innovation
15 articles
Looking North: Investigating Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship in North Africa
Much of our focus in the past has centered around Sub-Saharan Africa and in particularly key ‘hubs’ in the region – Nigeria in Western Africa,…
Rocket Internet May Be Just What Is Needed to Turbo-Charge African E-commerce
It might be an entrepreneur’s worst nightmare. Take co-founder of red hot Silicon Valley payment startup Stripe Patrick Collison’s recent visit to Nairobi, I quickly let…
Does the “Copy to/Clone…” Strategy work in Africa?
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…
Disrupting SMS Apps Space: Telerivet’s Distributed Mobile SMS Service using Android Phones
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…
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 Role of Government in Promoting Tech Innovation in Africa
In talking about the efforts to promote technology and innovation in Africa, we tend to focus a lot of attention on private initiatives such as…
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…
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…
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…
Genomics Research in Africa – Improving Health by applying cloud computing
I talked about the need for more market research needed. Lets get more serious. How about more genomics research? Sounds too cutting edge? No. Its…