The Innovation Village aims to create a new generation of entrepreneurs who solve industry and community challenges. In addition to the collaborative framework it provides for its members, it organizes events and programs to facilitate their development.
The Innovation Village is a springboard for entrepreneurs and innovators that strive to solve Africa’s most processing problems. Founded by C.K. Japheth, in 2015, it is a coworking space that offers business incubation and acceleration services to start-ups.
It aims to foster the emergence of a wave of businesses that not only have a measurable impact on the world but also significantly improve the lives of everyone on the planet. The incubator targets startups in the agritech, insurtech, energy, edtech, fintech, tourism, healthcare, supply chain, manufacturing, and media segments.
It implements several programs and initiatives, including the Uganda Innovation Week 2022, which brought together 1,000 participants, over 80 speakers, and more than 50 exhibitors. It also organizes the DataHack4Fi, an annual innovation competition that promotes evidence-based decision-making to improve the delivery of financial services to low-income people.
The incubator also organizes events to enable successful entrepreneurs to share their experiences. One such event is VILLAGE SOIREE, set to take place today, May 26.
To date, it has supported 2,000 entrepreneurs, including 40% women, in six segments. It also boasts a community of 140 start-ups, over $3 million raised, and 100 events hosted.
The startups it supported include Safepay, a digital payment solution for public transport users, UGIT Engineering and Consulting, a company offering consulting, engineering, and design services, and Infinity IcT Solutions, which aims to become a data center by providing quality information technology services.
Its partners for various activities include The Mastercard Foundation, Liquid Telecom, MTN, and UNCDF.
Melchior Koba
He is an expert in digitization, business strategy and development, and digital banking. With AgroSfer, he digitizes agriculture, providing appropriate solutions to the needs of cooperatives, agribusinesses, and governments.
Francis Dossou Sognon (photo) is a Beninese entrepreneur set on revolutionizing agriculture across Africa. In 2019, the industrial and systems engineering graduate founded AgroSfer for that purpose.
Through the agritech company, he designs and implements data-driven strategies to improve the agricultural value chain on the continent. He supports agricultural cooperatives, collects data in the field, and provides tailor-made support to small-scale farmers to help build sustainable supply chains for food industry players.
Currently, AgroSfer operates in Benin, France and Côte d’Ivoire. To help at least three million farmers easily sell their products to manufacturers by 2025, it developed a digital marketplace to connect farmers with international buyers. For the time being, it has reached some 20,000 farmers.
Francis Dossou Sognon is also one of the co-founders of Acumen Network, an African digitization company that aims to help businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations effectively address the challenges they face in transforming their activities.
His professional career began in 2006 at Valeo, an automotive supplier, where he was a lean engineer. He worked at Mastercard Advisors in the information services sales office in 2015 and as business development support between 2016 and 2017. In 2017, he joined Illicado, a forerunner in the French voucher market in France, as a digital program manager.
Melchior Koba
Nigeria, with its 218 million population, needs 363,000 doctors to reach the WHO’s recommended one doctor for every 600 residents. With the ratio becoming less attainable, authorities have decided to leverage the power of tech tools.
Last week, the Nigerian Federal government inaugurated NigComHealth, an e-health solution. The solution was developed in partnership with NigComSat, a Nigerian ICT and telecommunications company, Sawtrax, a Nigerian software company, and Ethnomet, a Canadian health technology start-up. The aim is to provide people, especially those in rural and remote areas, with better access to health care.
“The doctor-patient ratio in the country is getting worse, with a physician attending to more than 5,000 patients. This represents a stark contrast with WHO’s recommendation of one doctor to 600 patients. With 218 million people to cater to, Nigeria requires at least 363,000 additional doctors to meet this target,” which NigComHealth is expected to achieve, according to Professor Salahu Junaidu, the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy.
For several years now, the country has been the hotspot for the tech revolution in Africa. In the health sector, the number of healthtech solutions is multiplying and increasingly becoming a viable alternative to people with low or no access to health services. The solutions contribute to the achievement of the third sustainable development goal, which aims to ensure health and well-being for all by guaranteeing, among other things, universal access to medical coverage and health services.
