Scaling Internet-Based Startups in African Markets

We’ve all heard of the idea that entrepreneurs are people who see a ‘gap’ in the market and then create a product or service to address that gap. The implication is that there’s a ready market there that will snap … Read More

Bitcoin Crypto-currency and the opportunity for a truly Pan-Africa money revolution

NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE:

Imagine you are a freelance coder in Zimbabwe during the collapse of the financial banking system in the last decade. Your local currency is going through world record inflation meaning anything you earn locally is … Read More

E-commerce & Mobile Payments in Africa will not scale without Business Process Integration

E-Commerce (or M-Commerce) and Mobile Payments in Africa gets a lot of attention.  I get a number of mobile payments pitches every month, and you can imagine how tough my skin has become over the last 6 months. Especially as … Read More

Where Opportunities Lie in the African Mobile Space

This is the second in a 4-part series on Africa: The Present frontier. 

Africa straddles two realities. One is underpinned by the belief that Africa is the next frontier and measures the continent’s progress against an expected trajectory and momentum … Read More

Systems Thinking Applied To Why M-Pesa’s Economic Impact and Wealth Creation Lessons Affects the Ecosystem and Not Just the Bottom of the Pyramid

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Niti Bhan is Founder at the Emerging Futures Lab. Niti integrates her multidisciplinary background in business, design and engineering with a global perspective to offer immediately actionable insights and strategic directions for successfully … Read More

From Mobile Money to Mobile Finance: Effects of Mobile Money on household, community and national economics

Back in 2011,  Erik Hersman, Ken Banks & Rudy De Waele curated a presentation dubbed “Mobile Trends 2020 Africa“, a collaborative outlook. Essentially they sought the views of different people across the continent who are players in one way or … 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

M-Pesa: Beyond the Buzz

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This is a guest post by futurist and technologist Soud Hyder.

I’ve been meaning to pen my thoughts on this over the better half of this year but time has nonetheless … Read More

Visa gets serious: Let the Africa Mobile Payment Wars Begin

A student at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania was asked by a former lead engineer at paypal during a mentoring session almost a year ago “Why are you not using Amazon web services for cloud computing?”, he … Read More

Forecasting Africa's Mobile Future

Co-founder of Ushahidi, Erik Hersman, gave an interesting talk at the recently held AITEC Africa conference in Nairobi, Kenya in which he made some observations, predictions and opportunities regarding the current state and future of mobile in Africa especially looking at where the … Read More