"A view of Africa and Africans with a focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, technology, practical remedies and other self sustaining activities.".....Emeka Okafor
...Ploggin is an online platform that encourages networking sites Facebook and Twitter, the site supports micro-blogging and live-feeds. However, there are a few distinguishing features. Users have the option of posting comments anonymously and a user can upload a media stream containing a maximum of seven audio, picture or video files.
CP-Africa in conversation with Mark Essien founder of Hotels.com.ng, a hotel listings and reviews site:
CP-Africa: When did the site launch and what inspired you to launch Hotels.com.ng? Mark Essien: We launched Hotels.com.ng at the end of January 2012. What inspired me to start the site was not directly a passion for the hotel industry, but rather the observation that there is strong demand for technology products in Africa now, and that this demand is only going to grow. The South Africans are moving aggressively into the West African internet space, and I felt that this was a good time to also enter the market. After analysing various market segments, this particular idea was viable and doable.
Mark Essien image courtesy of cp-Africa
CP-Africa: Did you launch with funding? If yes, how much and how were you able to pitch the site’s concept and value proposition to investors?
Mark Essien: Yes, we launched with a 5 million Naira seed fund. It was relatively easy to raise the funds – the core argument was that I was able to point at almost every major economy, and show that the idea was working very well there. A clear and obvious monetization path, also copied from foreign markets, showed that we would not have problems becoming profitable. And finally, and I would say, most importantly – my investors know that I am able to start internet-based businesses that make money, as I have done this several times already.
The book ‘Fashion Africa’ features the must-haves from just a handful of the crème de la crème of emerging and established designers who have taken their core inspiration from all corners of Africa! Fashion Africa proudly showcases over 45 designers who have been influenced by the heartbeat, the many facets of history, culture, and people of Africa to bring about an aesthetic beauty which has been artistically illustrated. Featured in the book are designers such as Jewel by Lisa, SUNO NY, Oliberte, Chichia London as well as ethical manufacturers such as Mantisworld and Kibotrade, illustrations, photographs and analysis. This book is a contemporary, informative, visual overview of the African fashion and textiles industry with an ethical perspective.
Louis Mariette grew up in Botswana and Swaziland. With nature as his playground, Louis would spend endless hours exploring the flora and fauna, collecting everything from semi precious stones, seedpods and cactus flowers, to beads and trimmings from local tribes. Travelling as a child Louis experienced the contrasting world and bright lights of London and was especially inspired by its glamorous café society. This, combined with the incredible palette of colours and textures found within the wildlife of Africa, became the central force of Louis’ inspiration and are brought to life through the exotic elegance of his designs today.
Based at his atelier in Chelsea in London, Louis is a self-taught milliner and has been breaking boundaries with his designs for eight years. Having previously worked as a party and wedding planner, his first show was in Milan in 2002, commissioned by renowned stylist Michael Dye, which garnered the milliner high praise and recognition. Louis was soon approached by Harrods to design one of his most spectacular creations, the ‘Chapeau d’Amour’, a £1.5 million hat made from a rare weave of platinum fabric studded with diamonds, for their newly refurbished hat department.
Video streaming by Ustream Escape velocity interviews Shivani Siroya founder ot Inventure "...InVenture is the first micro-investment platform that allows everyday individuals to invest in small businesses from under-served communities across the globe. We believe that providing small businesses with investments - a type of financing which most small businesses cannot access - will enable them to achieve real growth and financial independence, and help fight poverty in their communities..."-website
Where most fruits lose their green color as they mature, the flesh of the African horned melon (Cucumis metuliferus) turns fluorescent green when ripe. And while the shelf life of most fruits is a few weeks at best with refrigeration, the horned melon can last six months without chilling, which actually shortens its shelf life by softening the fruit and making it more prone to molding. A bit of a horticultural oddity, the fruit is grown commercially in many places today but originates in Africa.
Founded by Pule Mmolotsi...Signarite specialises in innovative products and solutions that increase user confidence in the electronic infrastructure, increase service efficiency and build new delivery channels through the application of intelligent technologies -both software and hardware- using biometrics, encryption and related technologies.
Signarite specialises in the supply, installation, maintenance and consultancy services in biometrics security solutions and services.
We've covered the emerging space of electronic infused fashion and textiles from Aniomagic to the Lilypad. The NYTimes highlights some of the latest trends in this burgeoning and fashionable space:
A silk top with sparkling LEDs, from Moon Berlin. Image by Patrick Jendrusch
Wearable electronics are starting to dress up gowns, handbags and even tuxedos, and not just in one-of-a-kind costumes worn by the likes of Fergie, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga or other divas.
