Founder of Afrinnovator.com

Website: http://afrinnovator.com

Twitter: @afrinnovator

This evening, Afrinnovator will be hosting a Startup-focused event titled “What’s your Business Model?“. Last month we held an event that brought together several seed funds and VCs for a panel discussion open to questions from Startups about matters related to funding, we also got some feedback from these funds about what they have observed in the local (Kenyan) startup ecosystem. Let’s see if we can set a foundation and context for the event later on today… Perhaps...Read Full Post

It’s always great to meet and talk with people who have a great passion for Africa just as we do here at Afrinnovator. Toffene Kama is a highly driven and passionate individual whose not just talking about Africa’s great future with passion and enthusiasm but is also actively running an amazing tech startup called Willstream Labs. Willstream tackles the problem of migrants remitting money back home to their families in their countries of origin in Africa for specific uses. Simply, the...Read Full Post

Many an entrepreneur have come up with a brilliant idea and gone about the painstaking business of developing it only to come to the realization that there’s no sound business model behind it, or the business model is not sustainable. The problem is significant among tech startups where the founder has a great vision for a technology product or service but fails to adequately answer the questions of just how they will go about creating, delivering and capturing value. Then again, we find many...Read Full Post

The history of African peoples is filled with tons of folklore and a rich oral history. Our peoples in past times primarily disseminated information and preserved their culture in the form of folk tales, songs… content; and the primary platform of distribution was oral. Today, Africa stands to embrace it’s history of original content creation on the platform of the Internet and World Wide Web in form of digital content. A platform that not only creates a powerful media to create and convey...Read Full Post

Buni Media is announcing the launch today of Buni TV, its new web and mobile Pan-African digital video platform. By showcasing the best, most innovative and visually arresting content being currently produced in or about Africa and distributing it new audiences on the continent and abroad, Buni TV (www.buni.tv) aims to become the premier destination for independent African video. At launch, the platform will offer the entire 5 seasons of the very popular Kenyan political satire The XYZ Show (produced...Read Full Post

The first live Afrinnovator Meetup (branded ‘kongamano’ – swahili for ‘meetup’) took place this past Monday at the incredibly huge 88mph-run Startup Garage space in Nairobi. The event put together a panel of funds and VCs that are focused on tech investment: Invested Development, an impact investor; 88mph, our gracious hosts and eVentures Africa. We had about 70 people in attendance forming a great audience that actively engaged the panel. (We were unable to livestream...Read Full Post

It is my pleasure to present a preview of the upcoming report “Kenya Technology, Innovation & Startups Report 2012“. The aim of the report is to look into where Kenya currently stands as far as innovation and startup culture is concerned. We talked to several influencers, thought leaders and pioneers of Kenya’s digital revolution to get there take on what the future holds for the country as far as technology and innovation are concerned. We also researched a wide array of materials...Read Full Post

What is it really to disrupt, or what is a disruptive innovation? And to put it in the African context, what does ‘disruption’ mean for the continent and what are the opportunities to disrupt? A dictionary definition of the term ‘disrupt‘ is: to throw into turmoil or disorder to interrupt the progress of (a movement, meeting, etc.) to break or split (something) apart Disruptive Innovation is NOT making a good product better Clayton Christensen, the Harvard Business School...Read Full Post

As we’ve noted before, funding is one of the hot topics when it comes to tech entrepreneurship in Kenya, and many other parts of Africa. We recently looked at the ICT Funding Gap in Kenya, and the challenges of finding investment at the earliest and riskiest part of a startup – the seed funding level. And then even more recently we looked at the other side of the coin, the apparent challenges that investors are facing when it comes to funding tech startups in Kenya. The articles sparked...Read Full Post

Fairly recently I wrote a piece on “The ICT Funding Gap in Kenya“. We noted the existing gaps as far as funding is concerned particularly at the earliest stage of a tech startup. But it seems there is another side to the funding coin. In the recent past, the situation has radically changed in terms of the availability of funding particularly for software based startup funding at the seed level. Whereas, we’re not quite there yet, the situation is definitely not what it was even...Read Full Post