However, despite the efforts, e-health solutions are not yet accessible to most rural populations. According to the GSMA, Sub-Saharan Africa had a 28% internet penetration rate in 2020. In addition, Nigeria particularly has the highest internet exclusion index in the world, according to a study published by World Data Lab in 2022. According to the same source, about 103 million people (out of a population of about 218 million) are "Internet poor," meaning they cannot afford the minimin Internet bundle.
In that context, if no additional measures are taken, NigComHealth, seen by politicians as the tool to resolve the desperate health access issue, may be just another healthtech solution in the Nigerian tech landscape.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Concree offers virtual and in-person incubation programs to foster entrepreneurship in Africa.
Concree is a Senegal-based incubator, which designs and manages solutions and programs to help early-stage startups grow from ideation to scalable business models. It was founded, in 2014, by Babacar Birane, a project manager by training, and Abdoul Sy, its chief technology officer.
The incubator focuses on developing the creative potentials of its coachees, supporting determined entrepreneurs in their efforts to create innovative, sustainable, and impactful businesses. It is always in support of selected entrepreneurs from the ideation stage to the first sale.
It has developed several coaching solutions, including LezGo, LezGo Light, and Wekomkom. The latter is an open incubation platform designed to help startups transform their ideas into products ready to be taken to markets. It connects entrepreneurs to upskilling, financing, and business development opportunities.
LezGo allows entrepreneurship support institutions to attract entrepreneurs and work in perfect collaboration with their incubation team and entrepreneurs and also review and improve their coaching activity.
LezGo Light, on the other hand, fosters collaboration and empowers users with dynamic tools. It also allows users to measure the impact of their coaching with monitoring and evaluation tools.
Apart from its tech solutions, Concree also collaborates with partners on entrepreneurship support projects. One of those projects is the Falling Walls Lab (June 8, 2023), an event during which participants present their innovative ideas. In its eight years of existence, Concree has supported 250 entrepreneurs through its programs, 3,000 entrepreneurs through its digital solutions, and worked with 20 institutional clients. Among the start-ups supported by the company are Aywajieune, an online platform that facilitates the purchase of fish and seafood, and Tolbi, a Senegalese agricultural technology company.
Melchior Koba
Over the past two years, several strategic sectors of the Malagasy economy have adopted tech tools to transform operating models. Even in the agricultural sector, authorities who are aware of the need to transform the sector for more efficiency are gradually encouraging the adoption of those tools.
Last Saturday, two Malagasy Ministries signed a partnership agreement with the local association Agritech Madagascar to accelerate the use of ICT tools in the agriculture sector. The two Ministries concerned were the Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock (MINAE) Digital Development, Digital Transformation, Posts and Telecommunications (MNDPT)
That agreement aims to pool resources, skills, and experiences to accelerate the modernization of the rural world and facilitate farmers’ access to information and means to develop their activities.
"Actors in the agricultural sector are unanimous on the need to digitalize agricultural services. Digitization is also an important element for the transformation and improvement of agriculture in Madagascar," said Minister of Agriculture Harifidy Janset Ramilison.
The Malagasy government pays special attention to agriculture in the country. In recent years, it has taken several actions to boost efficiency in the sector. According to the World Bank, the agricultural sector remains the "backbone" of the Malagasy economy, accounting for 70% of total employment and 29% of GDP.
The new partnership was signed on the sidelines of the Conference on Digital Transformation in Africa (ATDA). It will back the projects underway in the country, including the distribution of digital cards to farmers, the implementation of a system of traceability and identification by electronically readable forgery-proof loops, and the development of the national strategy for the digitalization of agricultural services.
Samira Njoya
After working for five years in American firms such as Yahoo, Bassem Bouguerra decided to return to his country, Tunisia, where he launched a start-up shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic.
