TECH STARS (960)
It took a decade for the former young innovator to become the boss of a tech company specializing in the modernization of agriculture. He has developed many solutions that facilitate the work and improve the yield of farmers.
In Niger, the company Tech-Innov has managed to build a solid reputation among farmers over the past nine years. The founder Abdou Maman Kané (pictured) has strived to make his company a national and global reference with the many innovations developed to help local farmers.
The computer scientist and entrepreneur made a name for himself in 2011 by winning the first place of the Orange Prize for Social Entrepreneurship in Africa and the Middle East with his remote-controlled irrigation system "Télé-irrigation". According to him, this idea, which came from his own experience as the son of a farmer, has been in his mind since 2005.
When he was younger, he noticed how difficult it was for his parents and other farmers to access water for their activities. They struggled to carry water several times a day over long distances to regularly water their crops. He then started to think of a way to help them. That is how he came up with the idea to not only improve their working conditions with ICTs but also put an end to manual watering.
In 2013, Abdou Maman Kané created Tech-Innov, a company specialized in the promotion and marketing of agricultural and irrigation technology solutions. With this startup, he marketed Tele-irrigation system, a hardware and software kit composed of a tank connected to a pump and a network of pipes installed in a field. The pump is connected to a box equipped with a SIM card. The farmer simply dials a code from his phone to activate it and start watering. Users can also access real-time information such as temperature, humidity, rainfall, solar radiation, air speed and quality to know when to water.
Abdou Maman Kané also developed other solutions such as the smart bio-fertilizer, the drinking water kiosk in rural areas, automatic watering, and mobile weather. These achievements have earned him several awards including the second prize Climate Startup COP22, the third prize of the Young African Social Entrepreneur of Libreville (2015), the Hassan II World Grand Prize for Water (2015), the Medal of Ecological Creation in Nice (2013), and a medal at the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva (2012).
Ruben Tchounyabe
Between the high prices and the poor condition of some real estate properties in African cities, people are finding it difficult to get decent housing. With his platform Spleet, Akintola Adesanmi facilitates renting through a home loan solution.
Former product manager at Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (currently known as Guarantee Trust Holding Company) and eTranzact, a payments company, Akintola Adesanmi (pictured, right) has a strong background in banking and fintech. Since 2018, he has been running Spleet, a startup providing a platform where people have access to home loans and a wide selection of properties.
The goal is to provide a solution that allows tenants to find understanding landlords. However, while Spleet was a good plan for tenants, it was not quite the same for landlords. It took the solution 15 months to integrate 16 landlords and about 101 spaces on the platform. The co-founder said he realized that most landlords prefer to receive their lease once rather than 12 times a year to mitigate the risk of default. He co-founded Spleet with Daniella Ajala (pictured, left).
“Growth was slow on the landlords’ side. We just couldn’t add as many landlords as we wanted to on time. But on the tenants’ side, we had great occupancy rates—an average of 90% month-on-month occupancy rates,” Adesanmi told TechCabal. So it became clear that this model would not be sustainable in the long run. After more than 3 years of trying to evolve his market, Akintola Adesanmi wanted to tailor his offering to both tenants and owners. To do so, he applied in 2021 to the accelerator program of MetaProp, a New York-based VC firm focused on the real estate technology industry. Spleet became the first African startup to complete the six-month program, which ended last month, and on March 15, the startup announced $625,000 in pre-seed funding led by MetaProp VC with participation from several investment bodies.
Spleet's new business model now allows tenants to apply for a loan to pay the full amount of the rent, then spread the repayment over up to 12 months. In this way, tenants can continue to pay the rent monthly and landlords who want annual payments can also be satisfied. This solution quickly won over new customers, and Akintola Adesanmi was able to get back on track. A beta version of Spleet's offering was launched this month, and it has already logged more than $10,000 in applications.
Now, the entrepreneur intends to make Spleet the go-to platform for residential real estate in Africa, especially since many African countries are affected by the housing deficit problem, with rental costs sometimes very high.
