From Kenya to Madagascar and to Nigeria: The African tech-hub boom

There's a buzz, a palpable energy, running through the corridors of Africa's capitals and urban areas, and much of it revolves around tech. What happens when smartphones outsell computers four to one, and 50% of a continent's population is below the age of 20? You have a technology-literate mobile generation unlike any that has come before.

This week finds me in Botswana.I've talked to a couple of start-up entrepreneurs - Pule Mmolotsi, who is testing out an Oyster-like card for public transportation in the country, and Katy Digovich, who is creating apps for the Ministry of Health.

They represent what I continue to see across the continent - a new generation trying new ideas and taking to technology.

African governments aren't fast or savvy enough to build the infrastructure needed to support this type of entrepreneurial tech activity. Academic institutions are woefully behind in teaching skills for computer science and design. So where do people like Pule and Katy go? What mechanisms support their start-ups and connect them to capital, businesses and their peers?
Incubators and accelerators.

If you had asked that question two years ago, the answer would have been: "Very little." But in the past two years there has been an interesting phenomenon in Africa - the proliferation of tech hubs and incubators.

These range from incubation and training spaces like MEST Ghana to co-working environments such as ActivSpaces in Cameroon, and community spaces like the Co-Creation Hub in Nigeria.

Governments are involved, with places like the Botswana Innovation Hub here in Gaberone, and some academic institutions are jumping in, like we see with the Strathmore iLab in Nairobi.

There are now more than 50 tech hubs, labs, incubators and accelerators in Africa, covering more than 20 countries. In Nairobi, we have six.

I've had a front-row seat as the founder of the iHub in Nairobi, where four years ago we had an idea and built a space that now has more than 8,000 members and holds approximately 120 events per year.

We sit at the centre of Kenya's tech community, where our role is to serve as a connection point and support the phenomenal hi-tech growth in the country.
Last year five of these tech hubs founded AfriLabs, an umbrella body that allows investors and media to connect more quickly to the tech activity in each of the countries that houses a member lab. There are now 14 member labs across 10 countries.

At the iHub, we've built strong relationships with some of Kenya's top companies, including Zuku, Nokia, Google, Nation Media Group, Safaricom, InMobi, MIH and Samsung.

We also have a great relationship with the government, through the Kenya ICT Board and the permanent secretary for information and communication, and we have strong ties with Strathmore and Stanford Universities. But if we had waited for the government to create the iHub in Kenya, we would still be waiting today.

We often joke that in Nairobi people don't think you have a job unless you wear a suit and tie and head to the city center each day. In a world where suits and ties are expected, who provides the space for the next generation to work, build companies and be taken seriously as start-up coder wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt?

Innovation comes from the edges, so it comes as no surprise that innovators are found in the margins. They are the misfits among us, the ones who see and do things differently.

The tech hubs in Africa provide a home for those with new and innovative ideas, create an atmosphere where they are encouraged to try new things, and most importantly are able to meet like-minded individuals they can grow with.

By Erik Hersman; Technologist, blogger, co-founder of Ushahidi

Muhammed Jah; Millionaire without a business plan

The Gambia's Muhammed Jah clearly remembers the day, in the late 1990s, when a friend told him that he was going to the airport to pick up a consultant who was coming to teach his department a word processing application popular at the time, WordPerfect. "I said: 'How come we have a consultant coming all the way from Europe just to teach our people how to type a letter on a computer?'" Mr Jah told the BBC's series African Dream."That was funny but serious to me, and there and then I decided that I was going to start teaching people computing."

QuantumNet, the company that he set in motion with four employees, now has more than 300 information technology (IT) professionals on its payroll and, according to his estimates, is worth around £100m ($156m). For him that is no mean feat. After all, Mr Jah - whose father was a school teacher - was the first in his family to go into business.

It all started when, having finished school in The Gambia, he got a scholarship to do a diploma in Islamic Studies in Saudi Arabia. He says that although the stipend was very generous, he lived frugally and saved money - including the funds he had for holiday flights home - to pay his way through university. He then read for a degree in Electronics and Communications engineering at the University of Sierra Leone.

When he returned to The Gambia he considered working as an engineer but then saw - thanks to his friend's illuminating trip to the airport - that there was an opening for computer entrepreneurs in the country. "When I finished my studies in Sierra Leone I had money left over from what I was saving in Saudi Arabia, and I also had a family loan, from an uncle of mine, but I remember I started my whole business with about $16,000 which enabled me to buy a few computers to start a training centre," Mr Jah told the BBC Africa's Victor Okhai.

