TECH STARS

TECH STARS (1006)

For over 17 years, he worked in the African telecommunications sector. As the head of Silikin Village in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he is working to create a dynamic entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Raymond Mendy (photo) is a Senegalese entrepreneur and business leader. He is a graduate of the University of Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC), where he earned a master's in administration (1999). He also holds an executive certificate in international marketing (2009) from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. In 2020, he was appointed as the head of the incubator Silikin Village based in Kinshasa, DR Congo.

As the general manager, he oversees the development and implementation of the incubator’s strategy to search, attract and integrate deserving and qualified entrepreneurs and startups. He also supervises the development of partnerships with other incubators and accelerators to build entrepreneurial programs supported by donors and development partners. 

Silikin Village, which he manages, is an entrepreneurship and innovation hub established in the heart of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the TEXAF Group, a publicly traded company focusing on real estate and the digital, among others. It claims to be a catalyst for start-ups and companies whose mission is to identify talent and develop innovative products and services.

With the challenges related to access to infrastructure, youth employability, and competitiveness facing the Congolese economy, Silikin Village offers its support service for the development of the economic fabric by providing workspaces as well as training and coaching for entrepreneurs/start-ups and SMEs,” Raymond Mendy said in  2022.

Currently, apart from his duties at Silikin Village, the entrepreneur is also a strategic advisor to e-waste management startup SetTIC and Maishapay Fintech. He is also one of the directors of the digital communication platform LAfricaMobile. In 2018, in Senegal, he co-founded Di-Smart, a digital company offering website creation, mobile application development, and business automation services.

He entered the professional world in 1999 when he joined the telecom company OneTel as a business process analyst. In 2001, he joined Millicom as a revenue assurance manager before being promoted to the position of financial analyst in 2003. In 2005, he was hired by Celtel International as a revenue assurance manager. 

In April 2006, he became the Country Manager of Exp Agency in Cameroon. Seven months later, in the DRC, he was appointed Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management Manager by telecom operator Zain. In March 2009, he was promoted to head the company's marketing segments.

Eight months later, he joined Airtel DRC as Marketing Manager. Then, in 2011, Airtel appointed him as marketing director in Niger before he became the CEO in 2014. In 2018, he was hired as the regional business development manager of Wari, in Senegal. The following year, he was appointed general manager of startup incubator CTIC Dakar, a position he held until 2020. 

Melchior Koba

Posted On mercredi, 29 mars 2023 12:07 Written by

He is a civil engineer and a young entrepreneur. To make real estate investment more accessible to Africans, he co-founded the fintech start-up Keble.

Emmanuel Oballa (photo) is the CEO and one of the co-founders of fintech startup Keble.  The tech entrepreneur was born and raised in Nigeria, where he attended the University of Lagos, earning a bachelor's in civil and environmental engineering. 

His startup Keble, founded in 2020, allows access to affordable real estate investment options to Nigerians wherever they are. Its goal is to let them profit from real estate investment opportunities by creating a safe and stable way for them to confidently grow their wealth.  

Keble connects its users with the best real estate investment options available in the global market, enabling them to successfully save, invest and diversify their portfolios. It is one of the 12 startups selected for the inaugural class of the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator, a Lagos-based program that focuses on building early-stage proptech and fintech startups across Africa.

We are giving you dollar-based real estate assets that are fixed in price [...] and we are giving you trust,” Emmanuel Oballa said in March 2023. Thanks to Keble, users have every detail about the investments, their locations, and performance. 

The startup explains that it has partnerships and administrators on different continents for the maintenance of its international assets.  

We have a good relationship with the body of developers in the UK, for example. So we have consistent communication. We get reports, documentation, updates, and first-hand information about the properties and new investment opportunities,” its CEO says. 

The latter is, since 2018, the program director for the Connected Development (CODE) campus. His professional career began in 2013, as a quality assurance staff at House Of Chi (better known as Chivita), a manufacturing industry responsible for the production of juices, dairy and diet products, pharmaceuticals, etc.

From January to April 2018, he was the Director of Program Management at Enpact Initiative, a University of Lagos pioneering student community dedicated to entrepreneurship development and professional enrichment. From July 2018 to the inception of Keble, he was a real estate consultant with RealtyPro Investment Global Limited, a real estate company.

Melchior Koba

Posted On mardi, 28 mars 2023 12:15 Written by

With over 10 years of entrepreneurship experience, he specializes in financial technologies. He heads two start-ups that work towards financial inclusion in Africa.

Opio Obwangamoi David (photo) is a Ugandan-trained economist, entrepreneur, and co-founder/CEO of the fintech company gnuGrid CRB.