IntiGo is an e-mobility solution developed by a Tunisian start-up. It allows users to book taxi scooters and vehicles for hire for their errands and package deliveries. The Tunis-based startup was founded in 2019 by Bassem Bouguerra and Nebil Jridet. Since its launch, it has raised $1.6 million to develop its technology, expand its offerings and accelerate its growth in Tunisia, among other things.
"We provide our customers with comfortable and [most modern] cars. We also offer coupons and do not increase prices during peak hours," explained Bassem Bouguerra.
Via its mobile application -available for Android and iOS devices, users can signup to access its services. For a lift, users enter their destination and get quotes for every transportation means available. Then, they can choose the means they want and even filter based on drivers’ ratings or the nearest ride.
In addition to urban transportation, the startup deals with package, grocery, and food delivery. It has seven warehouses where items can be stored. During the coronavirus pandemic, the startup recorded a boom in the number of weekly deliveries. But, after that period, it went from an average of 2,000 to 600 deliveries weekly.
By 2023, IntiGo was claiming more than 200,000 runs and 60,000 app downloads. According to Play Store statistics, its Android app has been downloaded more than 50,000 times, which corroborates the figures put forward by the start-up. IntiGo has expansion plans but, it wants to wait for the right timing, the right destination, and the right product that can compete in international markets.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
After going through an incubation program in 2022, the Kenyan agritech launched its pilot phase in February 2023. Then, with its partners, it decided to proceed to the official launch this month.
Tawi is an agritech marketplace developed by a Kenyan startup. It allows hotels, restaurants, caterers, schools, and hospitals, to directly access fresh produce from small-scale farmers via its web platform. The startup, founded by Cherotich Rutto, launched its platform in 2023 after incubating with SC Ventures, a subsidiary of British bank Standard Chartered.
“Tawi will connect our farmers to an estimated Sh200 billion (US$1.6 billion) market opportunity. Through this platform, farmers will earn more for their produce while also improving the supply-chain efficiency of high-quality products to commercial clients," said Cherotich Rutto, the founder and CEO of Tawi.
The solution does not have a mobile app yet. So, users need to visit its web platform to register either as buyers or sellers.
Between February 2023 when it started testing the platform and May 2023 when it officially launched, Tawi has registered more than 1,000 farmers, and 250 commercial kitchens and made more than 1,000 deliveries.
Deliveries are managed by the startup’s logistics teams, 12 to 18 hours after the orders (a minimum of Ksh2,000 or $14.71) are completed.
The agritech ensures that at least 25 percent of the farmers it partners with are women and youth and that 90 percent of the produce comes directly from farmers. It also plans to integrate financial services like loans and microinsurance, as well as agronomic assistance to spearhead the adoption of good agricultural practices. For the time being, the startup, launched on May 9, 2023, has no expansion plan.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
The 2nd edition of the B2B Digital Day, organized to let companies discover the latest digital trends and technologies in Côte d'Ivoire, will be held in Abidjan next June 22.
The event, organized by marketing and business development consultancy agency Yadec Consulting, builds on the objectives of the first edition, which was to encourage actors of the Ivorian markets to adopt digital technologies to transform and grow their businesses.
The theme chosen for the B2B Digital Day 2023 is: "Business Digitalization: Practices and Tools."
In the digital era, data generated by internet users are raw materials for various multinationals. Restricting its misuse is a security issue, particularly in Africa where regulations are somewhat lax.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced on Monday (May 22), a €1.2 billion fine against Meta Platforms Ireland Limited. The fine was imposed over the violation of Article 46 (1) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in relation to the unlawful processing and storage of European Facebook users’ data in the U.S.
Meta Platforms Ireland Limited is allowed five months to "suspend any future transfer of personal data to the United States," six months to stop "the unlawful processing, including storage, in the United States" of the transferred EU personal data. The Irish CPO's decision comes in the week marking the fifth anniversary of the GDPR, which became effective on May 25, 2018.
The decision issued Monday by the Irish regulator is the umpteenth in a series of fines that stems from a multitude of complaints filed, since 2011, by privacy activist Max Schrems.