For the rest of us, designers and others are starting to offer such merchandise online — giving it bling by way of conductive thread, sensors, batteries and small microprocessors. And daytime computerized wearables are on the way, like T-shirts and coats that can show full-length videos or use GPS to point you to your destination.
Kyle Lawson and James Peyer discuss their innovative strategy to get biotechnology into schools and hackerspaces. Their company GenOtyp was formed with the purpose of making equipment and information accessible to anyone who wants to get started with geneticresearch and experiments.
Sara Jomaa’sjewelry involves money stones and precious materials to imagine necklaces, rings, earrings and bracelets. Sara went to Ecole des Beaux Arts in Tunis, which has led to rub shoulders with the filigree great masters in the Medina. Inspired by various influences in her work, from the Mahdia heritage to Asian heritage, Sara offers hybrid creations to delight us.
The forest vine, Gnetum africanum, known locally as eru (ukazi) or okok, is a highly prized food in Cameroon, and is traded both within the region and further afield, including Europe and the USA. With support from the World Agroforestry Centre, farmers in Cameroon are now cultivating the vine near their homesteads, thereby reducing their harvesting time and protecting the wild vines from over-exploitation. Processing the leaves and other parts of the vine into a variety of products lengthens their shelf life and adds value. Whiskies, body oils and hair pomades are just some of the products now being made from eru. Farmers are also organising group sales, in order to negotiate higher prices from traders
...is a forward-thinking, dynamic, diverse company dedicated to delivering unparalleled customer service to each individual client. We are also a hub of aviation empowerment for youth and disadvantaged communities. We have access to almost an infinite range of luxurious private jets and executive helicopters available through the most reliable jet charter operators around the world.” As chief executive officer, Mrs.Thompson provides clients with private jets and executive helicopters, networks with pilots, and custom tailors services to clients, all within as little as 24-hours notice. Her daily responsibilities include managing a staff of 18 people in the sales and operations departments, approving all aspects of business operations, and handling aviation related security matters for the company.
New technologies are making it easier than ever to turn an idea into a reality. 3D printers, open-source software, hackable products, and collaborative communities have turned traditional tinkering into a full-scale "maker movement" that allows -- and encourages -- everyone to tap into their inner entrepreneur. Can this movement usher in a new age of innovation? Will hackers have a profound impact on the economy? And if so, are we prepared for it?
Pay-as-you-go products may be synonymous with mobile phones but a solar energy service in Africa is harnessing the popular business model to bring affordable electricity to the continent's remotest communities. IndiGo solar enables rural households far removed from their country's electrical grid to generate their own power via a photovoltaic panel and battery pack.
Nigerian-based Italian designer Caterina Bortolussi exhibited her label Kinabuti at the event for the first time, using non-professional models scouted from Nigeria's streets. She said she relished the chance for her "ethical fashion" label, which she describes as a Nigerian-Italian brand, to share a platform with accomplished designers such as South Africa's Kluk CGDT -- jointly named alongside Nigeria's Maki Oh as "designer of the year" at the event. "It's an amazing opportunity to learn, to challenge yourself, to network," she said. "It's not easy to do things down here."
African Lily offers you the best quality leather fashion accessorieshand crafted in Kenya. And how can we not, when our leather has been kissed by the African sun, endured the harshest weather sometimes overbearing storms and other times scorching heat. Our leather has withstood the test of time and the elements. Each item is hand crafted...
Entrepreneurs need to have plans in place for investors to exit, especially in developing countries. Most investors don't have years to wait around to recoup investments through growth and profits. Most are gone after about four to eight years, and entrepreneurs need to present a clear path for that to happen. If you don't, it's very unlikely that you'll ever get funding. It's something that U.S. tech entrepreneurs may not need to be overly concerned about, since the tech ecosystem in the U.S. is dynamic, and investors know that there are companies interested in buying innovative tech startups. The U.S. also has a vibrant IPO system to take companies public. But for entrepreneurs in developing nations, especially Africa, the exit strategy can be a challenge. Some countries in Africa don't have stock exchanges, and where the exchange does exist — for instance, in Nigeria — the markets don't value tech stocks very well. With foreign technology companies doing mostly trading in Africa, combined with a porous IPR system in the region, tech startups have limited opportunities for acquisition. That's why most investments in Africa are in mature industries like oil & gas, real estate, and finance, among others.