"My business instinct showed me that there was an opportunity so I quickly transformed myself from pure engineering to computing which is almost the same, so I did a few courses in computing to give to my people what I had learned. "Though I don't have a PhD or a Master's degree in computing, at that time I didn't need that high level to teach people how to type or how to use Excel."

Mr Jah said that he felt he had received so much from his country that it was time to give something back. But when he started out, he did not have a business plan - "I didn't have time for that," he said. "I went straight into the business, I bought some machines, I started training people, a lot of them for free because when you teach people for free, even though they're not paying you, they'll bring you people who will pay you."

In 2006 his training centre became the QuantumNet Institute of Technology which, according to Mr Jah, is one of the biggest private institutes in The Gambia. It offers a series of IT courses, from basic to advanced levels, including a diploma programme in Computing Science and Business Management, delivered in partnership with the University of The Gambia and Saint Mary's University, in Halifax, Canada.

The firm, which was one of the West African country's internet pioneers, gradually expanded into selling products and became a distributor for companies such as Dell, Samsung, and Nokia. "Two and half years ago, I decided to move into telecom proper by investing in the first 3G mobile telecommunication company in The Gambia which is QCell," the entrepreneur said.

QuantumNet is now a group of companies which has also gone into the car business - distributing, amongst others, Mercedes-Benz. Mr Jah - who has won a number of national and international awards, including Gambian Businessman of the Year three times - says that he tries to avoid borrowing money or using credit because interest rates are usually too high, often more than 20%, so he prefers to grow the business slowly and to add products when he can afford to do so.

"If I had the finance at the right price 20 years ago, I would have probably been where I am today 10 years ago. But then, based on the type of person I am, I would rather reach my goal in 18 years than to fail in five years," he pointed out.

According to Mr Jah, the biggest risk he ever took was venturing into the internet business because at the time The Gambia only had one telecommunications company (or "telco", as people in the industry call them), the state monopoly Gamtel.

"Overnight, you have this young boy - with no money - just deciding to compete [against] that telco in delivering internet services. And, remember, the internet gateway was owned by that monopoly and I'm supposed to buy bandwidth from them and compete with them on the retail.

"But the government telco was operating on normal government working hours, from 8.30am to 4pm. For me, as a small internet service provider I was operating 24 hours and this is how we captured the clientele," he explained.

He has not only competed with the government, he has also worked with it, in both a formal and an informal capacity, as an advisor on IT issues. He sees this as part of the role of the private sector.

The Gambia now has 90% mobile phone penetration rate and a very good internet access. A new internet cable is due to reach the country in October 2012 and Mr Jah's company has bought the most private shares in this public/private partnership.
This new venture is core to QuantumNet's expansion plans as the cable will improve internet speeds in the country and make things like video conferencing easier.

Mr Jah believes there will be more opportunities for young Gambians to build businesses around the fast internet that the cable will provide. He says that when he was starting out, it was "madness" for bright graduates like himself not to seek a job with the government since most opportunities were in the public sector.

Now most young people dream of setting up their own companies. Technology has changed everything. The private sector has overtaken the public, and this is the way Mr Jah thinks it should be.He would advise young people to be disciplined, honest and hardworking. He says that the main challenges he faced at the beginning were social attitudes, like getting employees to come to work on time, to be well-organized and show good customer service skills.

He also points out that young entrepreneurs should start moderately so they can learn along the way. "Big mistakes can cost big," he says. Mr Jah, who this year is 43, speaks fondly of his younger employees. "The greatest satisfaction to me is when I start seeing my employees moving from bachelorhood to marriagehood. When we meet at our yearly family parties I feel very good because I see that, with the small steps I have taken, I've managed to change a few people's lives, and I think I can do more."

From the BBC's African Dream.

