Founder of Afrinnovator.com

Website: http://afrinnovator.com

Twitter: @afrinnovator

Afrinnovator: In a nutshell, what is Esoko? Esoko: In essence, Esoko is an information channel that individuals, agri-businesses, governments and projects use to collect and send out market information using simple text messaging. The platform provides automatic and personalized prices alerts, buy and sell offers, bulk SMS messaging, stock counts and SMS polling. Afrinnovator: Where did the idea originate? Esoko:  The ‘aha’ moment came when the founder and CEO Mark Davies connected with the...Read Full Post

Google has officially launched it’s Google Trader service in Kenya following it’s success in Uganda and a launch in Ghana. Google announced on it’s official Google Africa blog: After the pilot launch in Uganda and the exciting launch in Ghana, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Trader in Kenya. Google Trader is a free classifieds service that allows people to buy and sell products and services, search for jobs or just about anything else they are looking for. Dealfish,...Read Full Post

Xtreme Design and Engineering (XDE) is a tech company based in Dakar, Sengal with offices in Conakry, Ghana and Atlanta, GA. The company offers a wide array of IT solutions including custom software and web development and 2D and 3D design but also has a knack for doing mobile apps for iOS and Android amongst other platforms. Xtreme Design and Engineering help businesses optimize their IT investments by offering complete lifecycle mobile and web applications development services. We offer global...Read Full Post

Last year we posed the question: Is there a market for homegrown hardware solutions? At Afrinnovator, we tend to focus a lot on the software side of innovation, perhaps because there’s a lot of it happening. And that’s no surprise really since getting into software has much lower initial costs and potentially larger and quicker returns on investment. hardware is a totally different ballgame. It takes quite a bit to successfully develop and market a piece of hardware. Particularly in terms...Read Full Post

Tech is (or will become) the New Agriculture In many an African country, the primary economic driver is typically agriculture (as well as mining & tourism in others). It is evident that many African economies suffer for their over-dependence on this primary industry, simply growing and selling agricultural produce with little or no value added. Gumisai Mumume notes thus: Across Africa, most countries face the problem that Mauritius once did: they produce and export mainly unprocessed crops or...Read Full Post

This week Kenya has been hosting the Internet Governance Forum  under the main theme, ”Internet as a catalyst for change: access, development, freedoms and innovation“. Well, yesterday Nairobi’s Innovation Hub hosted one of the “Fathers of the Internet”, Vinton  G. Cerf for a session dubbed “Synergestic Communities” as well as a Fireside Chat. Vint and Bob Kahn co-designed the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. Vint is a thought...Read Full Post

This post was originally from the Nairobi innovation hub blog and is reposted here with their permission… The arrival of the undersea fiber cables in Kenya in 2009 has revolutionized the technology and economic sectors. Kenya is one of very few countries in Africa with a comprehensive framework set up in this regard. Average national download speeds have increased from670.89 kbps in 2009 to 3,806.03 Kbps in 2011. Further, mobile broadband speeds have also drastically increased while cost...Read Full Post

Web video is one of those revolutionary inventions that has really opened up the world in dramatic ways. For example, 2011 YouTube statistics show that over 48 hours of video are now uploaded per minute, and YouTube has surpassed 3 billion views per day. TED’s Chris Anderson made the assertion that web video is powering global innovation in this 2010 TED talk: Without a doubt, web video is here to stay and in a big way, particularly when combined with mobile - this is exactly what moved...Read Full Post

There is no shortage of Africa/Tech-focused events nowadays. If you are looking forward for a worthwhile event in the area of telecoms and ICT, the 14th annual AfricaCom conference is just around the corner and promises to be a massive event. The event is to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, with a pretty impressive agenda. The event will cover such topics as: Innovation Social Media Mobility and mobile money Telecoms  - with a particular focus on rural Africa, and much more Africa is at...Read Full Post

As a follow up to yesterday’s article on mobile money, let’s take a look at another area that the success of mobile money is affecting. One of the most interesting side effects of the continued growth of mobile money is how it has opened up opportunities for startups to add value to the basic offering from mobile network operators and in the process create even cooler applications of mobile money. In that article, we shone some light on just one of these startups, PesaPal, that is aiming...Read Full Post