In the past eleven years or so, the Minister of the Digital Economy has demonstrated her commitment to digital inclusion in Togo. She piloted several public projects that positioned her country on the list of global digital nations. 

Cina Lawson (photo) is a Togolese politician and currently the Minister of Postal Affairs and Digital Economy. She is one of the three Francophone Sub-Saharan tech actors to be on Rest of World’s 2022 list of the 100 Global tech Changemakers. The recognition celebrates her numerous contributions to the development of the digital sector in her country, Togo.  

Indeed, she joined the Togolese government in 2010 as the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. On September 7, 2013, she was appointed Minister of the Digital Economy. Since then, she has been piloting the country’s e-government project. She also oversaw the introduction of information technology in the education sector, carried out digital inclusion projects profiting the most vulnerable, and enhanced competition in the telecom market by awarding licenses to two new internet service providers (Teolis SA and Vivendi Africa) in June 2017. In June 2018, Miss Lawson also extended the licenses of telecom operators Moov Togo and Togo Cellulaire, adding 4G to their service spectrum. Months later, she oversaw the privatization of incumbent operator Togocom and updated Togo’s ICT regulatory framework. 

The Digital Minister holds a Diploma of Advanced Studies (DEA) from the Paris Institute of Political Studies (1997). She also holds a Master's in History from Paris-Nanterre University (1998), and a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School  (2001). She began her professional career at the World Bank in 1998. In the Information and Communication Technology Department in Washington DC, she advised governments on telecom policies, regulatory reforms, and privatizations. She also worked as a consultant for Alcatel-Lucent in Paris and, from 2005 to 2010, she was working for France Telecom SA.

She has received several recognitions for her impact on her country’s ICT sector. In 2016, she was named by Tropics Magazine as one of the 55 actors moving Africa forward. In January 2019, Cina Lawson won the Napoleon Innovation Award, awarded by a professional network dedicated to the promotion of “virtuous, ethical innovation that benefits the many.” The following month, she won the Harvard Kennedy School’s Alumni Public Service Award for her commitment and contribution to the development of the ICT sector. She was thus the first African female politician to win the award since its creation in 1997. 

In October 2021, Cina Lawson received the "Woman of the Year Award" from UC Berkeley’s Fisher Center for Business Analytics for Novissi, the social assistance project implemented through a digital platform to support low-income populations during the  Covid-19 crisis. She was praised for her innovative work in leveraging non-traditional data and analytics to target and distribute emergency financial assistance to the most vulnerable. 

Melchior Koba

With some 15 years of professional experience in the marketing and finance sector, she wants to address the financing problems faced by innovative entrepreneurs in Africa.  

Fatoumata Bâ is a Senegalese tech entrepreneur and venture capital investor. In 2018, she founded Janngo, an investment firm based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Her firm supports and invests in pan-African startups that use technology to boost access to crucial services, products, content, markets, finance, jobs, and talents in Africa.  

Speaking on the reasons that prompted her to create Janngo, Fatoumata Bâ explained that she aimed to create Pan-African digital champions with sustainable and economically viable business models and help address important social problems.

Shortly after its creation, in 2018, Janngo unveiled a digital platform (Jexport) that allows local farmers to sell their products to foreign buyers at affordable prices. In December 2021, the investment firm raised XOF7 billion (US$11.4 million) to fund the African private sector. The funds were raised from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Union, and the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States. 

Janngo’s founder and executive chair holds a Master’s in Management, Strategy, Marketing, and Finance from Toulouse Business School (2009). Her professional career started in 2007 with Index Multimedia where she was an account manager and business developer. Less than twelve months later, she joined France Telecom as a sales advisor and, in September 2008, she obtained a promotion to a business analyst. 

In March 2010, she was recruited as a senior consultant for the information technology company Atos Consulting. Three years later, she launched the Ivorian subsidiary of Jumia. Fatoumata Bâ became the Managing director of Jumia Nigeria in 2015 before her appointment as the marketing manager of Jumia group in 2016. She is now a board member for SouthBridge Investment Bank and an investment committee member for evergreen investment firm Creadev.  

