The Innovation Ecosystem in East Africa

This post is the third in a four-part series on Africa: The Present Frontier

“Many investors see East Africa’s strong growth potential as a driver of better investment performance than in South Africa: This is a huge shift in private … Read More

Kenya Technology, Innovation & Startup Report 2012: A Preview

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 … Read More

Disruptive Innovation in the African Tech Context

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 … Read More

The Road Ahead: Blueprint for Building Africa's Tech Ecosystem

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 … Read More

12 predictions for Africa Tech Scene in 2012

It has been a banner year for the Africa technology scene as the world begins to turn to the continent – the Economist Africa rising cover story article was for many, a big validation in the future opportunities as well … Read More

Three lessons for innovators & techpreneurs: Learning from Ushahidi's history

The Ushahidi crowdsourcing platform recently secured an additional $1.9 million round of funding from the Omidyar Network spanning 3 years.

Ushahidi has definitely grown from strength to strength since 2008 when it was created and first deployed, really as a hack creating a … Read More

The Glue of Innovation: Creating a supportive culture for innovation in Africa

“Just as energy is the basis of life itself, and ideas the source of innovation, so is innovation the vital spark of all human change, improvement and progress” – Ted Levitt

In a recent article on innovation, we looked at … Read More

Africa: Innovating into the Future

In this day and age, innovation for any organisation or nation is not an option, it is a necessity!

If you do not innovate you will simply be left behind. And as we noted in the article, “Necessity & Invention: Africa’s story … Read More

Necessity & Invention: Africa's story of mobile conquest & why utility beats 'coolness'

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention and indeed that could perfectly describe Africa where it comes to innovation particularly on mobile.

Utility vs Coolness

In a great talk at TEDxVienna Alexander Oswald, Head of Marketing at … Read More

Is My Tech Idea Viable?

If there’s one question I’d love to answer:

Is my tech idea viable?

Unfortunately, despite my daily interaction with entrepreneurs, no one asks me this question! When I was offered the opportunity to write on here, I thought this … Read More