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conference – The Tech4Africa Blog http://blog.tech4africa.com Musings, announcements, and collateral damage from Tech4Africa. Thoughts our own. We're looking for contributors from across Africa. Email hello At tech4africa DOT com. Mon, 26 Oct 2015 12:30:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.32 Top 8 Samsung Ignite start-ups announced http://blog.tech4africa.com/top-8-samsung-ignite-start-ups-announced/ Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:52:11 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1294 Continue reading ]]> Eight local technology start-ups have been offered a unique opportunity to pitch their business ideas to delegates, potential investors and media at this year’s Tech4Africa conference, taking place at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg on 27 and 28 October.

This platform has been created by virtue of Samsung Ignite, an initiative that aims to showcase and foster local technology development, and which has been made possible by Samsung Apps store, in association with Tech4Africa. In the words of Gareth Knight, our founder and MD, “this platform allows local technology innovators to showcase their ideas to a broad audience, potential investors and technology entrepreneurs who have walked this path before”.

Tech4Africa’s primary aim is to promote and inspire local mobile and web innovators, entrepreneurs and developers by inviting global leaders in the sector to share their knowledge and insight with an audience from across the continent. The Samsung Ignite programme is an integral part of the overall conference’s vision that it is hoped will provide the spark that the eight start-ups need to take the next step in their development.

The 8 selected startups include:

10Layer: the most feature-complete, competent and customisable open source content management system for serious publishers and media houses.

FeedbackRocket.com: which offers an innovative online solution to obtain useful, insightful and honest feedback.

iSign.pro: that allows users to get legally-binding contracts signed in minutes – legally, cheaper, greener and stored forever, with automatic reminders before renewal/expiry.

Lessfuss: is an affordable South African personal assistant service that helps you save time and get things done for as little as R30/task.

Mobiflock: is a product range that consists of a parental control service, a personal smartphone tracker, and a corporate smartphone manager.

Plot my Ride: is a social networking service for the cycling community that offers an easy and real-time means of capturing, displaying, saving and sharing a cyclist’s riding activity.

Real Time Wine: captures the supermarket wine-buying audience and empowers them to discover, review, engage with and buy wine using smartphone apps, game mechanics & barcode scanning.

SnapBill: is an automated billing system that allows users to easily sell their services online.

“We are very passionate about the African market and encouraged by the innovations emerging from the continent, so it’s a natural fit for us to partner with Tech4Africa to present this stage for innovators to showcase their products,” says Brett Loubser, B2C Apps Development Lead at Samsung. “We intend using this partnership to help create a wider network of local developers, reward African innovation in the mobile tech and app space and promote the Samsung Apps Store as an alternative channel for smartphone developers”. Loubser added: “A key outcome of our participation as the Ignite partner is to engage South African developers and therefore we have made available a number of discounted tickets to facilitate their involvement at this year’s conference.”

The Samsung Ignite participants will each be afforded five minutes to showcase their products in the main auditorium at the end of the first day of the conference. A panel of judges has been gathered to adjudicate and the winning startup will be announced on the second day of the event, and be given the opportunity to present their start-up to the entire Tech4Africa audience. The winner will also receive the latest Samsung mobile devices and valuable exposure and profiling through the Tech4Africa website.

]]> Attending Tech4Africa? Enter the Bush Getaway Competition! http://blog.tech4africa.com/attending-t4a-enter-the-bush-getaway-competition/ Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:01:36 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1219 Continue reading ]]> If you have already bought your ticket to the technology event of the year in Africa, you still have the chance to take your Tech4Africa experience further and make it unforgettable. As it happened last year, after the conference finishes, we’re treating this years’ international speakers with an invitation to a Bush getaway for a few days.

We are extending the Bush getaway invitation to one lucky attendee, which will be a great opportunity to hang out with highly influential people in technology; not to mention the trip itself, with amazing sightseeing spots and the chance to get close to the African wildlife. The getaway takes place from October 29th – 31st, the prize includes 2 nights accommodation, transfers, 1 person single room, all meals and drinks and game drives.

If you bought your ticket, you can enter the draw and be in with a chance to win, by tweeting you’ve registered for Tech4Africa and why. Use the tag #seeyou@t4a.The draw date will be 15 October – winners will be notified then.

If you haven’t bought your ticket for the Tech4Africa 2011 conference yet, you can register here.