NATO's Libya blitzkrieg and the coming colonial wars

The scale of the ongoing tragedy visited on Libya by NATO and its allies is becoming horribly clearer with each passing day. Estimates of those killed so far vary, but 50,000 seems like a low estimate; indeed the British Ministry of Defense was boasting that the onslaught had killed 35,000 as early as last May. But this number is constantly growing. The destruction of the state’s forces by British, French and American blitzkrieg has left the country in a state of total anarchy – in the worst possible sense of the word. Having had nothing to unite them other than a temporary willingness to act as NATO’s foot soldiers, the former ‘rebels’ are now turning on each other. One hundred and forty seven were killed in in-fighting in Southern Libya in a single week earlier this year, and in recent weeks government buildings - including the prime ministerial compound - have come under fire by ‘rebels’ demanding cash payment for their services. $1.4billion has been paid out already - demonstrating once again that it was the forces of NATO colonialism, not Gaddafi, who were reliant on ‘mercenaries’ - but payments were suspended last month due to widespread nepotism. Corruption is becoming endemic - a further $2.5billion in oil revenues that was supposed to have been transferred to the national treasury remains unaccounted for. Libyan resources are now being jointly plundered by the oil multinationals and a handful of chosen families from amongst the country’s new elites; a classic neo-colonial stitch-up. The use of these resources for giant infrastructure projects such as the Great Manmade River, and the massive raising of living standards over the past four decades (Libyan life expectancy rose from 51 to 77 since Gaddafi came to power in 1969) sadly looks to have already become a thing of the past. But woe betide anyone who mentions that now. It was decided long ago that no supporters of Gaddafi would be allowed to stand in the upcoming elections, but recent changes have gone even further. Law 37, passed by the new NATO-imposed government last month, has created a new crime of ‘glorifying’ the former government or its leader - subject to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Would this include a passing comment that things were better under Gaddafi? The law is cleverly vague enough to be open to interpretation. It is a recipe for institutionalized political persecution. Even more indicative of the contempt for the rule of law amongst the new government - a government, remember, which has yet to receive any semblance of popular mandate, and whose only power base remains the colonial armed forces – is Law 38. This law has now guaranteed immunity from prosecution for anyone who committed crimes aimed at ‘promoting or protecting the revolution’. Those responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Tawergha - such as Misrata’s self-proclaimed ‘brigade for the purging of black skins’ - can continue their hunting down of that cities’ refugees in the full knowledge that they have the new ‘law’ on their side. Those responsible for the massacres in Sirte and elsewhere have nothing to fear. Those involved in the widespread torture of detainees can continue without repercussions - so long as it is aimed at ‘protecting the revolution’ - i.e. maintaining NATO-TNC dictatorship. This is the reality of the new Libya: civil war, squandered resources, and societal collapse, where voicing preference for the days when Libya was prosperous and at peace is a crime, but lynching and torture is not only permitted but encouraged. Nor has the disaster remained a national one. Libya’s destabilization has already spread to Mali, prompting a coup, and huge numbers of refugees - especially amongst Libya’s large black migrant population - have fled to neighbouring countries in a desperate attempt to escape both aerial destruction and lynch mob rampage, putting further pressure on resources elsewhere. Many Libyan fighters, their work done in Libya, have now been shipped by their imperial masters to Syria to spread their sectarian violence there too. Most worrying for the African continent, however, is the forward march of AFRICOM -the US military’s African command - in the wake of the aggression against Libya. It is no coincidence that barely a month after the fall of Tripoli - and in the same month Gaddafi was murdered (October 2011) - the US announced it was sending troops to no less than four more African countries - the Central African Republic, Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. AFRICOM have now announced an unprecedented 14 major joint military exercises in African countries for 2012. The military re-conquest of Africa is rolling steadily on. None of this would have been possible whilst Gaddafi was still in power. As founder of the African Union, its biggest donor, and its one-time elected Chairman, he wielded serious influence on the continent. It was partly thanks to him that the US was forced to establish AFRICOM’s HQ in Stuttgart in Germany when it was established in February 2008, rather than in Africa itself; he offered cash and investments to African governments who rejected US requests for bases. Libya under his leadership had an estimated $150 billion of investments in Africa, and the Libyan proposal, backed with £30 billion cash, for an African Union Development Bank would have seriously reduced African financial dependence on the West. In short, Gaddafi’s Libya was the single biggest obstacle to AFRICOM penetration of the continent. Now he has gone, AFRICOM is stepping up its work. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan showed the West that wars in which their own citizens get killed are not popular; AFRICOM is designed to ensure that in the coming colonial wars against Africa, it will be Africans who do the fighting and dying, not Westerners. The forces of the African Union are to become integrated into AFRICOM under a US-led chain of command. Gaddafi would never have stood for it; that is why he had to go. And if you want a vision of Africa under AFRICOM tutelage, look no further than Libya, NATO’s model of an African state: condemned to decades of violence and trauma, and utterly incapable of either providing for its people, or contributing to regional or continental independence. The new military colonialism in Africa must not be allowed to advance another inch. By Dan Glazebrook

Coventry wonder boy from Burundi

Gael Bigirimana was walking to the supermarket with his brother to buy some milk when he spotted Coventry City's academy training facility.