His fintech company, founded in 2019, facilitates financial inclusion by providing credit data on “last mile financial services consumers.” Since 2021, it is licensed by the Ugandan central bank as “the first-ever indigenous Credit Reference Bureau (CRB)” in the country. Indeed, the data it generates base reports and credit scores on individual borrowers, helping credit providers make more informed lending decisions. One of its core offerings is Solar Sentra, a paygo system combining software and hardware to allow solar energy companies to manage customers’ data, sales, delivery, installation, and after-sales services.

Before gnuGrid CRB, in 2012, David founded Ensibuuko, a software company that develops fintech solutions to let Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies, lending companies, savings groups, and investment clubs automate operations. 

A Westerwelle Foundation Younger Founders Program Fellow and World Frontiers Young Convergence Pioneer, in 2021, Opio Obwangamoi David attended a masterclass at the America Express Leadership Academy, where he studied Ashoka System Change.

Between 2009 and 2010, the entrepreneur was a volunteer youth mentor at Educate! a nonprofit organization that prepares African youth with the skills needed to succeed in today's economy. In 2013, he won the ICT4agric competition through Ensibuuko.

Melchior Koba

Posted On lundi, 27 mars 2023 10:34 Written by

He is a lawyer specializing in information and communication technology law. To boost the livestock sector and facilitate livestock trade in South Africa, he founded SwiftVEE.

Russel Luck (photo) is a lawyer and the founder/CEO of SwiftVEE, an agritech startup. 

Founded in 2017, SwiftVEE provides livestock advertising and insurance services online. Its platform helps address water scarcity, food insecurity, and market inefficiencies in the livestock sector. Currently, it claims over 100,000 livestock sold and more than 20,000 satisfied customers.

In January 2023, the startup launched a new app to help farmers buy the inputs they need at the best rates.  The app, called PrysWys, allows farmers to list the inputs they need and receive the best quotes. 

According to Russel Luck, PrysWys was launched to curb the rising costs of inputs.  "[...] We have noticed that farmers pay high premiums for their inputs at brick-and-mortar retailers. We believe there is a lot of unnecessary bloat in the traditional supply of inputs…," he told Disrupt Africa. 

To date, with over 1,000 active users, PrysWys has sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of input online.

Since 2014, its originator, Russell Luck, has been a non-executive consultant with SwiftTechLaw, a law firm specializing in the tech sector. He began his professional career in 2005 as a graduate intern at BNP Paribas Bank. In 2007, he became an attorney with the real estate law firm Smith Tabata Buchanan Boyes.

The lawyer has received several awards for his start-up, which is a Google Launchpad company and the winner of the 2018 MEST Africa Challenge South Africa.

Melchior Koba

Posted On vendredi, 24 mars 2023 12:48 Written by

He is a serial entrepreneur with over five companies created in Morocco and Dubai. His companies include Ezzal, a startup that aims to facilitate the transport of goods across Africa and the Middle East. 

Mohamed Badr (photo) is an Egyptian serial entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of Ezzal, a mobile platform that aims to facilitate the transport of goods. 

Founded in 2020, Ezzal allows vehicle owners to offer services to anyone who needs to transport items -appliances, furniture, machinery, or materials. It helps businesses and individuals find the right and reliable carrier for their needs and avoid being surprised by high costs and poor service quality. 

Mohamed Badr launched the app in Morocco instead of Egypt where he was born and raised "due to the economic conditions in Egypt, such as inflation and the low local currency, in addition to the authorities imposing a lot of additional fees and petty cash that did not exist in the past, such as security permits." 

The app is now accessible in every city in Morocco and neighboring countries like Spain, Gibraltar, Portugal, Mauritania, and Senegal. The company also plans to expand to other countries in North Africa and the Middle East but has yet to make plans to expand to Egypt.

Before launching Ezzal, in 2017, Mohamed Badr co-founded LarusDubai, a Dubai-based startup that provides freight forwarding, customs clearance, transportation, and courier services. In 2021, he launched Megamaa, a rain management tech that created a natural material of the same name to solve flooding problems. In submerged cities, the material can be thrown around before rains. It then collects rainwater that can be used in drought-affected areas or to irrigate farms. 

In 2022, the serial entrepreneur founded Murabetsport, a crowd and event management company. He also founded Nazyef, an electric car charger manufacturer, and Neque contumelia, an artificial intelligence technology that aims to reduce injuries in soccer.

His professional career began in 2014 at Engineers Club of Alexandria where he was the inventory control supervisor. In 2015, he was hired by IEREK (International Experts for Research Enrichment and Knowledge Exchange), an international institution dedicated to knowledge exchange and research improvement, as an event coordinator. He worked there until the launch of LarusDubai.