Aïsha Moyouzame
The head of two businesses, Brian Bosire designs tech solutions for agriculture, water, and sanitation. His solution HydroIQ has just been selected by the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program.
With a passion for emerging technologies and their application to solving Africa's biggest challenges, Kenyan entrepreneur Brian Bosire (pictured) gained early attention for his innovations in agriculture and water. In 2013, he founded Electrosoft, a startup focused on bringing technology to efficiency, convenience, and improved productivity in the energy, water, and sanitation sectors.
With his startup UjuziKilimo (which he founded in 2016), he has developed a tech tool that studies soils to inform smallholder farmers, who have limited access to knowledge, to better use resources like fertilizer and water. Brian Bosire's innovations have won him many awards, including the ASME Ishow African Award in 2015, and the Africa Innovation Foundation's Top 10 Young Innovators.
Brian Bosire founded another startup -Hydrologistics Africa (HydroIQ), which offers a virtual water network to provide consumers and utilities with a unique and transparent platform to manage their water consumption. This innovation earned him the one.org award in 2017, ranking him among the Five Young Africans Changing the World. For creating a connected object to manage water networks remotely, namely HydroIQ, his solution was named startup of the year in Africa and won a €10,000 prize awarded at the second edition of SOTYA in 2018.
In November 2021, he announced the launch of HydroIQ in Central America, specifically in Guatemala. “We are proud and challenged to continue providing quality services to the world. As the world's first virtual water network operator, we are proud to keep leading the entire water industry in Africa and beyond in developing innovative technology solutions to make every drop of water count,” he said. The entrepreneur was also appointed the youngest senator from Nyamira County in the Youth Senate Kenya. His contribution to youth leadership and entrepreneurship led to him being named a United Nations (UN) Youth Leader for the SDGs, and a member of the World Bank Advisory Group (S4YE).
His recent selection by the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program on March 14, 2022, will allow him to receive coaching to develop his HydroIQ technology, and expand his operations across Africa and beyond.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Gabougouni means "small kitchen" in Bambara, one of the national languages of Mali. This is the name Dienaba Traoré (pictured) gave to her initiative, which aims at promoting local and African cuisine across the world. The entrepreneur launched her blog in 2016.
Dienaba Traoré says she came up with the idea first to help Malians abroad and those who live in the country but have little or no experience of Malian cuisine. She then added recipes from other African countries to meet demand on the blog.
“On this platform, I wanted to share with the world, the African cuisine, especially that of Mali by adding my personal touch, as well as the culinary crossbreeding which allows valuing the products of the African soil,” she explains.
The Gabougouni platform presents recipes, videos, product sheets, nutritional advice, the organization of workshops, and various other contents. The blogger wants to present a nice image of African cuisine and break the preconceived notions that African cuisine is fatty and complex. Dienaba Traoré has been passionate about cooking and everything related to food since she was very young. After a scientific baccalaureate, she studied food processing, and “environmental and food quality, hygiene, and safety” in Dakar. This background allowed her to find a job in a company specialized in airline catering and airport assistance.
In 2017 she won the 3rd Orange Award for Social Entrepreneur in Africa and the Middle East in Mali. The blog has grown in popularity and now has more than 74,000 subscribers on Facebook.
Dienaba Traoré, who describes herself as a food safety consultant, photographer, and food stylist, now plans to create an online store specializing in the sale of women’s agri-food products in Mali and West Africa. She also plans to offer cooking classes, both in-person and remotely, and later on set up a "Culinary Hub" which will be a coworking space for cooking enthusiasts, professionals and agri-food companies.
Ruben Tchounyabe
Born in Senegal, Karima-Catherine Goundiam (pictured), also of Moroccan descent, grew up and studied in France and the United States before moving to Canada in 2000, according to information relayed by ONFR+. Until 2014, she worked for large companies, including the audit and consulting firm Deloitte. She then ventured into entrepreneurship in 2015 and founded Red Dot Digital. With her company, Karima-Catherine Goundiam seeks to put digital networking at the heart of business transformation and help companies build a strong digital strategy.