In 2016, she was on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list, which lists the 30 most promising under-30 African entrepreneurs. She is also the winner of the 2019 Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership and one of the leaders on Choiseul's 2020 list of the 100 African Economic Leaders for Tomorrow.  She is also one of the 20 Africans to be on the Rest of World’s 2022 Top 100 Global Tech Changemakers. This recognition celebrates her extensive professional background and contributions.  

Melchior Koba

According to the World Bank, up to 65% of the adult population is unbanked in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria alone, some reports estimate the number of unbanked adults to be 59 million. For those reports, the situation is due to several challenges namely the conservative policies and distance to access points. Babs Ogundeyi wants to address some of the problems with Kuda Bank, a digital-only bank.

Babs Ogundeyi (photo) is a young Nigerian entrepreneur and co-founder of Kuda Bank, a digital-only bank. Founded in 2017, the fintech startup was initially named Kudimoney with Musty Mustafa as its co-founder. It became Kuda Bank in 2019, following the obtention of a central bank license,  in line with its ambition to make banking services more accessible to a larger number of the population in Africa. 

Nowadays, via its mobile app, Kuda Bank allows Nigerians to manage their expenses and make savings online without paying maintenance or hidden fees. For its CEO, Babs Ogundeyi, the startup can even offer instant loans to its users provided their salaries are domiciled with Kuda.  

Its co-founder Ogundeyi graduated from Brunel University London with a BA in Business Studies and Accounting. Right after his graduation, he went into the entrepreneurship world (in 2002) by co-founding MotorTrader Nigeria, a classified car ad magazine. One year later, he sold the magazine to a major Nigerian media. Around the same period, he joined PwC Nigeria as an Engagement Manager. In 2010, he left PwC Nigeria to become a partner at investment company Redbrick Ltd. 

Some months later, he became the Oyo State government’s special advisor on finance. In the five years he spent in that position, he piloted the state’s largest-ever bond issue (NGN55 billion), advised on several fiscal policies, and set public and private partnerships. 

Two years later, he resumed his entrepreneurship career with Kudimoney, which later became Kuda Bank. In 2021, the tech entrepreneur secured US$55 million series B financing to boost his startup’s presence in Nigeria. The Series B round raised the volume of investments attracted by Kuda Bank since 2019 to US$91.6 million and its value to US$500 million. At the time, Babs Ogundeyi said that Nigeria was an important market to be conquered before thinking about any international expansion. 

Melchior Koba

Currently, Anis Sahbani is an associate professor at the Sorbonne University Pierre and Marie Curie Campus. With his expertise in robotics, he is making his company, Evona Robotics, a pioneer in Africa’s robotics industry.  

Anis Sahbani (photo) is a Tunisian entrepreneur,  Associate-professor, and robotics specialist. In 2014, he founded Enova Robotics, a company that specializes in robot design and manufacturing. 

One of the well-known robots designed by Anis Sahbani is probably PGuard, a fully automated security robot. Initially created for use on industrial sites, airports, and border zones, it is now used by the Tunisian Ministry of Interior to maintain public order. During the coronavirus health crisis, the government used it to enforce lockdown rules.  In 2020, speaking on the use of robotics and artificial intelligence to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the robotics specialists explained that robots could be intermediaries protecting humans against possible contaminations. 

In a bid to show PGuard’s utility outside the security segment, Sahbani is gradually introducing those robots in the social sector. He also developed Vaesense, a contactless patient monitoring robot. His startup also created MiniLab, an education robot to be used by universities and research labs in teaching robotics. 

Enova Robotics is the result of several years of field experience. In 1998, after his electrical engineering degree at the National Engineering School of Tunis (ENIT),  in Tunis, Anis Sahbani enrolled at the Paul Sabatier Toulouse III University, France, where he got his Ph.D. in robotics in 2003. In 2014, he became an associate professor at the Sorbonne University Pierre and Marie Curie Campus.  The same year, he founded Enova Robotics, which won the pitch fest InvesTech 2021 organized by the US embassy in Jordan in partnership with SelectUSA. This award opened doors to the startup for the SelectUSA virtual summit held in June 2021. 

Melchior Koba