Melchior Koba

Posted On jeudi, 23 mars 2023 12:11 Written by

 She is an entrepreneur concerned with women’s well-being. With their interest in mind, she co-developed an inclusive, modern, and responsive health system. 

Fatoumata Ly (photo) is a Guinean-born entrepreneur and the co-founder/CEO of Ninti, a healthtech company that develops solutions to offer women the best sexual and reproductive care. 

Her startup, founded in 2021, aims to make healthcare accessible, inclusive, and personalized so that individuals can take care of their sexual and reproductive health and also support others.

According to the founders, Ninti was born out of their own painful experiences. "With hundreds of conversations with people navigating complex sexual and reproductive health journeys, I've seen firsthand the barriers and stigmas that can prevent women from accessing the care they need.  That's why I co-founded Ninti - to break down those barriers and provide women with the resources and support they need to make informed decisions about their health," Fatoumata Ly says in her Linkedin “About” section.  

Ninti has designed a digital platform that allows employers to offer data-driven content to their employees to let them navigate their healthcare journey from preconception to menopause. Through the platform, employees can also receive care from professionals and join the Ninti community and participate in events and circles.  

Ninti’s CEO is, since November 2019, the vice president of SINGA France,  an international civic organization that accelerates the inclusion of immigrants. She is also a member of the board of Learn Afghanistan and SISTA, an NGO that encourages investments in women-led and women-owned businesses. In 2018, she co-founded You're Welcome App, an app to generate additional revenue for hotels. She was the platform’s operations manager until 2020.

She entered the professional world in 2011, after her bachelor's in language science.  She first worked as an event coordinator for Efma (now Qorus), a nonprofit financial services association. In 2014, she was promoted to the position of corporate events manager.

Between 2014 and 2019, she was the local leader of the Levo League in France, a thriving online and offline community of young professionals, role models, and innovative businesses. After a career break in 2020, she works at Bayes Impact, an organization with a mission to create citizen-run public services, as an independent senior project manager in 2021.

From 2021 to 2022, she was the project manager for the Covid-19 Ad Memoriam Institute, which fights Covid-19. With her team, she created a platform where citizens can share their Covid-19 experience. 

Melchior Koba

Posted On mercredi, 22 mars 2023 16:37 Written by

He gained experience in e-commerce and online delivery while working for Jumia in Rwanda. He took advantage of the unicorn's departure from his country to launch his online food ordering and delivery business.

Albert Munyabugingo (photo) is a telecommunications expert who graduated from the Adventist University of Central Africa (AUCA) with a bachelor's degree in networking and communication in 2014. He is the founder and CEO of the Rwandan delivery service Vuba Vuba Africa. 

Founded in January 2020, Vuba Vuba Africa is an online food trading and on-demand delivery company. It is one of the most popular delivery services in Rwanda. Born shortly before the coronavirus pandemic, the service has experienced over 40% growth during the pandemic. The growth was spurred by the containment measures, which caused a 450% increase in online transactions, as of May 2020, according to the National Bank of Rwanda. 

By 2021, the startup had already received more than 500,000 orders in major cities across the country and 300 partnerships with businesses, stores, restaurants, and boutiques. It was employing 26 office staff and over 100 couriers.

Most of Vuba Vuba Africa's employees are former Jumia Rwanda staff. Indeed, before founding Vuba Vuba Africa, Albert Munyabugingo worked for Jumia Rwanda, first as operations manager between (December 2014 and November 2017) and then as general manager from July 2017 to January 2020. When it decided to leave Rwanda (in 2019), Jumia also left behind unemployed staff and couriers. Seeing an opportunity from what could have been a misfortune for some, the entrepreneur filled the gap by founding his delivery service and hiring the former Jumia staff who had already worked under his management.  

His professional career began in 2012 at Tigo Rwanda, a brand of the telecom company Millicom, where he was the customer service manager. In May 2014, he joined Hellofood Rwanda, an online food ordering company, as the content and customer service manager.

Melchior Koba

Posted On mardi, 21 mars 2023 12:14 Written by

After years of practicing as a nurse midwife, she upskilled herself in business administration. She now runs a digital platform that connects employers and graduates.  

Lizane Füzy (photo) is a South African business leader and nurse midwife who graduated from the University of Cape Town in 2016, earning a master's in nursing. She is also a business administration graduate from the Stellenbosch Business School and the founder/general manager of the career management platform Gradlinc.

She launched Gradlinc, in 2022, as a project of Stellenbosch University. The cloud-based platform connects employers and graduates, allowing credible and verified graduates to access existing opportunities. Its sophisticated and unique matching algorithm enables employers to receive graduate profiles that match their job requirements. It provides a more affordable and comprehensive alternative to higher education institutions' career offices. 