Her biggest accomplishment is a global digital business matchmaking platform called B2BeeMatch. Launched in 2019, this solution made its real debut in Europe in 2020 during Covid-19. “I remember presenting this project in Europe in January 2020. The response was quite cold and perplexed: nobody saw the advantage of going digital since we could see each other physically. A matchmaking application did not seem to be an immediate need," she says.
As the pandemic acted as an accelerator of digital transformation within companies, B2BeeMatch quickly became an indispensable tool. In only one year, the platform grew rapidly and, in January 2021, it became bilingual, which allowed it to integrate the Francophone community and to develop partnerships, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, and the Fédération des gens d'affaires francophones de l'Ontario (FGA).
Beyond her entrepreneurial activity, Karima-Catherine Goundiam is the vice-president of the British Canadian Chamber of Commerce. She also intends to broaden her understanding of the business world, she says, by participating in numerous tech conferences. Also, she teaches at European universities and advises Canadians on technology and management. Through her multiple actions, she wants to inspire the young generation, especially on the importance of diversity in tech.
While access to business opportunities and financing is still a challenge for black entrepreneurs, Karima-Catherine Goundiam admits that being a black francophone businesswoman has been an asset. Her uniqueness makes it easier to be remembered. "I was able to turn everything that could make me statistically an underachiever into an asset, to be a person who struggles to be even more successful. I don't take no for an answer. I'm resilient enough to go into a market where no one expects me to," she adds.
B2BeeMatch is based on a particular approach, which eliminates biases, blind spots, perceptions, and all those prejudices that block the focus on skills, diversity, and innovation. On the platform, it is possible to find future business partners, subcontractors, clients, and even funds. Based in Toronto, the platform is already present in over 45 countries. Comforted by this success, the entrepreneur announced she is launching a second version of the platform in early March.
Aïsha Moyouzame
The 1st Miss Geek in the history of Senegal and 2nd Miss Geek Africa 2018, she proved to be a very talented young woman. She currently holds a management position in a research institute on agricultural and rural policies and intends to train other young women in ICT.
Ndeye Fatou Mboup (pictured) is interested in disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and blockchain. She is the current innovation and ICT project/program manager at IPAR (Initiative de prospective agricole et rurale) and is specialized in creating digital solutions based on the SDGs. The serial entrepreneur, as she describes herself, is the CEO of TSG Tech and the co-founder of the startup E-Wanacc.
Ndeye Fatou Mboup has participated in training in Senegal, Rwanda, Spain, Uganda, Germany, and Egypt, as part of the digital entrepreneurship program AFRIMAC or Disrupt BootCamp organized by the YES (Young Entrepreneur School) of Nice-France. A member of FESTIC (Association of Senegalese Women in ICT) or Enablis (Network of SME entrepreneurs in Senegal), where she was a consultant, she has won many national and international competitions since 2017.
Winner of the Challenge of the 1000 entrepreneurs of Africa of the 2020 Africa-France/Sustainable City Summit, Ndeye Fatou Mboup also won the national competition for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), organized by the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Economy. She was also elected the first-ever Miss Geek Senegal in 2018 and recently won a bronze medal at the Challenge Innovation Forum in Qatar in November 2021.
Her remarkable career has earned her congratulations from the highest levels of the State. "Warm congratulations to our young compatriot Ndeye Fatou Mboup, from Initiative prospective agricole et rurale, for her bronze medal at the Challenge Innovation Forum in Qatar. I also congratulate the Institut Supérieur de Management of which the winner is a graduate," President Macky Sall tweeted.
Ndeye Fatou Mboup aims to represent women leadership around the world and is committed to working for the professional development of girls and women in ICT.
Aïsha Moyouzame
With 12,000 readers using his online bookshop, Vincent Milewa wants to transmit his love of reading to his fellow Kenyans. As his startup RafuBooks grows, he wants to attract more customers in other East African countries.