Good luck and don’t forget to pack your camera

]]> Samsung facilitates developers’ attendance at Tech4Africa http://blog.tech4africa.com/samsung-facilitates-developers-attendance-at-t4a/ Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:42:47 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1248 Continue reading ]]> Samsung is inviting all mobile app developers to take part in this month’s Tech4Africa conference in Johannesburg and has made available 50 discounted tickets, representing a R4000 saving each, to facilitate their participation. Samsung is the Tech4Africa Ignite partner and has extended this offer in a bid to attract and help grow the local developer community, a key part of Samsung’s mobile business strategy.

Ignite is an initiative that will allow African startups to pitch their products to a panel of angel investors, mentors and business leaders during the two-day Tech4Africa conference taking place at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg from 27 – 28 October. Samsung will also be running Samsung HQ Developer Support Sessions. These specialist app development workshops, hosted by leading international Samsung developers, will highlight global trends and best practice.

“Samsung aims to promote co-operation, innovation and the exchange of new ideas in technology across Africa so that our innovative products and technologies continue to respond to the real needs and conditions on the continent. It is with this premise in mind, that we are so excited about offering the discounted entry to developers who will undoubtedly benefit from participating in this year’s conference,” said Brett Loubser, B2C Apps Development Lead at Samsung.

“We’re using our partnership with Tech4Africa Ignite to inspire new directions and provide the technologies and gadgets that Africa requires. It’s about listening to the market, building partnerships and really committing to Africa and its people by providing them with relevant content and apps – for a smarter life.”

These objectives are closely aligned with those of Tech4Africa, and specifically its Ignite programme, which aims to highlight innovative new ideas and allow African startups to use Tech4Africa as a platform to gain valuable exposure, and even early stage investment.

Gareth Knight, founder and MD of Tech4Africa, said Samsung’s subsidisation of the tickets was a show of its commitment to both Africa and app developers, who do not have the same levels of market access available to their counterparts in the US and Europe. “Our vision has always been to create a local platform to which international experts and leaders are invited to share their knowledge and insight,” he said. “The partnership with Samsung is evidence of how that vision is being realised and how we can make a real impact in Africa. We hope to attract and uncover exciting talent through this unique opportunity.”

Developers who are interested in taking up this offer can find further details at www.t4a.feedmybeta.com/register. The discounted tickets are available to qualifying developers for R1 500 excluding VAT. Applications for the discounted tickets are open until 21 October.

]]> Calling all tech students: Win a scholarship ticket for Tech4Africa http://blog.tech4africa.com/calling-all-tech-students-win-a-scholarship-ticket-for-t4a/ Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:46:45 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1238 Continue reading ]]>

Tech4Africa, in line with its DNA; engage, inspire, enable and innovate, have provided 20 Scholarship tickets for students to attend the Tech4Africa 2011 event. This opportunity will provide students with a rare opportunity to learn firsthand from technology evangelists about the role that the web plays in African business and development.

Should you be a student in the IT, web, tech or digital space and wish to apply for one of these complimentary tickets, please email your name and contact number along with a 200 word motivation outlining why you think you should be awarded a scholarship ticket to scholarships@t4a.feedmybeta.com.

Please note that the scholarships consist of a conference ticket only which entitles entry to the conference and exhibition – successful applicants will be responsible for their own transport, travel and accommodation (if applicable). Closing dates for motivation submission is 16 October. For further information on the event, speakers or the schedule, visit the Tech4Africa website.

Tech4Africa is a two-day conference running from 27 to 28 October 2011 at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg, and will bring international experience and perspectives to the African continent, while at the same time showcasing what Africans are doing with mobile, web, digital media and other emerging technologies.

Keynote speakers include Josh Spear, one of the youngest and most respected digital marketing strategists in the world, and Herman Chinery-Hesse, commonly known as ‘The Bill Gates of Africa’. Spear and Chinery-Hesse are part of a line-up of African and international thought leaders from organisations like Amazon, HP, Johns Hopkins University, Mozilla, SwiftRiver, the African Institution of Technology, Motribe, Clearleft, Ultinet Systems and many more.

]]> 5 reasons why Tech4Africa 2011 is the technology event of the year http://blog.tech4africa.com/5-reasons-why-t4a-2011-is-the-technology-event-of-the-year/ Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:04:08 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1149 Continue reading ]]>

As we start the second half of 2011, the technology landscape is changing at such a pace that the need to be current and timely is greater than ever. It’s clear that mobile reach will be far greater than the PC, and that apps will be the deciding factor for the market winning device or platform.