So what can entrepreneurs in the developing world do? Follow the model of most South African companies — incorporate your business in Europe or the U.S. and run it from your own country. Doing so positions you to legally tie your assets to highly-liquid funding environments, and your exit path will be expanded. What's more, if you incorporate in these markets, it will be easier for investors to help you find buyers, who naturally will prefer U.S. and European companies compared to say, African companies, because indigenization policies in some markets make it difficult for foreigners to own controlling stakes in companies. Understanding how your investors can exit is important if you want to raise funds easily.
Sean Park believes finance will change radically in the coming months. He will show us some of the startups he believes in, from people reinventing banks to new payment systems.
What Liberian women need to do is seek first the economic kingdom. There’s something about earning one’s income that makes women formidable. A young girl who sees her mother working a 9-to-5 is more likely to want to be a breadwinner in her own home. An employed female university student is less likely to fall prey to the advances of an older man wanting to add her to his list of conquests. And a woman who runs her own business is less likely to tolerate being beaten by her husband or boyfriend.
Women’s economic empowerment has become another fad that I hope will outlive itself. This month the fourth class of Liberian women entrepreneurs graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 womenscholars program, which runs in 42 countries. The program is a five-year initiative that provides business and management education to women as well as access to capital, networks and mentors. According to the program organizers, the rate of success for participants is a statistical dream: 70% of graduates of the program have increased business revenues, and 50% have infused the labor market with new jobs.
image of Arjay Farms Liberia
Women are proving that they can and must graduate from wage earners to wage creators. I have to side with the evidence that shows women are better financial managers than men. We’ve all heard the stories, if a man earns a living he is likely to ‘chop’ the money, but a woman will save it, put it into a susu, and turn it around, making something out of nothing. It is no wonder that the ‘market woman’ has become a successful cultural trope in Liberia in the past six years. Beyond the anonymous faces of market women throughout the country, there are stories of successful Liberian businesswomen, representing a range of small to medium size enterprises: Josephine Francis of Arjay Farms and Aquarius Beverages, Tina Kpan of KaSawa Fashion, Rosemarie Tolbert of Rosie’s N’yala Café, Adelaine Lavala of Zuitin Nails, Era Taylor of Vital Technology.
Who can forget the dynamic Celestine Setoe, respectfully known throughout Liberia as R.L. (Republic of Liberia)? R.L. used to sell homemade kitchen and bathroom cleaners in small, recycled containers; now she is one of the most sought after chemists in Liberia. R.L. doesn’t need a bio-chemical degree to lead a successful business. She has guts, intuition, and much more than book knowledge can muster. I remember her complaining that what she lacked was the capital to get started, that banks were wary of Liberian businesses because our loan-payback habits leave much to be desired. I imagine that the challenges for women entrepreneurs like R.L. are ten-fold.
"an open-source initiative to support designers, artists, researchers and hobbyists to work creatively with interactiveelectronics. We are creating a software and website in the spirit of processing and Arduino, developing a tool that allows users to document their prototypes, share them with others, teach electronics in a classroom, and to create a pcb layout for professional manufacturing."
There are a few technologies to emerge from the maker movement that have been more “disruptive” than the desktop 3D printer. One of the hallmarks of such game-changing ideas is often being met with skepticism, if not outright derision. When the RepRap project (short for “replicating rapid prototyper”) was announced in 2005, with the goal of creating an open source three-dimensional desktop printer that could replicate copies of itself and spark a revolution in democratized home manufacturing, many eyes were rolled. It seemed too early in the 21st century for such a self-replicator, too Pollyannish of an idea. But the concept was readily embraced by hardy hackers, and slowly, a revolution began gathering its cadre.
We need a “new economic strategy that stimulates production rather than consumption; saving rather than borrowing; and exports rather than imports.” While such a shift needs to happen, we need a conception of “producer society” that is somewhat wider than old-line manufacturing, which tends to be the image that comes to mind when talking “production.”
Yet, in some ways, a new producer society is already taking shape all across the country, driven by very real grassroots movements in tinkering, do-it-yourself (DIY) projects, entrepreneurship, and even manufacturing. This is not the producer society of auto assembly or equipment manufacturing. In rural Missouri, a Polish immigrant with a doctorate in physics has founded Open Source Ecology, which creates what it calls the “Global Village Construction Set,” dramatically lowering the barriers to farming, construction, and manufacturing. The idea has clear implications for developing countries, but for a place like the United States, with massive legacy infrastructure and deep pools of engineering talent, the idea of repurposing existing technology for lower cost and better quality is very attractive.