Growing up in a poor family, Vincent Milewa (pictured) used books as a roadmap to escape poverty. In school, he became fascinated with personal development and business. Later, he trained in computer science and worked in the telecom industry for more than ten years in sales and marketing. While going through a difficult phase in 2018, he dived back into reading but found it difficult to get the books he wanted. The idea came to him to create a library. That's how RafuBooks was born.
To make his project a reality, Vincent Milewa invested half of his monthly salary and received support from his family and friends. He was also able to secure some funding from an investment group of which he was a part. The resources collected allowed him to start his project in an office space with some books, a website, and three employees.
“I went through a tough phase in 2018 and read a lot. At some point, I was reading two to three books a week but obtaining them was a challenge and I hated going to town to shop. I had always wanted to start an e-commerce platform. At first, I had a small selection of books with the primary goal of fast, same-day delivery in Nairobi. People can order at 3 pm and still get it the same day,” he explains.
In a context where bookstores are not as common as other types of businesses, Vincent Milewa uses new technologies to ensure the availability of books for many Kenyans. To meet demand, he works with both international and local suppliers. “Nobody should wait for a book for four days within the same city, except if it is coming from abroad. Like food, it should be delivered fast,” he says.
RafuBooks initially sold novels and self-help books, before expanding to religious texts, textbooks, and children's books. Nearly 150 local authors are listed, with about 300 titles. Since its launch in 2018, the library has processed over 15,000 orders. In 2020, sales increased significantly as a result of lockdowns. The following year, the startup grew by 30%. The company currently has 12,000 registered customers on its website.
The main barrier to the company’s business is the lack of a reading culture in Kenya. “The number of bookshops in Nairobi says it all and most of what they sell are textbooks. The majority of Kenyans read for academic reasons, they do not read purely for enjoyment,” Vincent Milewa regrets.
The promoter has developed a gift strategy to retain his customers. “We realized books and gifts go well together. So, when we thought about diversification, we offered gift items such as chocolate, wine, and flowers. It has been a great learning experience for us, and the gift part has been an ideal complement to the book business,” he said.
For now, RafuBooks delivers to Uganda and Tanzania, but Vincent Milewa's vision for his startup is to become the Amazon of East Africa and provide other product categories besides books.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Senegalese computer engineer Adji Anta Dabo (pictured) develops a solution to facilitate birth registration in her country. With a degree in computer science, management and entrepreneurship, the young woman founded the startup Digital Nisa with partners. In 2021, one of her solutions, namely Sama Keyittu Juddu, won the third prize of the 2021 Orange Social Venture Prize in Africa and the Middle East (OSVP).
In Wolof, Sama Keyittu Juddu means "my birth certificate". The digital solution is a platform on which parents can register the birth of their child. The platform is associated with a bracelet attached to the wrist of the babies. On the seventh or eighth day, the bracelet will flash to remind parents who have not yet registered their newborn's birth to do so. The Sama Keyittu Juddu platform can be installed in maternity hospitals.
“The absence of identity documents […] violates the right to nationality, the right to claim civil protection etc.,” said Adji Anta Dabo who believes that her solution is an answer to this problem.
The entrepreneur has won several awards. In 2020, she won the 7th edition of the JIGGEN CITIC competition organized by the Ministry of Digital Economy with an amount of CFA1.5 million (nearly $ 2,500). She also won CFA3 million with the 2021 OSVP.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Malian entrepreneur Hawa Bah (pictured), who operates in the e-commerce sector, has developed an online marketplace -Local Market Bamako- to facilitate access to local and neighboring countries' food products, as well as imported food products, in and around Bamako. With her service mainly accessible on Facebook and WhatsApp, Hawa Bah won the third Orange Prize for Social Entrepreneurship in Africa and the Middle East 2021 (Poesam). She was granted CFA3 million ($5,000).
"As part of our catering division, we cook and deliver meals (lunch) to organizations and individuals. We also provide catering services during events [...] we make daily African dishes: Kedjenou, foutou, tchièp, braised fish and chicken, woudjoula, peanut sauce, etc."
"As part of the sale of food products, we distribute fresh attiéké, plantain, seafood, and other products to supermarkets, restaurants, and individuals," she explains.