It’s not quite the hysteria of 1999, but we are starting to reach a tipping point where most of the worlds population that could be online, are. Perhaps more importantly, the benefit of this connectedness is felt even more in Africa where people who did not have a voice, now do. With that as the foundational plumbing, the usefulness and immediacy of mobile will drive more and more people to consume services, utilise data, and engage socially, which then drives demand for cloud based services accessible anywhere and on any device.

Building on the success of Tech4Africa 2010, we’re back in October 2011, and even better! Our themes for this year are Mobile, Social and Cloud, and through listening to great feedback from the 2010 event, our schedule has changed somewhat to focus on fewer talks with deeper content, and expanded to include relevant events for the African tech industry. These are the highlights that make Tech4Africa 2011 the technology event of the year:

1 – Featuring Josh Spear and Herman Chinery-Hesse as keynote speakers, plus 8 more great international speakers.

2 – African speakers who are experts in their fields will share their experiences about developing tech businesses in Africa.

3 – The Trade Show runs through the duration of the conference, and is an ideal opportunity for African technology businesses to showcase their products and/or services in an environment of buyers, decision makers, journalists, tweeters, bloggers and potential recruits.

4 – Ignite is a startup competition, aimed at giving exposure to the hottest new startups, while introducing them to prospective investors, customers and the media.

5 – Presented to a single winner, the Innovation Award encourages innovation for solving uniquely African problems, whilst also encouraging global thinking. The Award recognises that innovation can be entrepreneurial, as well as intrapreneurial, and so is open to anyone or any company.

It’s through these initiatives and more in the coming years, that we’re delivering on our objectives of Engage, Inspire, Enable, and Innovate. We hope that you can join us at the technology event of the year, running for two full days on the 27th & 28th October, at The Forum, in Bryanston, Johannesburg. To avoid disappointment, book your ticket now.

We’d love to follow you on Twitter too! We’re @t4a

]]> Calling all startups. Apply to Tech4Africa ‘Ignite’. http://blog.tech4africa.com/calling-all-startups-apply-to-t4a-ignite/ Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:56:31 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1124 Continue reading ]]> We’re proud to launch Ignite, an initiative that will provide leading African startups with the opportunity to pitch their products to a carefully curated panel of Angel investors, mentors and business leaders. Startups selected to partake in the Tech4africa Ignite pitches will be given five minutes to showcase their products, with the opportunity to gain not only potential investors but also invaluable exposure to the wider Tech4Africa audience of thought leaders, decision makers, journalists, influencers and potential recruits.

About the purpose of this event, Gareth Knight, MD of Tech4Africa, said: “Twitter, FourSquare and Gowalla ‘broke’ in the US market, through their pitch stand demonstrations at SxSw. Our DNA is: engage, inspire, enable and innovate and it is for this reason that we decided to launch Ignite to highlight amazing ideas and allow African startups to use Tech4Africa as a platform to enable them to gain valuable press exposure and early stage investment.”

Ignite takes place in the main auditorium at Tech4Africa, happening from 27 to 28 October 2011 at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg. The top 8 applicants will be required to demonstrate a working prototype of their early stage product to event attendees and a panel of judges. Whilst there is no formal prize, the winning startup will be announced on the second day of the conference and have the opportunity to present their innovation to the entire Tech4Africa audience. The winner will also receive valuable exposure and profiling through the Tech4Africa website and Tech4Africa.tv.

Interested startups should visit the Ignite page at the Tech4Africa site or get in touch using startups@t4a.feedmybeta.com. Deadline for submission is August 31, finalists will be announced in the first week of September.

The world-class line-up of technology evangelists presenting at Tech4Africa this year will provide South Africans the opportunity to learn about the role the web plays in African business and development. Keynote speakers include Josh Spear, one of the youngest and most respected digital marketing strategists in the world, and Herman Chinery-Hesse, commonly known as ‘The Bill Gates of Africa’. Spear and Chinery-Hesse join African and international thought leaders from organisations like Amazon, HP, Johns Hopkins University, Mozilla, SwiftRiver, the African Institution of Technology, Motribe, Clearleft, Ultinet Systems and many more.

]]> An open letter to African technologists http://blog.tech4africa.com/an-open-letter-to-african-technologists/ Tue, 24 May 2011 17:19:23 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1120 Continue reading ]]> PASSION = BRAIN FUEL.
DUMB BRAIN FULL OF GAS ALWAYS BEAT SMART BRAIN WITH EMPTY TANK.
SMART BRAIN WITH FULL TANK BEAT EVERYONE.