Reprap mendel Running of Batteries powered by the sun. This Reprap Mendel is Running Ramps 1.3 with SD card add-on allowing it to to print without a computer plugged in. More information about the Electronics can be found @ Ultimachine.com Printing with biodegradable PLA made from Corn using only Sun power to print.
In 2004, Christoper Lausted et al. out of The Institute for Systems Biology published a wonderful paper titled “POSaM: a fast, flexible, open-source, inkjet oligonucleotide synthesizer and microarrayer” complete with all the necessary schematics and assembly instructions(pdf linked). The design is quite impressive and extremely low cost using mostly off the shelf components. I have a feeling it was a bit ahead of its time and that with the advent of DIYbio could find new life as an active Open Source project.
The POSaM platform. (a) Overview. The complete inkjet printing system is enclosed in an air-tight acrylic cover, 61 × 91 × 122 cm. (b) View from above showing the array holder. One slide is shown secured by the vacuum check with room for 26 additional slides. (c) Front view showing the print/wash head. Five PTFE wash lines deliver acetonitrile, oxidizer and deprotecting acid in bulk. Six vials supply tetrazole and phosphoramidites to the inkjet print head. (d) Lower-front view of the inkjet print head showing droplets passing through the QC laser beam. The presence of a droplet produces forward-scattered light, visible as bright red flashes (arrowed).
And again courtesy of Citizen Quarterly a DIY Scanning Electron Microscope by Ben Krasnow
In addition to the four basic services (maternity, internal medicine, surgery, and pediatrics),will include an emergency department, a full surgery ward with two operating rooms, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), an intensive care unit (ICU), outpatient ophthalmology and gynecology services, an ear nose and throat clinic (ENT), and significantly expanded laboratory capabilities. The facility will feature modern measures for infection control including natural cross-ventilation through clerestories, secluded patients wards around courtyards, and an effective spatial triage system allowing for separation of patients based on their condition.
The vision for the hospital includes creating a scientific community of clinical and non-clinical staff alike, with the hope that people will travel far and wide to teach, learn, deliver care, and seek care at the new facility. In the future, Butaro District Hospital will be an example of how to achieve a modern hospital in rural Africa with an academic environment capable of delivering world-class medical care.
...is a brand that seeks to produce T shirts, hoodys and other apparel that is comfortable, trendy and has positive images of Africa everyone can wear and relate to.
Although we’re based in London we have fans all around the world and hope to produce garments that people from all backgrounds can enjoy.
Proud to Be African Clothing aims to be about more than just T shirt's, hoodys, Childrens clothes and baby clothes. It aims to be more than just urban wear or casual wear, we aim to be a movement or a feeling; that warm, fuzzy feeling Africa evokes whenever she comes to mind!
Ikenna “Ike” Orizu is the founder and CEO of TruSpot, a service he describes as the “Spotify for Africa”. Truspot, which offers Africa-specific content, is run out of Texas, but will move to its conceptual birthplace, Nigeria eventually
On its growth:
Orizu says TruSpot has 89 000 active users a month — or “addicts”, as he calls users who use the service for more than an hour a day on average. There are also more than 35 000 subscribers to the site’s various radio stations. “We’re hoping to double the subscriber figure within the next month.”
At launch, TruSpot focused only on Nigerian music, but Orizu says shortly thereafter “the dream got bigger” and the company decided to look at Africa as a whole. “It was hard to find Nigerian music online, and the same problem existed for the rest of Africa,” he explains.
Octocat Print from Andreas Bastian on Vimeo. Additive rapid prototyping in plastic materials is becoming quite accessible to home and hobby users. If you’re a hobbyist on a typical budget wanting to rapid prototype in metal, however, you’re limited to subtractive methods, i.e. CNCmachine tools like mills and lathes, and even those are not exactly “cheap.” Professional 3D printing services like Shapeways offer additive metal prototyping in metals like stainless steel and gold, but it’s extremely expensive. The technology their 3D printers use, called “laser sintering,” is fundamentally different from the RepRap-type fused-filament (“robot hot glue gun”) 3D printers at the “garage” end of the pricing scale.
The “maker movement” has been around since 2005, and has since spurred "do-it-yourself" or DIY mainstays such as Etsy, Creative Commons and open-source software. Some, however, credit the recent economic slowdown and a growing rejection of mass consumerism with bringing the maker ethic to the mainstream.