The following day he went there and asked for a trial. Slightly bemused, the coaching staff looked at the smiling yet determined 11-year-old with the broken English and explained that the club did not just take on young players who turned up unannounced. He would have to be scouted like everybody else.

Running home afterwards, having left details of the school he attended and buoyed by the promise that somebody from Coventry would come to watch him play, Bigirimana was surprised when a member of the coaching staff stopped him.

"They asked if I had all the equipment, boots, shin pads and stuff like that," Bigirimana told BBC Sport. "I said 'yes' but I did not. They said they saw me running fast but to tell you the truth I was jogging.

"The next day they gave me a trial. It was near the end of the season but they took me on for the following campaign. It must have been a miracle."

Miracle or not, seven years later the 18-year-old has just been named the Football League Championship Apprentice of the Year for a season in which he has made a significant impact at the struggling second-tier club.

He has so far played 21 times for the first team after making his debut against Leicester in August and quickly became a cult figure among the club's supporters with a series of skilful and wholehearted performances in the centre of midfield.

"He has a good touch and has shown a maturity beyond his years," said Sky Blues manager Andy Thorn. "He has acquitted himself well."

Performing in such a pivotal position in a struggling side is a big responsibility for somebody in their debut season and Thorn is candid enough to admit that the youngster's form started to tail off. Bigirimana has not played for the first team since their match against Southampton in January. Even so, he had made enough of an impression to reportedly be the subject of a recent approach from Championship rivals Burnley, who wanted to sign the youngster on loan.

Bigirimana himself sounded philosophical when asked about his return to the youth side after a prolonged taste of first-team action.

"Football is full of disappointments," he explained. "Each one must make you a better player. Besides, the youth team are pushing for the league title and it is great to be able to help my friends there."

This upbeat, selfless attitude is part of the reason why players in the younger age groups look up to him. He told me that one of the things he needed to work on is developing a selfish streak in front of goal. He has infuriated his coaches at times this season by passing to a team-mate when he should have gone for goal himself. When I asked him about his ambitions he talked more about wanting his team-mates to succeed than listing any particular aspirations for himself.

He has regularly volunteered to visit schools in the area to talk to the younger pupils about his story and I imagine it must make for gripping listening because Bigirimana's journey in life sounds like the plot for a Hollywood script.

He is a refugee from the war-torn African country of Burundi who came to England in 2004. His mother arrived first before Gael followed with his father, two brothers and a sister.

Back in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, he played football at every opportunity, barefooted, on the streets. Prior to his arrival in England he lived briefly in Uganda and had his first experience of wearing boots and playing in a structured competition.

He had not been at Coventry City for more than a handful of training sessions before he approached the coach and asked to be moved to a higher age group. He explained that he was not finding his own group challenging enough.

It quickly became obvious that the boy from Burundi was a gifted footballer who loved to entertain and played with a freedom that endeared him to those around him. However, it was equally apparent that he understood the value of hard work.

"His determination to achieve manifests itself in his being the first at training and the last to leave," said Coventry academy manager Gregor Rioch.

Bigirimana is a deeply religious man who believes that everything that has happened to him is part of God's plan. The setbacks have been designed to make him stronger. He clearly has a huge determination to overcome any obstacles in his way.

This season he has attended extra sessions with the club's education officer on a Thursday afternoon to catch up on the studies he has missed as a consequence of his involvement with the first team. It is the sort of application that helped earn him his Apprentice of the Year award and should stand him in good stead for a successful career.

Thorn told me Bigirimana can have a "massive, massive future in the game" and added: "Gael's is an amazing story and just shows with the right dedication, work ethic and commitment what you can actually achieve."

As Bigirimana walked off the stage in London on Sunday evening clutching his award he had a huge grin on his face; don't bet against it being the last.

Story Credit: Paul Fletcher's Blog