekers. How the internet of things is inspiring startups in Africa today. World Bank to launch African accelerator programmes. Kenyan startup Kisafi expanding to Uganda, Nigeria. DusuPay is making African mobile money interoperable. Kenyan startup Kisafi expanding to Uganda, Nigeria. La start-up africaine de la semaine : FasoSoap, le savon "anti-palu" burkinabè qui vise l'Afrique. Africab ou comment rendre le transport urbain plus efficace - BBC Afrique.
Les hubs technologiques de startups innovantes se multiplient en Afrique. SafeMotos, la start-up qui veut « uberiser » les motos-taxis d’Afrique. SafeMotos, la start-up qui veut « uberiser » les motos-taxis d’Afrique. L'ancien champion de sport extrême Taïg Khris se lance dans les télécoms. Start-up africaine de l’année: La candidature déclarée ouverte de la COP. Un sommet de l’entrepreneuriat panafricain des start-up au Burkina Faso. E-business : l'eldorado africain. Imagerie : Mise en ligne d’une plateforme dédiée à l’Afrique.