Hawa Bah holds a master's degree in business management and administration from the Ecole supérieure des hautes études technologiques et commerciales (HETEC) in Bamako and stepped into the entrepreneurship world after her training. She launched the Local Market Bamako Facebook page in July 2019.
Today, she seeks to better organize her activity. Under her expansion plan, she plans to develop a mobile application to strengthen visibility and facilitate the ordering/purchasing process for customers; integrate breakfast and dinner services in addition to lunch; establish a physical headquarters to house the different activities, the staff and to provide on-site service. Hawa Bah will also install a cold room to expand her range of products and increase storage and packaging capacity.
Adoni Conrad Quenum
Since 2019, she has been accumulating awards that testify to the great value her commitment has according to various public and private actors. In addition to her skills as a graphic designer, Winnie Katengwa Nyota (pictured) has added several others throughout her career. She also developed skills in tech innovation, which she combines with her first passion, drawing.
Her endeavor earned her the 2nd Orange Prize for Social Entrepreneurship in Africa and the Middle East (Poesam) in 2021. She won this award with Android Africa, a smartphone interface that she designed to promote African culture. The icons used to access functions are different from those found on most smartphones.
Android Africa is a tool of knowledge within reach of the hands, the promoter said. The idea is to bring a typically African added value to the mobile industry through apps oriented to several themes such as learning African languages and networking. It can help people find their country of origin, region, ethnicity, etc.
Winnie Katengwa Nyota wants to show a continent rich in its diversity, beautiful in its cultures, population dynamic, and open to life to those who only know Africa through the images of war, famine, political instability, and poverty conveyed by foreign media.
In February 2021, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa, she was nominated for the second edition of Sodeico's 100 jeunes pages d'espoir initiative, in the "solution through technologies and innovations for creation" category. She was also laureate of the 2019 Inventor and Innovator Masterclass organized by the Ministry of Industry in collaboration with the Ministry of Scientific Research and Technological Innovation.
Muriel Edjo
More...
For nearly 20 years, Baratang Miya (pictured) has been encouraging women and girls to step into STEM. In 2003, she founded GirlHype to pursue her vision.
The South African entrepreneur had the opportunity to strengthen her coding skills in Silicon Valley, in the U.S., after being selected by the TechWomen program. The idea for GirlHype was born out of Baratang Miya's personal experience. When she was a university student, she did not know about the Internet. Later, one of her acquaintances introduced her to the digital world. “It has changed my life to the level I could never have dreamed of. It has taken me to the policy level to speak at platforms like the United Nations. I’ve just come back from the UN, in December, speaking as one of the high-level panel members at the Internet Governance Forum,” she remembered.
GirlHype combines both theoretical courses and practical experiences in the field of computer science. The organization offers girls and young women the opportunity to participate, develop technical skills and social skills necessary to fully engage in the new 21st-century job market and higher education.
Baratang Miya’s mission is to address gender inequality in access to digital opportunities and skills. Her work has earned her partnership with international organizations, including UN Women, Mozilla, TechWomen, Silicon Cape, and Technovation. In December 2021, she attended the UN Internet Governance Forum where she shared her vision. "It is high time that the United Nations takes the initiative to ensure that no one is left behind, especially women and girls," she said.
African girls and women should be at the heart of global technology solutions that will be used by their communities, she believed. "We are committed to preparing each of our students to be problem solvers, collaborative leaders, and innovative entrepreneurs of tomorrow," she said.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Pascal Kanik is bringing the digital into schools in DR Congo with his startup Schoolap, a digital platform that provides students with access to digital lessons and transforms the way teachers teach in schools.
He created the startup in 2017 alongside another entrepreneur, Guy-José Leta. The idea of setting up this tool was born while he was on a work mission as a Vodacom employee to raise awareness about sustainable development in the country's provinces. “I realized the lack of quality learning in the areas I visited. I noticed that teachers don't know what sustainable development is. I then wondered how they could teach something they don't know,” he says. He then decided to bring quality lessons to them. Access to the digital platform is free and lessons can be downloaded to any device.
