TECH STARS (833)
The former banker made a nice professional transition after twenty years in the U.S and France. Nowadays, his tech company positively impacts several sectors like public governance and health in his native country, Guinea.
Mountaga Keïta (photo) is a Guinean entrepreneur and founder of green kiosks manufacturer Tulip Industries Ltd. The tech company, launched in 2017, creates digital terminals for public and private actors, therefore supporting digitalization efforts.
For Mountaga, “with digitalization, there is no discrimination whatsoever and payment collected land directly where they are supposed to be.” He initiated the process for the creation of Tulip Industries in 2015 when he returned to his native country, Guinea, after twenty-three years in France and the USA. He finally launched the company in 2017, and, within a few years, it established credibility, won multiple contracts, and developed new products. For instance, it has already launched three terminals for the health sector (for cardiology, thermography, and ultrasound scanning). In early 2020, it won a contract to equip Guinean hospitals with its telemedicine terminals. The World Food Programme also ordered some of its products while various public administrations (the Rotama township namely) expressed interest in its green kiosks.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Mountaga Keïta built a telehealth tablet (Health Scan) equipped with a thermal camera and sensors that measure body temperature as well as the level of oxygen in the blood, and the heart rate. The data collected help identify Covid-19 positive cases and determine whether those cases required hospitalization.
Thanks to the innovative products developed by Tulip Industries Ltd, Mountaga has won several awards. He was for instance the winner of the 2017 Digital Week in Guinea. At the 2018 Africa Innovation Summit, he was named one of the top African innovators. The same year, he received the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) gold medal. In 2019, he also received the gold medal from the French Inventors Association and the European Inventors Association Award.
All those achievements are the result of the strong professional experience he built with several financial institutions in the U.S. He has for instance been a senior banker for Bank of America.
Melchior Koba
In just six years, his fintech startup has gone from three employees to close to a hundred. It also won several awards and recognitions.
Idriss Marcial Monthe (photo) is a Cameroonian entrepreneur and co-founder of fintech startup CinetPay. The startup based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, allows companies and institutions operating in Francophone Africa to collect payments via mobile money, bank cards, and related financial solutions.
According to Martial, CinetPay is a convenient solution to the challenges faced by digital entrepreneurs when it comes to collecting payments. As he explains, online bank payment solutions are the most popular means but, they are not suited to the African market. Meanwhile, it was hard to integrate mobile money, which is possibly the most used payment means on the continent.
Currently, the platform plans to cover all of the 15 Francophone African countries by 2025. For that purpose, in December 2021, Martial announced a US$2.4 million seed funding secured from 4DX Ventures and Flutterwave. Gone are the days when the payment aggregator had to support its expansion plans with funds won during competitions and programs. According to the co-founder, in its onset, in 2016, CinetPay was supported by a US$5,000 grant from the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Program. In 2017, it also won US$2,000 during the Euromena Awards organized in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
Thanks to the funds raised in December 2021, the fintech startup will expand its presence and become the leading payment aggregator in Francophone Africa. Its growth is to some extent due to the decade of professional experience garnered by Marcial in the African tech industry. In 2005, the same year when he graduated from ENSIT Côte d’Ivoire with a computer science engineering degree, he joined the e-commerce startup Cimarket, which went bankrupt in 2007. In 2009, he co-founded the e-services platform Cinetcore. Between 2015 and 2020, he was the manager of IT solutions company SOCITECH’s Veritas and Oracle business unit. Since September 2005, he is the manager of the Linux and freeware department of AI3L, an Ivorian non-profit association that trains young people in mobile technologies.
Melchior Koba
During his post-graduate studies in France, he witnessed the success of the ridesharing platform Blablacar and how it helped improve users’ traveling conditions. He later decided to replicate the success in Africa, while taking into account local realities.
Raynald Ballo (photo) is the founder and CEO of Raynis, a startup based in Abomey-Calavi, Benin. The startup specializes in the development of web solutions and supports clients in their digital transformation. Its founder made a name for himself in the African tech industry in 2021, with the launch of RMobility, a mobility platform.
RMobility is a ridesharing app that connects drivers who wish to share their empty seats with passengers who want to travel securely and cheaply. Currently, it claims over 10,000 ridesharers in Benin and Togo.
