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Techie Youth Gather in Bantalabs, Software Innovation Hub in Senegal

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Tekedia Editors
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Across Africa, the wave of open innovation hubs is blowing. Senegal has got its own and it is BantaLabs. Tekedia has reported over the weeks about how iHub Kenya has seeded many opportunities in that nation. We hope that BantaLabs will open a new dawn in Senegal. Congrats guys for the idea.

 

Bantalabs is committed to empowering people and investing in the community. It is our explicit aim to set up (nearly) free open source training projects across Senegal to introduce people to the wealth of free and open source software that is readily available to them.

 

Aside from attending and speaking at many international drupal events we’re developing a Drupal training program for graduates and gap year students. In association with the Université Gaston Berger (Saint Louis, Senegal) and Université Cheikh Anta Diop (Dakar, Senegal) two to five students will complete their Information Science internship as part of our Senegalese development team each semester.

 

Website:http://bantalabs.com
Twitter name:@bantalabs
Location:Saint Louis, Senegal
Other hubs we have profiled are

ActivSpaces is a unique community / collaboration space in Cameroon for startups, freelancers, designers, entrepreneurs (esp. internet entrepreneurs) and independent thinkers. We provide not only a great space to work but also opportunities to interact with other like-minded individuals. We’re interested in fostering the growth of an indigenous, high-tech startup sector here in Cameroon. We think the best way to do this is to bring people with unique capabilities together in an environment that helps them do what they do best. Our culture encourages collaboration and idea sharing, generates great learning experience for everyone and creates opportunities for people with complementary skills and experience to work together for the benefit of the community.

 

ActivSpaces believes there are six key elements to ensure a creative work environment for freelancers and start-ups: collaboration, openness, community, accessibility, sustainability and support.

 

Memberships are available at various levels at no cost to individuals. Drop-in opportunities are also possible so prospective users can have a taste of our stimulating environment.

Hive Colab is an open, collaborative, community owned, work environment for young tech entrepreneurs to focus on projects, access the internet, have a quiet professional environment to develop their ideas in, hold events and generally collaborate. Something very similar to what our friends are doing with the iHub in Nairobi.

 

It will be a space for nascent application developers to register as freelancers, if they are looking for paying projects that people need to be done around the world. An exclusive list of project and clients available through the pan-African consortium of incubators, AfriLabs. Participant projects will remain wholly owned by their creators, although there there will be access to a network of investors looking to cherry pick some of the more promising ideas for investment, also through AfriLabs.

 

The only requirement to membership, is that applicants actually be working on projects, and thereafter they must be able to show progress on their ideas to retain membership. This is to keep energy high and to favour people who remain productive. There will be other types of memberships available to be announced soon

Kenya Is The Most Successful and Ubiquitous mCommerce Platform Nation In The World

By
Tekedia Editors
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It is not a surprise because anyone that has visited Kenya recently will know that the nation is the global mobile innovation hub. There is no nation that does better than Kenya in mobile commerce. So Tekedia was excited when that  call came from a leading organization like BuzzCity:

 

In many areas where the basic services are working, mCommerce suffers from poor marketing, particularly to lower income earners who form the bulk of mobileusers. Users are not always aware of the range of services available to them, they are not necessarily curious early-adopters of technology, and the novelty of these new tools and mechanics can cause apprehension. Yet, with the right offer, these challenges can be overcome.

 

Take, for example, Kenya which has the most successful and ubiquitous mCommerce system in the world. mPesa is a ‘branchless mobile banking system’ that allows users to pay for shopping or utility bills, wire money to relatives, or simply take a taxi home. Safaricom, the company behind mPesa, also offers interest-paying mobile bank accounts, micro-credit and micro-insurance policies.
Despite all these services in place, 31.97% of Kenyan mobile users in our recent Consumer Lifestyle Survey still requested ‘mobile money transfer services’ as a service that they would like to see offered to them.

 

It may be an indication of the size of the demand for such services, or the fact that simply by creating awareness of the potential ofmobile, mPesa has created more demand. Whichever it is, it proves the potential of the mobile commerce wave that’s about to break. If only we can get all those little details sorted out, we all stand to thrive.

 

Companies must stop saying the “future is mobile” to “now is mobile” because the mobile ecosystem is here. Most businesses are going mobile. If you do not have a mobile strategy, your survival as a going concern could be affected in this age. Oh yes, having a mobile plan is not just for competitive reasons, it is the business because very soon, business will evolve inside mobile.

The Mobile Revolution Is Here, Confidence in Remote Shopping Highest, Says BuzzCity

By
Tekedia Editors
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0


 

BuzzCity, a mobile media company offering brand owners and agencies access to a global advertising network on the mobile internet,  released this email report explaining that education is a vital instrument for the growth of mCommerce . An illiterate populate can neither read nor write and that will affect their abilities to use the web and mobile devices. Also, it noted that the diffusion of the mobile services has correlated with the confidence and trust people put in the evolving ecosystem.

 

eCommerce has been making waves for years. Consumers have higher levels of trust and confidence in remote shopping than ever before. Yet there are millions of people in both developed and developing markets whose primary connection to the internet is via a mobile device. So, it’s surprising to those of us who work in the mobile internet, that the leap from fixed internet-based eCommerce to mobile commerce hasn’t been quicker.


The report noted that we are in the age of mobile evolution and these patterns, among others,  have been identified.


Financial Services are in PlaceBanks were the natural first movers in mobile financial services – offering a convenient extension of internet banking (with only slightly diminished functionality) over the mobile web. So, clients could now use their phones to check their bank account balances, manage credit cards or loans, pay bills, transfer money between accounts, and so on. This level of service has been available in various forms for a number of years.