Dear African technologist, hacker, developer, geek, product guy, dreamer, thinker, tinkerer, manager, CEO, multi-national-organisation-in-Africa,

We’re at the beginning of a shift in technology usage, where mobile adoption and usage is quickly going to become more prevalent and ubiquitous than the PC. Bandwidth is getting faster and cheaper for both PC and mobile, despite the monopolies that have held everyone back for years. Infrastructure is now massively cheap and easy to scale. There are toolkits, API’s, platforms, frameworks, services and stacks for almost every technology need you may have. It’s easier now to create something, and innovate, than it ever has been. Not moving forward means you’re being left behind.

The traditional approaches we’ve been using for years are dying. People are looking for authenticity, value, engagement, real’ness for want of a better word.

Dream. Find something that provides value. Help people to get some of that value. Make it great. Remove the crappy stuff.

Stop banging the same drums. Stop thinking you’ve got it all figured out. Approach problems differently. Give your people space to think and tinker. Innovate.

Get massively hyped about your product or service. Tell everyone you know. Let go of any conservativeness you may have, because if you can’t get excited about what you do, then no-one else will. If you’re working for a crap company, leave it. There are better things to do with your precious time.

We can learn a lot from places like Silicon Valley, New York, Berlin, Israel, London, Austin, Chile, Singapore, Ireland and India. We can learn even more from the people who live in those places, how they work, what they do with their time, and ultimately the success they create. We can also learn from the people we live among, by asking them about the problems they face.

There is no shortage of investors or money, only shortages of good people, scalable and executable opportunities. Be the person who can execute and scale, and do it with a product that people will use, and the money won’t be a problem. But don’t use a perceived lack of investors, internal or external, as an excuse.

There are no accidents, only trying, failure, and then ultimately succeeding. As a technologist, today, your greatest asset is the time and technical gifts you have. Use them wisely.

There are many problems people face in emerging markets, and they all need elegant solutions. Find the value. Supply the demand for that value, by doing something that makes you get up in the morning with a spring in your step and a whistle in your tune.

In short, there are no excuses or reasons not to do something awesome, other than the ones we limit ourselves with. Africa has the potential to be one of the largest mobile markets on the planet.

What are you doing about it?

Gareth Knight
Founder, Tech4Africa
@oneafrikan

]]> Registration now open for Tech4Africa 2011 http://blog.tech4africa.com/registration-now-open-for-t4a-2011/ Tue, 10 May 2011 11:41:14 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1087 Continue reading ]]> A world-class line-up of international and African technologists will present at the Tech4Africa conference in October this year. The event provides South Africans with a rare opportunity to learn firsthand from technology evangelists about the role that the web plays in African business and development.

The two-day conference runs from 27 to 28 October 2011 at The Forum in Bryanston, Johannesburg and will bring international experience and perspectives to the African continent, while at the same time showcasing what Africans are doing with mobile, web, digital media and other emerging technologies.

Registration for the event is open and early bird tickets are available until 15th of June. To register or for further information, visit Tech4Africa or contact us.

“2010 saw the launch of Tech4Africa and we were met with overwhelming support from both the tech and business communities and our foundation partners, First National Bank and Internet Solutions,” says Gareth Knight, MD of Tech4Africa. “This year we’re delivering the same high standard of content and looking forward to bringing technologists together to look at what’s current now, with an emphasis on social media and how it’s relevant to digital marketing, mobile convergence, the growing cloud and the applications of BigData. We’re also focusing on great African technologists that really are leading the way.”

Keynote speakers include Josh Spear, one of the youngest and most respected digital marketing strategists in the world, and Herman Chinery-Hesse, commonly known as ‘The Bill Gates of Africa’.

Spear is a trend spotter, blogger and brand strategist, sought out for his fresh perspective and no-holds-barred style of consulting on everything from design and gadgets to authenticity and word-of-mouth. His recent focus has been the power of the blogosphere, technology, and the impact of digital media on the world. In addition to his internationally recognised trend-spotting blog, he is a founding partner of Undercurrent, a digital think-tank focused on exploring new ways to reach young people without interrupting them. With Africa rapidly leapfrogging the web and PC experience with a mobile one, the insights into how people and brands interact digitally is crucial, and indeed sets the stage for the foreseeable future. Spear has appeared in publications including Time Magazine, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune and has presented for such diverse clients as McDonald’s, NBC, Pepsi, Virgin, The American Advertising Federation and The Google Zeitgeist conference.