“... RMobility is first and foremost one of the modern solutions born from the digital revolution in Africa. [...] it helps save money, meet new people and maintain the social bond between members of RCommunauté [note: RMobility users] who are mostly young people,” Raynald Ballo explains. The tech entrepreneur adds that the solution helps the youth contribute to the reduction of green gas emissions.
The success of RMobility demonstrates users’ need for affordable mobility solutions. In that light, Raynald replicated the concept in the parcel delivery segment with RColis, a platform that allows the delivery of the RCommunauté’s parcels. RDigital was also created to develop web and mobile solutions to support clients’ projects.
Raynald's involvement in the mobility segment is the result of years of professional experience in that segment. He was a parking studies manager for the Urban Forum initiated by Sciences Po Bordeaux, France. He later worked as a researcher for ITEC Etudes, a consulting firm specializing in transportation and traffic surveys. He was also a mobility and transport project manager for travel agency Prêt à Partir and a parking study engineer for SARECO, a transport and mobility research company. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student in geography and planning in Nantes, France.
Melchior Koba
After trying times in the development of his first project, the young entrepreneur came to the limelight in 2016. Since then, he has rolled out several innovative solutions and won many awards.
The name Arthur Zang came to the limelight in the Cameroonian health sector in 2016 when he launched the production of Cardiopad, a connected electrocardiogram. The electrocardiogram is constituted of tablets and electrodes.
The tablets have many apps, including the electrocardiograph, which allows a complete cardiac examination. They also have the electrocardioscope that help record patients' cardiac activity and analyze them in real-time. The tablets also have a telecardiology app through which the various cardiac data recorded can be transferred to specialists for analysis.
Arthur Zang started working on a prototype in 2009. For the tech entrepreneur who grew up in Mbankomo, a small town located 20 kilometers from Yaoundé, the aim with Cardiopad was to find a solution to the low number of heart specialists in Africa.
To successfully carry out his project, in 2015, he was awarded US$45,000 (by Cameroonian President Paul Biya). He complemented the financial resources with the equipment received after winning the Microsoft Imagination Competition.
In 2021, Cardiopad was already used by 267 public health institutions in Cameroon. Some private hospitals have also adopted the solution. The tool is also used outside the national borders, in Gabon notably. Thanks to Cardiopad, the former chief computer engineer of the Catholic University of Central Africa (2013 to 2014) has won several awards such as the Rolex Foundation Prize in 2014, and the gold medal of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation in 2016.
During the Covid-19 crisis, the tech entrepreneur distinguished himself again with a new tool, the Oxynnet, a medical oxygen generator capable of producing 95% pure oxygen from ambient air. The generator, which can be controlled remotely, is connected to the electricity network or the solar panel used by hospitals. It allows them to produce 60 liters of medical oxygen every minute and supply at least 10 patients simultaneously.
Melchior Koba
He plans to become the banker of the African unbanked population. To achieve his ambition, his idea is to combine mobile money services, which are popular on the continent, with international financial tools.
Roger Nengwe Ntafam (photo) is a Cameroonian artificial intelligence engineer and the co-founder of fintech PaySika. The startup he co-founded in February 2020, with Stezen Bisselou facilitates money transfers through a mobile app that can be loaded with mobile money. It also allows users to manage their money in real-time from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Telegram and offers requesters free virtual cards for international or online transactions.
The entrepreneur explains that he got the inspiration for this payment solution from the tribulations his father, a shop owner, used to go through for stocktaking, accounting, and petty cash management. The main thing that pushed him to create the solution was the challenge he faced while trying to pay his tuition fees during his engineering studies at Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France. At the time, he did not have a bank account, and paying those tuition fees was a real challenge for him.
The startup claims over 20,000 users were registered on its waitlist during the pre-launch phase. In October 2021, it raised US$300,000 from British, French, and Nigerian investors to launch activities (in the first quarter of 2022). Its current target markets are Cameroon and Gabon.
Roger's professional and entrepreneurial journey began after a brief stint in the oil industry, working as an assistant operator for Exxon Mobile.
Before starting the PaySika adventure, Roger Nengwe Ntafam sharpened his entrepreneurial skills with MyMoney, which he co-founded in 2019. The startup created a chatbot that allows users to easily manage their finances.
But even before that venture, he developed many skills, in financial technology notably, with several research centers such as the North-East Midi-Pyrénées Multidisciplinary Research Laboratory (LRPmip) and the Artificial Intelligence Center in Prague, Czech Republic.