It calls on African authorities to regulate the management of African users’ private data by multinationals such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google ... whose services are used by hundreds of millions of people on the continent.
The African Union Convention on Cybersecurity and the Protection of Personal Data adopted on June 27, 2014, which aims to protect personal data is yet to become effective. As of April 11, 2023, it was ratified by 14 countries. The last country to ratify it was Côte d'Ivoire, on March 8, 2023. As per Article 36, one more ratification is needed for the text to officially become effective.
Muriel Edjo
During the coronavirus pandemic, the African ecommerce industry grew quickly, affecting related sectors, including the delivery segment whose solutions have multiplied across the continent.
Wiikko is a digital marketplace developed by a Congolese start-up. It connects consumers to various businesses and provides parcel delivery for commercial transactions.
Through its mobile app -available on Playstore and Appstore, users can sign up for a Wiikko account and access the listed stores, including fast-foods, restaurants, and supermarkets.
When users complete their purchase, the startup also takes care of the last-mile delivery, thanks to its delivery drivers. Right from the app, users can provide every information required to ensure smooth deliveries. Wiikko is committed to ensuring that deliveries are made within the hour by trained professionals. "We have helped over 50 drivers provide better delivery service through training. Before Wiikko, most of them were unregistered motorcycle cab drivers," the platform says.
The startup claims more than a thousand merchants on its platform, more than 50,000 delivered orders, some 25,000 users, and more than 16,000 active customers. Play Store data corroborates the user numbers as the Android version of the app has already been downloaded more than 50,000 times.
Currently, Wiikko is active in Kinshasa, the largest city in DRC with 16 million residents. According to founder Eric Bemba, in DRC, the startup targets the 5 million and counting active social media users. It also plans to expand outside the country in a later phase.
“Our vision is to become the pan-African delivery service with one of the largest networks of merchants and delivery partners on the continent to promote sustained, shared, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent employment for all," Wiikko says.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
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The incubator and accelerator supports tech startups, providing resources and coaching to help startups grow.
Zixtech Hub is a business incubator and accelerator based in Cameroon. Officially established in 2017 by Paul Mbua, it aims to become a hub where people turn ideas into businesses. As such, it provides young people with the skills, information, training, network, and tools to create sustainable businesses.
It supports companies that develop greentech, cleantech, agritech, healthtech, logitech, fintech and edtech solutions. Its incubation program, called ZixtechCubation, focuses on “ideation and growth” and includes three months of “guided both self-paced and Expert-led sessions.”
Zixtech Hub has initiated several acceleration programs, including Agritech Accelerator and Greentech Accelerator. The former connects agritech startups with mentors and experts while the latter focuses on greentech startups.
In addition to these programs, the support agency has developed an innovative, hands-on entrepreneurship academy called Startup Academy to foster innovation and creativity. It also offers mentoring sessions -Mentorship Hour- with startups and entrepreneurs facing various challenges in the ecosystem.
In addition, Zixtech Hub offers consulting services to governments, non-governmental organizations, business support organizations, and companies with experienced professionals in their field. The incubator also offers web development services, ICT solutions, digital marketing, and artificial intelligence solutions.
For its activities, Zixtech partners with international and national agencies like the European Union, AfriLabs, International Trade Centre, Enrich in Africa, Digital Africa, and GIZ. It covers more than 17 countries. It also collaborated with some 60 clients on 45 projects, claiming a 100% success rate.
Melchior Koba
Orange launched Djoliba, West Africa's first pan-African backbone, in 2020 to support the digital ecosystem and meet the growing need for connectivity in the region.
Broadband connectivity provider Angola Cables and telecom operator Orange recently signed an infrastructure-sharing agreement on the West African Djoliba backbone. The collaboration allows Angola Cables to leverage Orange's Djoliba network to strengthen its presence in French-speaking West African markets.
