Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
50 / TREND / Innovation<br />
Shutterstock<br />
One factor contributing to the dynamic energy of these<br />
hubs is the abundance of raw talent and the high rate of<br />
adaptability of African youth to new technologies. Unlike<br />
their counterparts in other continents who have been able to<br />
plug into a well-oiled system of technology development, the<br />
African start-up culture provides entrepreneurs with fertile<br />
ground for home-grown solutions to the many problems<br />
plaguing their compatriots.<br />
KENYAN CREATIVITY<br />
Today, the African landscape is dotted with more than 300<br />
incubator hubs according to GSMA’s Ecosystem Accelerator,<br />
the global telecoms industry body. Half of these hubs are<br />
concentrated in five countries: Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria,<br />
Morocco and Egypt. Nigeria’s CcHub, Kenya’s iHub, South<br />
Africa’s JoziHub and Silicon Cape are considered the leading<br />
hotbeds of innovation, breeding grounds for Africa’s<br />
technology revolution.<br />
The iHub space in Kenya was established in 2010 by some<br />
of the most prominent members of the nation’s tech community,<br />
Erik Hersman, Juliana Rotich and Ory Okolloh. In less than<br />
seven years, this innovation hub has nurtured more than 170<br />
initiatives from the ground up, including the e-learning start-up<br />
Eneza Education, one of Africa’s most widely-used mobile<br />
education platforms.<br />
“The tech world of Nairobi in 2010 was very different from<br />
what it is today,” says Hersman, iHub’s founder. “There were<br />
only a handful of start-ups, and the surface of what we could<br />
do if we worked together hadn’t been scratched.”<br />
As iHub began to grow in stature, it attracted funding and<br />
endorsements from the Omidyar Network, a philanthropic<br />
investment firm, and mobile operators like Safaricom.<br />
“These hubs provide<br />
real ecosystems for<br />
young people to hang out<br />
with their peers,<br />
and to work through ideas<br />
for apps and services”<br />
– Toby Shapshak –<br />
Magazine editor & innovation expert<br />
Kenyan start-ups to watch<br />
• Mawingu – Provides internet connectivity for<br />
rural Kenya using solar-powered Wi-Fi routers.<br />
• M-Farm – Helps small and medium-scale farmers<br />
determine market rates using mobile phones.<br />
• Ushahidi – Open source platform used to monitor<br />
election violence and to crowdsource disaster data.
Change language