He also participated in various entrepreneurial support and tech innovation programs such as the first cohort of French Tech Tremplin, a high-impact entrepreneurial coaching program, in 2019. In March 2022, he joined the Founder Institute's Entrepreneur in Residence program.
Melchior Koba
The tech and insurance entrepreneur has over fifteen years of professional experience in Europe and Africa. In 2018, he invested in two growth sectors: fintech and telecom namely.
Souleymane Gning (photo) is a Senegalese entrepreneur and telecom engineer. In 2018, he founded Assuraf, an insurance broker.
The aim of “Assuraf is to use online and offline communication medium to simply show Africans the inner working of the insurance sector to get them more exposed to the sector, understand its critical role and the coverage it offers,” Souleymane explains.
The insurance entrepreneur was able to successfully implement his project thanks first to his telecom engineering master’s obtained at the University of Poitiers, France, in 2003 and his over fifteen years of professional experience. He developed his professional skills in various companies, including SFR in France and Sonatel in Senegal, where he held his first management position from 2003 to 2006. He later became Cisco System’s Public Sector Manager for West and Central Africa and then Business Consultant Sicap SA (Swisscom). He also worked at Upstream, Persado, Sandvine and was a senior education advisor for EM Normandie Business School.
In 2018, the same year when he founded Assuraf, he founded eConnect, a telecom, media, and tech firm. The tech firm provides commercial tech solutions in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Melchior Koba
Six years ago, he decided to put his IT skills and international professional experience at the service of African countries. Today, he has several clients and awards thanks to the solutions he developed to help combat environmental crimes.
Badr Idrissi (photo) is a Moroccan entrepreneur and co-founder of tech startup Atlan Space. The startup, launched in 2016, builds artificial intelligence solutions to pilot fixed-wing drones. It aims to help African countries have affordable surveillance equipment to combat environmental crimes, illegal fishing notably.
In an interview with Médias24, Idrissi explained that some countries, African notably, did not have tech solutions to effectively monitor and protect their oceans and fishery resources while "developed countries use several powerful tools, including light aircraft, satellite surveillance and other tech tools that cost millions, even tens of millions of dollars,” for the same purpose. His aim through Atlan Space is therefore to help monitor large geographical areas for the identification of anomalies or environmental threats to human health.
In 2021, Badr Idrissi successfully raised 10 million dirhams (US$1 million) to expand his startup’s intervention sector to include deforestation, desertification, and illegal mining. Last February, the startup also launched a new product.
For Atlan Space's contribution to the environment, Badr Idrissi has received several awards, including the Marine Protection Prize from the National Geographic Society and the African Entrepreneurship Award. This year, Atlan Space was one of 45 start-ups competing for the AfricaTech Awards organized during the 2022 edition of Viva Technology from June 15 to 18.
Melchior Koba
He started a tech entrepreneurship venture to improve the quality of healthcare in Africa. Barely seven years later, he is one of the influential figures on the global healthTech scene.
Imodoye Abioro (photo) is a Nigerian doctor, entrepreneur, and self-taught IBM Cloud software developer. He is the founder of Healthbotics Ltd, a health tech whose stated mission is to “solve Africa’s perennial healthcare challenges.”
The young doctor and entrepreneur started Healthbiotics following the death of his best friend who bled to death in the emergency room where he was working as a Doctor-on-call. “...that loss almost broke me and so I was motivated to do something about some of these perennial problems facing our hospitals and care delivery system,” he told Pan-African Visions in an interview in 2021.
To fulfill its mission, with Abioro at the helm, Healthbiotics developed two flagship products notably Mediverse and Lend an Arm. The first is a digital AI-powered health record backed by blockchain technology. It allows doctors and nurses to record patients’ health information “with just their voice, eliminating the endless need for writing and typing.” The second product was created in 2017 to connect blood donors and hospitals with blood banks. With that mobile and web AI-powered solution, blood donors and recipients can chat, organize, or join a blood donation campaign. They can also find the nearest blood bank.
The two products earned Abioro several awards in 2020, including the AI for development Challenge, the Young Innovator Award at the World Summit Awards, and the African App Launchpad Cup. In 2021, he was one of the winners of the African Young Innovator Award for Health.