“Access to the West Africa Djoliba network and our robust submarine infrastructure broadens the capability of businesses to access international markets and offers expanded traffic destinations across West Africa and other parts of the world,” said Rui Faria, Angola Cables’ global commercial director.
The Djoliba network was unveiled in 2020 by Orange. It is the first fully secured network in West Africa with more than 10,000 km of terrestrial fiber optic network, coupled with 10,000 km of submarine cable. It gives very high-speed offers (up to 100 Gbit/s) and a 99.99% availability rate. This network covers 16 points of presence with a mesh of nearly 155 technical sites and links 300 points of presence in Europe, America, and Asia.
Thanks to the agreement with Orange, Angola Cables will combine this new capacity with its global network of international submarine cables such as WACS, SACS, MONET, and EllaLink to offer secure, low-latency connectivity, digital and cloud services to businesses in the region.
The partnership is part of the strategy launched by Angola Cables in 2020 to increase partnerships and investments to meet the growing demand for broadband connectivity, in Africa and beyond.
Samira Njoya
The digital economy is already disrupting the labor market in Africa, where a significant lack of basic, intermediate, and advanced digital skills still exists. To address this skills gap, educational institutions are exploring the educational segment. Additionally, some other companies are also getting involved, albeit for different purposes.
Since its inauguration in October 2021, Orange Digital Center (ODC) has trained 1,900 individuals, including 60% women, in digital skills in Madagascar, according to Frédéric Debord (photo), CEO of telecom operator Orange Madagascar. More than 600 of the learners from this digital skills acquisition center were professionally inserted, we learn. According to Frédéric Debord, the Malagasy-based ODC is the only one in the 15 similar centers across Africa to have achieved such performance.
The executive made those comments at the 12th edition of the Conference on Digital Transformation in Africa (ATDA), held on May 19-20, 2023 under the theme "Human Capital: Catalyst for a successful African digital ecosystem.” During this international meeting, Frédéric Debord called on African digital actors to invest in training nearly 650 million individuals in digital skills on the continent by 2030.
According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), more than 230 million jobs will require digital skills by 2030 in sub-Saharan Africa, which will translate into nearly 650 million training opportunities. The institution points out that digital skills will be among the seven most important skills in the future. Yet the current workforce does not have an adequate supply of these skills, and the gap between supply and demand, which is larger in sub-Saharan Africa than in other regions, is likely to grow.
For now, African education systems are not being reformed fast enough to take those realities into account. However, private training organizations are already moving to meet the needs with fee-based training. Sometimes, the trainings are free, thanks to investments made by companies as part of their social commitment.
For instance, under its corporate responsibility, Orange has deployed 42 women digital centers, in addition to its ODCs. The centers have helped train more than 10,000 unqualified and unemployed women in digital skills. The group has also deployed 240 Digital Schools in Madagascar, and more than 400,000 students and teachers are benefiting from the program, which aims to improve the quality of education, promote equal access to digital education and encourage the use of digital tools in schools.
The solution is the result of one of its co-founders’ experiences. Indeed, when her grandmother got serious burns and was to be hospitalized, there was no one to assist her at the hospital since her parents also had chronic diseases. That is how she decided to create a solution to avoid such pain for others.
Mbombo Home Care is an e-health solution developed by a Cameroonian start-up, founded in 2019. It allows elderly and dependent persons to get home healthcare services.
"Mbombo Home Care assists elderly and dependent people in Cameroon every day. We have a personalized approach to home care and choose the best options to meet your expectations," it says on its web platform.
Currently, it has no mobile app. So, users need to visit its web platform to book its services. Once they click on the “Book an appointment” option on the web platform, users are redirected to a Whatsapp account where they can discuss their needs.
Among other things, Mbombo Home Care offers geriatric and general consultations, nursing and life support services, physical therapy, and even daycare services. The healthtech also rents or sells wheelchairs, anti-scarring mattresses, canes, walkers, and crutches.
In 2021, it had a team of about twenty people, of which 90% were women. They included doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé. Despite the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on its activities, it has continued to grow.
Adoni Conrad Quenum