Mbwana Alliy is passionate about product development and launching new ventures in technology. He is an experienced Product Manager within consumer web, enterprise Software & Software as a Service. He is originally from Tanzania and has lived and worked in 3 continents (USA, Europe and Africa). He has a Bachelor's in Electrical and Communications Engineering degree from Bristol University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate school of Business. He currently work at I/O ventures, an early stage mentor accelerator program driven investment firm in Silicon Valley incubating startups with global reach, where in addition to helping startups day to day, he focuses of connecting Silicon Valley to emerging tech hubs inc. Africa. He is on the board of advisors for Envaya.org, web platform for grass roots NGOs and civil society. Previous Career: Mbwana started his career working in military flight testing at QinetiQ, once a UK Government defense research organization as a systems engineer and software developer and most recently working as a Product Manager in the Office and Business Intelligence Group covering products inc. Groove Excel, Excel Services and Access at Microsoft. He was cofounder and head of Product of Tanzania's first ecommerce travel portal, YellowMasai and has advised the Tanzanian Government on Technology incubation. His passions include Travel and Photography, hiking, snowboarding and has recently gotten back into coding on ruby on rails and working on a few web and mobile side projects.

Website: http://www.mbwana.com

Twitter: @mbwana

Over the last few days… Actually it seems like forever- The web has been full of articles about how Africa needs startup funding. Almost everyday now I see some article about it. As a general rule when you hear the same thing over and over again- you should start to ask why? I have written about what I think on this topic prior. Here is are summary of my points: Innovation Funding in Africa Are Impact Investors/VCs taking enough Risk 7 Steps to Raising Angel Investment in Africa And one that...Read Full Post

One of the opportunities and challenges of the tech industry is how rapidly it continues to advance and in its wake change not only how we live, disrupt current solutions but also redefine how we work. Jobs can get eliminated overnight whilst new ones can emerge from nowhere. I’ve been looking forward to writing this post- especially after my first trip back to Nairobi last week to see the progress of Nailab and iHub but also a few startups new and old. Many have noted the skills gap that exist...Read Full Post

Every so often I hear venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley ask a recurring question regarding Tech Startups in Africa- why not just use the “copy to” strategy? Clone an e-bay, clone a Groupon… After all there are 1,000s of Groupon clones in China! And the Samwer brothers in Germany are notorious for doing this right that it angers many innovators in America. I have decided that this strategy is not as easy to implement as it sounds, even though it does work in...Read Full Post

Most web and mobile startups in Africa need to have to some sort of messaging or notification layer that incorporates SMS. Wider businesses, large and small also too to communicate with customers . I have certainly blogged about the importance of SMS platforms for innovation in Africa. It is simply the best way to distribute information in Africa to the masses in the wake of feature phone dominance and lack of reliable internet access. Some whole startups and social ventures depend solely on it for...Read Full Post

I have lived and breathed the modern technology Ecosystem of Silicon Valley for the last 7 years- it’s a well oiled machine that keeps on producing innovations that impact the world. In the last few years we have started to see the culture  start to spread across the world. From my vantage point, I started seeing some tech successes come out of New York, such as Foursquare. Then through the spread of conferences and events, places like Austin, Texas suddenly came on the map thanks to South...Read Full Post

Last year whilst visiting an aunt in south west area of Tanzania called Kyela, near Lake Malawi- I put my samsung cheap android smartphone on the dinner table . My cousin immediately reached it pulled up the Facebook app and used my profile to friend request me! I remain hidden on Facebook and he wanted to make sure we stayed in touch. I was shocked- I am pretty sure he had never seen an Android Samsung before- but had clearly been on Facebook on internet cafe’s or through his feature phone-...Read Full Post

I have observed quite a few entrepreneurs trying to raise seed investments for tech startups in Africa over the last few years. I myself raised $150k for Tanzania’s first e-commerce travel portal 2 years ago. I have also seen startups here in Silicon Valley raise money as part of my work at i/o ventures. And yes, I was at Pivot25 last year and saw the significant angel investment gap that exists when most investors present were saying they don’t put in less than $1M and had little to...Read Full Post

Globally, over 1.5B people lack access to grid electricity for lighting and battery charging (600M in Africa). Lack of access to clean, reliable energy also makes it impossible to break the cycle of poverty. There is no denying that one of the biggest challenges for Africa is to solve this energy crisis. Relying on the electricity grid means frequent blackouts at the mercy of old systems that cost billions to upgrade and as the lower income consumers transition into the growing middle class, the...Read Full Post

In recent conversation that have spanned the last 6 months, I’ve been getting the same style of questions from foreigners who recognize the growing opportunities in Africa and want to jump in. “Which is the best country in Africa to do a tech startup?” Sometimes the question is underlying in the comments I have seen in this blog “Hey, you talk so much about Kenya, what about Nigeria or South Africa- we rock too!”. But more recently the question is more vital when I...Read Full Post

In my last post, I predicted tablets would start surfacing into the mainstream in Africa this year, especially within education. When I wrote that post I had not even given a second thought that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) would be a factor to consider. And I still don’t think they will be at this stage even with all the buzz and excitement coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) which kicks off this week. I personally think CES is increasingly becoming a bad predictor of what’s...Read Full Post