Apart from Healthbiotics, he also co-founded Bimi Online for Africa (in 2018), a health information aggregation platform that he served until December 2019 as the Chief Technology Officer. He was also, from 2019 to 2020, the Chief Technology Officer of Future Food Project, a startup committed to “ending malnutrition in Africa.”
Melchior Koba
By training, he was destined for a career in public health and epidemiological surveillance. However, he chose digital entrepreneurship. Nowadays, he is a startup builder whose ambition is to develop effective solutions for well-defined needs in Africa.
Amos Avoce (photo) is a Beninese digital entrepreneur and founder of 229Founders, a startup studio he launched this year. In his own words, “229Founders is neither an incubator nor an accelerator or a coworking space. It is a startup builder.”
“Incubators and accelerators incubate startups but 229Founders creates startups,” he stresses. Through the startup builder, Amos, and his team identify needs that can be addressed with lasting and efficient tech solutions. They then issue calls for expression of interest for co-founders interested in creating solutions for those needs, back the startup in charge of addressing the needs (they take stakes in those startups) from creation till the marketing of the solutions created.
Amos is not a newcomer in the Beninese tech ecosystem. In 2017, he had already co-founded Bénin FinTech (BFT), a startup guiding financial institutions in their digital transformation. BFT notably developed SmartPay, a fintech solution that allows microfinance institutions to digitalize their savings and credit issuance processes. The startup also developed SmartAgri, a system facilitating agricultural credits.
The young social entrepreneur is a graduate of the University of Parakou’s National School of Technicians in Public Health and Epidemiological Surveillance (in Benin). In 2011, one year before his graduation, he joined Give1Project, an NGO dedicated to “building strong and healthy communities.” He is, since 2013, the country manager for ADS Group, which “designs and implements solutions to help develop Africa.”
He also actively participated in the deployment of the Akon Lighting Africa project started by Senegalese-American singer Akon.
Melchior Koba
During his medical studies, he stumbled upon a scientific paper that prompted him to streamline health exchange and collaboration. The innovation now helps save lives and earns its founder accolades and awards.
Sedric Degbo (photo) is a Beninese doctor, entrepreneur, and founder of the African Doctors' Exchange Network (REMA). For the entrepreneur, “health exchange and collaboration always save lives.” Therefore, his mission with REMA is to make the exchange and collaboration process more efficient with digitalization.
His network allows remote medical collaboration and facilitates collective intelligence and solidarity between doctors practicing on the African continent. Its mobile platform gives doctors the opportunity to discuss practical cases in real-time with their colleagues for improved medical decisions. Currently, it claims an active community of over 6,000 doctors, most from West Africa.
Sedric got the idea to create REMA in 2016 during a research work when he stumbled upon a scientific paper on medical mistakes in the world.
“The conclusions were really alarming, so I decided out of curiosity to find the data concerning Africa… The figures specified by numerous authors proved that medical mistakes are real public health issues on our continent. An analysis of those figures demonstrates that beyond the organizational challenges of the African health system, the high number of medical mistakes on the continent is due to doctors’ low level of information, their isolation, and the lack of a suitable mechanism to communicate with peers,” he explained in 2020.
Thanks to REMA, the young entrepreneur who worked for Caritas International between 2016 and 2019 has received numerous awards. In 2019, he was awarded the first Inwidays prize in Casablanca and the first BreizhAfrica prize in Paris. He also received the second Afric'Up prize in Tunis. The following year, he received the Covid-19 Solidarity Award from the International Organization of the Francophonie. This year, he is on the Medika Life 50, a list of the 50 most influential voices in the healthcare industry. Since September 2021, he is a member of the executive board of Bluemind Foundation, an NGO making mental healthcare accessible for every African.
Melchior Koba
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In 2010, he returned to his native country because of family issues. During that period, he identified needs he could help with and created Famib Group with the ambition of contributing to digital transformation. Some dozen years later, that ambition is still much intact.
Amadou Diawara (photo) is a Franco-Malian computer scientist, an entrepreneur, and the founder of FAMIB Group, a Bamako-based software company. In 2010, he was working as an office manager for WFS (Worldwide Flight Services) in France when family issues forced him to return to Mali. Once in his native country, he became aware of the various needs in the local market, so he established Famib Group to answer them. Over the years, the group has grown significantly with a presence in Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Niger, Rwanda, Canada, and the USA.