Lizane Füzy recently stated that her platform was "rolling out new modules for entrepreneurship focusing on students that want to start their ventures to ensure that they start on the right foot thanks to this learning management system and online courses where students can find all the tools they need for career readiness and starting their first job. We will also be opening up the platform to alums from tertiary institutions."

Currently, she is the commercialization project manager at the University of Stellenbosch Enterprises (Innovus), the technology transfer division of Stellenbosch University. She is the owner of Midwife Online, a platform that offers affordable online prenatal courses for expectant parents in a safe space with easy access to credible, evidence-based information.

She is, since 2010, a member of the  Golden Key International Honor Society, “the world's largest collegiate honor society for graduate and undergraduate students.”       

Her professional career began in 2011 at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital where she was a nurse and professional midwife. She held the same position at Tygerberg Hospital from January 2013 to February 2016 and at Mediclinic from March to December 2016. From 2021 to 2022, she was a midwife and prenatal instructor for the parenting education platform The Baby Academy.

Melchior Koba

Posted On lundi, 20 mars 2023 14:42 Written by

He is a web, mobile, and software developer with several applications to his credit and several awards that celebrate his innovative and impactful solutions. Thanks to a digital payment system he designed, he facilitates commercial and financial transactions in the DRC.  

Faysal Axam (photo) is a Congolese entrepreneur who graduated from the Higher Institute of Computer Science and Management in Goma with a Bachelor's degree in business Informatics. He is renowned as the founder and CEO of  Faysal Company, a fintech company that offers digital services and solutions to businesses and individuals in DRC. 

His company, founded in 2018,  designs business, web, and mobile applications and offers IT consulting services. In 2022, it officially launched Tap and Pay, a multifunctional payment system that allows users to pay or receive payments.

Tap and Pay is tailored to the needs of African markets and its pricing is affordable for most people in developing countries.  This explains its seemingly rapid adoption because, in March 2023, Faysal Axam explained that the solution had over 6,000 users.  

An experienced computer programmer, Faysal Axam created his first android app (Ohada) in 2013, to detail the entire Ohada business laws for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Since 2013, he is the database manager of Share Solution Technology. In 2016, he created a mobile interactive lake monitoring system that can communicate with drones to facilitate sea rescues.  In 2018, he also founded Faysal Foundation, a nonprofit organization designed to train and connect youths for socio-economic transformation.

He has won several awards and honors for solving social problems in DR Congo.  In 2018, he was nominated for the Seedstars World Competition that took place in Kinshasa. The following year, he was a finalist at the African Rethink Awards in Abidjan and nominated at the Fintech Summit in Kigali. In 2020, he was named one of Africa's top 50 digital champions in the Africa Digital Festival report. Then, in 2021, he made it to the top 3 of the Innovation Time Challenge- For The Innovation Rebranding Africa Award. 

Melchior Koba

Posted On vendredi, 17 mars 2023 13:11 Written by

A nurse by training, he embarked on entrepreneurship to solve social problems. He has founded two businesses, the youngest of which is helping underbanked individuals boost their creditworthiness.

Joseph Ezekwem (photo) is a Nigerian entrepreneur, business owner, and nurse who graduated from the College of Nursing (Our Lady of Mercy Hospital) in 2009. Also a 2018 graduate of Western Governors University, he is the founder and CEO of fintech startup Ruubby.

Ruubby, launched on February 1, 2023, in Nigeria, was set up to encourage citizens to actively submit their financial data when making purchases. It is a financial marketplace that allows users to build or improve their credit score, allowing them to access better financial products and improve their creditworthiness.

The startup also provides a business management tool that allows business owners to set up online stores and deliver customer services.  

Ruubby wants “to provide [the] opportunity for local stores to have their stores on our platform and be able to sell to anyone in any state in Nigeria. The main concern for us is to build the infrastructure and seek the right partnership to make this business a success. Our teams are working tirelessly to address this, and I am very proud of them,” Joseph Ezekwem said in February 2023.

The nurse-turned-entrepreneur is also the founder and CEO of Roland Health, an online homecare marketplace founded in October 2022. His marketplace allows caregivers to reach a wider audience and users to easily hire them. 

In 2021, he was still a practicing nurse at Favorite Healthcare Staffing in the United States. Between February and April 2022, he worked as a nurse at Baylor Scott & White Health. Then, in May 2022, he was appointed President and CEO of Umpayas, a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace for services such as car rental, package delivery, food delivery, virtual office, etc. He worked there for 4 months.

Melchior Koba

Posted On jeudi, 16 mars 2023 12:44 Written by
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