Schoolap also incorporates a tablet for those who wish to purchase it. The courses available meet the criteria and requirements of the Ministry of Education. "There are even courses in sign language for deaf and dumb people, and cartoons for kids," he adds.
Pascal Kanik won several international awards for his innovation and has even sold the concept to Seychelles. In April 2019, Schoolap won the award for best online education platform at Seedstars, a startup competition focused on emerging markets. That same year, the entrepreneur entered into a funding agreement with CFC, and subsequently raised $500,000 from the international Eutelsat Group, which accelerated his penetration of the Congolese market.
Schoolap has become increasingly successful with the lockdown imposed due to Covid-19. According to Pascal Kanik, the platform already has more than 20,300 educational content, a network of more than 6,000 schools, 1,900,000 students, and 105,000 teachers. The startup wants to reach 28,000 schools in the long term and conquer new markets.
Schoolap recently established an adapted bank loan with RawBank, the country's main bank, to enable the delivery of more than 10,000 tablets by the end of this year, much more than the 500 tablets sold monthly at the beginning of its marketing in 2021.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Moroccan Nizar Berdai (pictured), 25, is becoming a model of student entrepreneurship. He owns two startups: WeMash Digital, which specializes in digital transformation, and Wsselni Maak, which is a ride-sharing solution. This year, the young entrepreneur who is currently pursuing a master's degree in strategy and finance at Sciences Po Paris wants to focus on expanding his car-sharing solution.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Nizar Berdai obtained a bachelor's degree in Salé, Morocco, then moved to Canada in 2015 to study finance and political science at HEC Montreal and McGill University. He was very active in the community and was a member of the Quebec Youth Parliament.
The idea to create a business came up to him while he was preparing for his master's degree at ESSEC Paris. He then created WeMash Digital, a startup specialized in communication consulting and digital transformation. Very quickly, he landed contracts with clients including Moroccan public sector organizations and NGOs such as Oxfam Morocco. At the same time, he refined a carpooling project and launched in February 2021, Wsselni Maak.
The student currently enrolled in a Master 2 in Finance and Strategy, at Sciences Po Paris, claimed Wsselni Maak receives an average of 450 offers and requests per day. In less than a year, the startup has more than 20,000 users in Rabat, Salé, Témara, Casablanca, Agadir, and Fez.
Nizar Berdai is now working to increase the service’s user base through partnerships with companies that will be announced, he says, in the coming days.
Aïsha Moyouzame
Arielle Kitio is taking a new step in her ambition to develop the digital skills of Cameroonians, particularly women and young people. On February 22, she launched the first edition of the Techwomen Factory initiative, designed to train 179 women in various technological skills including coding.
Founder of the Cameroon Youth School Tech Incubator (Caysti), the young tech entrepreneur has stood out in recent years through various initiatives aimed at developing digital skills among youth.
In 2018, she launched a fun coding educational program for children "ABC Code". The program teaches young people between the ages of 6 and 15 to create digital applications in African languages. Arielle Kitio also has other programs on her agenda, including one for high school teachers. Today, Caysti claims to have trained nearly 29,000 children in Cameroon, as well as 350 teachers and more than 8,000 primary education officials in more than 6 countries in Africa.
Arielle Kitio's initiatives have earned her several international recognitions. The pedagogical tools developed by her organization have been certified by the African Union in its 2018 Education Handbook and by Unesco ICT. She received the 2019 Margaret Award for African Digital Woman and won the global quality education competition organized by Deloitte in 2020. She is a former ambassador of the Next Einstein Forum in Cameroon and a holder of the Techwomen Award from the U.S. Department of State.
Arielle Kitio promotes the inclusion of women in the fields of science and technology. She has been leading this fight since 2015 through her association WIT (Information Technology for Women & Youth). The lady has a rich academic background. In 2011, she obtained a Bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Yaoundé I, then a Master's degree in computer science with a Cloud Computing option in co-direction with the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse in France. She is currently preparing for a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Software Engineering at the University of Yaoundé I.
Ruben Tchounyabe