Content Sells on Mobile

Mobile content has been selling well for years. Ringtones and ringback tones, a staple of mobile content, were the trailblazers, and have been a major revenue earner for carriers. Downloads of magazine and newspaper content, books, music and movies are a proven and growing market.


Ideas Build Nations – Project Diaspora Is Working To Make Yours Reach Africa

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

 

Project Diaspora (PD) is a  non-profit founded in September 2007 with a simple mission—to promote African diaspora engagement in sustainable economic activities within Africa. PD actively seeks to mobilize, engage, and motivate members of the African diaspora to participate in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural renaissance. Looking beyond the $40 billion in annual remittances to the continent, Africa’s diaspora is well positioned to become a major developmental force. Apart from capital assets, the strongest resources the African diaspora possess are its vast wealth of knowledge, technical expertise and professional network. Paired with their cultural and personal ties to their home communities there is no other single group that is better equiped to generate positive, sustained change across the continent.

 

Diaspora-led economic development projects differ from traditional developmental aid in several areas. Firstly, engaging members of the diaspora to lead or contribute to projects ensures local buy-in reinforced by cultural ties. Secondly, members of the diaspora have a greater vested interest in the success of a project than an aid worker on a limited engagement. Finally, and most importantly, diaspora led economic development breaks the “hand-out” mentality fostered by traditional aid. Social entrepreneurship empowers local communities to sustainably solve their own development problems.

 

Africa’s development can not continue to depend on international NGO programs and developmental aid, powered by global sympanthy. PD’s approach to Africa’s development goes well beyond reliance on aid by advocating for Africa’s self-reliance. By leveraging the knowledge and commitment of the diaspora, Africa’s future will be firmly placed in its own hands.

AfriLabs Emerges to Harmonize And Bring Synergies Among African Incubation Hubs

By
Tekedia Editors
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0

 

AfriLabs is a non-profit foundation that supports African technology hubs by providing financing, mentoring, networking opportunities and other resources for high-potential entrepreneurs. AfriLabs began as a consortium of independent African technology hubs with open innovation spaces in Kenya, Uganda, Cameroon and Senegal.
The mission of AfriLabs exists is to support the growth of communities around African technology hubs and to encourage expansion of the network by providing tools and resources for new and emerging labs. Also, it has these objectives:
  1. Discover synergies between the labs
  2. Share best practices and help new organizations emerge
  3. Enhance visibility of the network and her actors, share success stories
  4. Organize networking events and facilitate other exchanges, both online and offline
  5. Secure resources for the network by establishing a revolving fund
  6. Generally promote developments in this space and explore other common interests.
Read it here, East Africa has it going right
. 

On March 3rd 2010, founders from several established African tech incubators and open collaboration spaces @HiveColab @iHub @NaiLab @Bantalabs and @ActivSpaces came together for the iHub launch in Nairobi. The meeting hosted by NaiLab (an iHub neighbor) made clear that each of the labs shares in a common vision to promote technology as a platform for entrepreneurship on the continent. The labs have a lot to gain by working together and it was in this thinking that AfriLabs was born.

 

As a network organization, AfriLabs seeks to build on this common vision and further promote the growth and development of the African technology sector. By working together the labs improve their chances of success, generating more success stories and decent work for young Africans, both as a means of self-employment and as job creation for others.

In the past two years we have witnessed the rise of Africa’s tech incubator. Already spaces have come online in Kampala, Nairobi, Douala and Dakar. New initiatives are coming online in Accra and Lagos and many more are on the way. Each lab offers their respective tech community a physical nexus space for meetings, events and work.

The labs serve as an accessible platform for bringing together technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area. Each lab shares a focus on young entrepreneurs, Web and mobile-phone programmers and designers.

On March 3rd 2010, founders from several established African tech incubators and open collaboration spaces @HiveColab @iHub @NaiLab @Bantalabs and @ActivSpaces came together for the iHub launch in Nairobi. The meeting hosted by NaiLab (an iHub neighbor) made clear that each of the labs shares in a common vision to promote technology as a platform for entrepreneurship on the continent. The labs have a lot to gain by working together and it was in this thinking that AfriLabs was born.

As a network organization, AfriLabs seeks to build on this common vision and further promote the growth and development of the African technology sector. By working together the labs improve their chances of success, generating more success stories and decent work for young Africans, both as a means of self-employment and as job creation for others.

Already members of Afrilabs have come together successfully in their bid to implement the U.S. Department of State sponsored contest Apps4Africa. AfriLabs members have also worked to establish the Hive Colab as Kampala’s leading open collaboration space and successfully tendered to host the infoDev sponsored mobile apps lab in East Africa. AfriLabs by virtue of its on-the-ground engagement and local ownership is uniquely positioned to be a catalyst for the sector.

AfriLabs will build on this early success and from the ground up, the entrepreneurs using the spaces and the labs that service them set the mandate. This ensures Afrilabs remains grounded by the labs knee deep in the business and builds on the experience in each of their localities (initially Kenya, Uganda and Cameroon). AfriLabs sets out with the following objectives:

  1. Discover synergies between the labs
  2. Share best practices and help new organizations emerge
  3. Enhance visibility of the network and her actors, share success stories
  4. Organize networking events and facilitate other exchanges, both online and offline
  5. Secure resources for the network by establishing a revolving fund
  6. Generally promote developments in this space and explore other common interests.
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