Through Famib Group, Amadou Diawara heads several subsidiaries including Famib Consulting (specialized in consulting services), Delta Challenge (develops integrated digital solutions), and incubator FAMIB Labs. He also launched the Kingui Express marketplace and the Kingui Social network, the e-wallet payment system Xaalisi (creator of the Xaalisi and Mali Wari cryptocurrencies), and the Kingui Coin exchange platform, the Mali Virtual University, and Cluster Digital Africa whose aim is to improve the African digital ecosystem.
The Knight of the National Order of Mali considers himself one of Africa’s “digital transformers.” He is also committed to innovation research for the development of Africa because, “with everyone’s help, we can create unprecedented opportunities,” on the continent.
Melchior Koba
His professional career started in 2011 when he joined his family’s business Food & Beverage Madagascar. But nowadays, he is a seasoned entrepreneur serving clients from every part of the globe.
Habib Hassim (photo) is a Malagasy entrepreneur and the co-founder of SmartOne Group, a startup specializing in data labeling and AI advisory. The startup started, in 2012, as a call center but gradually expanded its services. It now serves a broad range of industries notably mobility, e-commerce, agriculture, health, biosecurity, media, and finance. It provides those industries with smart tools that improve decision-making and management.
On June 10, 2022, Hassim signed a partnership agreement with telecom operator Orange Madagascar to implement a joint AI training program and facilitate the professional integration of Malagasy long-term job seekers and those who are no longer in the education system, being trained, or working.
His professional career began in 2011 with Food & Beverage Madagascar, the country’s largest agri-food producer and, distributor. He is now the managing director of the agri-food producing group controlled by his family. In 2019, he became the head of private equity fund manager Inside Capital Partners to “build next-generation champions.”
Melchior Koba
After a short professional career as a marketing and web strategy consultant for SQLI Group in France, he returned to his native country, Senegal. At 24, he was one of the digital marketing pioneers in his country with the creation of People Input.
Serigne Barro (photo) is the CEO and founder of consulting firm People Input. The Dakar-based firm was established in 2002. It guides firms in their strategic marketing decisions and develops innovative solutions that give those firms competitive advantages.
According to its CEO, People Input creates websites for its clients and helps them get visibility, on social media particularly. When it started operations, the startup had to face notable challenges. “When we first entered the [Senegalese] market, firms were not aware of the importance of the services we were offering and did not care much. We had to inform and convince them,” the CEO explains. He succeeded in doing just that. Nowadays, besides Senegal, the startup is also present in Cameroon, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso.
Thanks to People Input, he received several awards, including the 2012 WAEMU Award for best ICT Initiative. He also received the national award for the best ICT company in Senegal in 2012. Then, in 2016, he received the award for the best digital agency in Senegal and the best business solution in West Africa.
In 2014, he co-founded the communication agency Voice Africa, a joint-venture formed with advertising firm Dentsu SSA. Since 2018, he is the CEO of Dentsu SSA’s Francophone Hub. In 2020, in recognition of his achievement in the digital sector, he was appointed a member of Senegal’s National Digital Council.
Melchior Koba
His professional career taught him how important technology was for company development. Back in his native country, he wants to invest in the field to save time and streamline operations.
Henri Ousmane Gueye (photo) is a Senegalese software engineer and entrepreneur. In 2015, he co-founded (with John Diatta) Eyone, a software company based in Dakar, Senegal. His company also specializes in IT systems architecture consulting and supports businesses in their digitalization efforts.
Through Eyone, he helped digitize the operations of several Senegalese hospitals and collaborated with the Ministry of Health and Social Security on several projects.
For the software engineer, digital solutions can help streamline operations and save time. For instance, he says “when going for a health check, patients usually waste time answering the same questions and going through the same medical examinations. Also, health professionals lack quality data.” But, all of these can be addressed with digital tools.
Under Ousmane’s leadership, Eyone has expanded from its Dakar base to France, Mali, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Gabon. The success achieved by the startup earned the co-founder several awards, including the second prize in the national phase of the 2017 Orange MENA Social Entrepreneur Prize.
Before pursuing an entrepreneurship career, Ousmane acquired extensive professional experience. In 2006, after a Master's in software engineering (in France), he joined Capgemini as a software engineer. Three years later, he became a contractural software developer for asset manager Lyxor and later a consultant for BNP Paribas Arbitrage.
Melchior Koba