3D printers, one of the movement’s most noteworthy developments, can now create everything from buildings to human tissue. With the rise of DIY culture, these machines have become cheap enough for consumer use and could have many implications for nations in early stages of development.
In this episode of The Stream, we talk to Emeka Okafor, co-founder of Maker Faire Africa, and Bre Pettis, CEO and co-founder of MakerBot Industries.
Within a HP article on the tenacity and resourcefulness of Nigerian entrepreneurs Randall Kempner highlights Promoprint:
Patricia Ojora, who runs PromoPrint Ventures Limited, a company that specializes in designing and manufacturing corporate and personal gifts. After practicing as a Nigerian lawyer, Patricia realized her true calling to be an entrepreneur and opened PromoPrint. I had a chance to visit her printing facility in the neighborhood of Ebute Metta. Operating out of an old house, Ojora has built the premier shirt printing business in Lagos. Starting with small orders from friends and old business contacts, she now focuses on serving major corporate clients. (If you see anyone wearing a Guinness® Beer T-shirt in Nigeria, Patricia's team likely printed it.)
Despite the fact that Promoprint, like most firms in Lagos, has to generate its own electricity and supply its own water, Patricia has been able to build a thriving firm. In the past year, Ojora's firm has experienced nearly 100 percent revenue growth, and she is now considering another location to support future expansion.
When Olivier Nizeyimana was a student, the journey to Rwanda's National University would sometimes take him ages so he thought it would be a good idea to start a bus company that made punctuality one of its core values... In 1999, he launched his Volcanoes Transport Company."I had only one route. Then I've been expanding all the way. Now we have a really big company which is networking all the towns of the southern region of Rwanda, linking them with the capital, Kigali," he said.
On the company's growth:
The entrepreneur believes that at the moment his business is worth more than $3m."When I started, I had four staff with myself and now I have about 250,"
In Nyeri, Kenya a young man named Peterson Mwangi has created a way to start and switch off a car engine, via an SMS command from his cell phone. This is a lot like Morris Mbetsa’s anti-theft vehicle system using SMS of a couple years ago.
Ukwaka can be breakfast food, served with hot, milky corn pap or oats. It could be a snack. Or lunch. Or dinner. Best of all, it is the perfect remedy for overripe plantains, as banana bread is for brown-speckled, soft bananas. Essentially, you take extremely sweet plantains, blend them with water, onions and chili peppers, season with some salt and dried crayfish if you wish and then bring them together with a sprinkling of polenta and some vegetable or palm oil. Once the batter is ready, you ladle it into ramekins or gently fold banana leaves into a cone sealing off base and top and then ‘waterbath’ them (like you do for creme caramel/brulee) for half an hour or more, till the puddings are firm.
Give us an overview of cfinder
Cfinder is a search engine that aims to centralise Malawian information. In Malawi there is a lot of information that only exists in hard copy, such as academic materials and books. We will scan this material and it will be available on cfinder.
How did the idea for cfinder came about?
We are university students studying Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at Mzuzu University. We thought of contributing something to Malawi and after we evaluated different ideas, we opted to develop a search engine.
The grain is rich in lysine, an amino acid, making it a good source of protein. It is also rich in vitamins A, C, and E and in folic acid, as well as minerals such as calcium, iron, potassium and phosphorous. Once cooked, it is 90 per cent digestible.
As I learned the last time I saw him– over machetes in Nigeria– that includes vigilante mobs. But that also includes YouTube, Amazon Web Services, and US-based video ad networks. And those are the people causing him the most problems since we last spoke.
Continuing...
Iroko does it all: They roam the markets of Alaba cutting deals with independent film producers, they scrub the content for remove copyrighted content, they subtitle it, they enter all the metadata, they convert it from outdated formats, they enter all the relevant information in a IMDB-like database, and upload it for hundreds of millions of people in the Nigerian diaspora to rabidly consume. (That’s him haggling with producers above; Njoku is on the right.)
Until a few months ago, he let YouTube do the rest. He started a turn-key YouTube channel, that handled the cost and challenges of serving up gigabits of video every month. They handled ad sales. And even some distribution, putting Nollywood movies in some genre lists.
When I last saw Njoku in Nigeria that was working well. He was doing eight million streams a month, and on a $1 million revenue run-rate. But since then, his traffic has soared, and the relationship soured. In Njoku’s view, YouTube has become so maniacal about pleasing Hollywood and doing original, high-level US-centric programming that they just didn’t care about what someone like Iroko was doing.