Chinery-Hesse is a renowned Ghanaian technology entrepreneur who co-founded the million-dollar software company SOFTtribe, and then went on to launch BSL, which provides the infrastructure for entrepreneurs across Africa to sell products and receive payment through their cell phones. Chinery-Hesse is passionate about the contribution that technology can make in unlocking prosperity and wealth across Africa, and will be presenting his thesis on this. He has won a number of awards and is also an accomplished speaker who has delivered talks at the Wharton Business School, Harvard Business School, Cambridge University, the University of Ghana, and the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania.

Spear and Chinery-Hesse are part of a line-up of African and international thought leaders from organisations like Amazon, HP, Johns Hopkins University, Mozilla, SwiftRiver, the African Institution of Technology, SimpleGeo, Motribe, Clearleft, Ultinet Systems and many more.

Knight adds, “With Tech4Africa our simple aim is to congregate the best practitioners in Africa and the world to provide inspiration, guidance, case studies, success stories and ultimately experience, so that Africans don’t need to travel the world to gain this understanding and exposure”.

]]> m-Pedigree awarded the Grand Prix NetExplorateur 2011 http://blog.tech4africa.com/m-pedigree-awarded-the-grand-prix-netexplorateur-2011/ Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:06:53 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=1062 Continue reading ]]> At the fourth NetExplorateur Forum, the Grand Prix NetExplorateur 2011 was awarded to m-Pedigree. The Ghana-based project uses the mobile phone as a weapon against pharmaceutical counterfeiting with the aim of saving lives.

At UNESCO headquarters, Paris, Eric Besson, French Minister for Industry, Energy and the Digital Economy awarded the Grand Prix NetExplorateur to Bright Simons, founder of m-Pedigree, at a ceremony that also recognised nine winners of NetExplorateur of the Year awards. Every year, the Grand Prix NetExplorateur goes to the world’s best digital innovation.

m-Pedigree: saving lives with just a text message

Created in Ghana and successfully piloted in six African countries to date, the m-Pedigree platform is supported by technological partners such as Hewlett-Packard for IT infrastructure, pharmaceutical laboratories and government bodies. It makes instant authentication of drugs possible. Anyone can send a free text message to m-Pedigree quoting the code on the medicine’s packaging. The system sends back a message saying whether the product is genuine.

Fake medicine kills an estimated 2,000 people a day worldwide, chiefly in Africa and Southeast Asia. In some developing countries, fake medicine accounts for up to 25% of the market according to the WHO.

The NetExplorateur Forum: exclusive insight into the digital revolution

As the culmination of a year’s observation and analysis of the changes in digital society on a global scale, the NetExplorateur Forum was created in 2008. It has become an unmissable event at which 1,500 senior figures from business, politics and the media can grasp the most significant emerging initiatives and the most promising breakthroughs.

Thierry Happe, founder of the NetExplorateur Observatory, commented: “The Grand Prix NetExplorateur 2011 is an exemplary African initiative that delivers an exportable model, because fake medicine is now a global problem.”

The 9 NetExplorateurs of the Year 2011 (in addition to the Grand Prix)

CENSO 2010 (Brazil) The first fully digital national census of almost 200 million people.

HAL (Japan) A robot suit that enhances the muscle strength of people with reduced mobility and helps the human body in the hardest physical tasks.

FLATTR (Sweden) The first voluntary micropayment platform for rewarding the creators of digital content, with no amount too small.

E-SKIN (USA) A synthetic skin that gives robots a sense of touch.

LEWATMANA (Indonesia) A collaborative platform for beating the traffic in Jakarta.

OBAMI (South Africa) Creating a dedicated portal for schools through the social network concept.

NATURAL SECURITY (France) A biometric authentication system making electronic payment easier and safer.

MYTOWN (USA) Turning the real world into a Monopoly board where players can buy their favourite places to win points and deals.

DATASIFT (UK) A system that analyses messages from social media in real time.

]]> The entrepreneur, an agent of change in the emerging markets? http://blog.tech4africa.com/the-entrepreneur-an-agent-of-change-in-the-emerging-markets/ Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:55:21 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=989 The first edition of Tech4Africa last August proved to be one of the largest gatherings in Africa of international and local bright technologists, business people and entrepreneurs. One in that bunch was Bright Simons, the founder of mPedrigree.com, who sat on the panel “Mobile content for grownups, being clever with the simple”.

Simons, a young Ghanaian, embodies the figure of the entrepreneur of the emerging markets, as The Economist labelled him in its recent article “The other demographic dividend”. According to the influential magazine, this kind
of entrepreneur has an impressive ability to identify gaps in markets. This is something Simons has shown to have had. His development, mPedrigree, came up with an innovative solution for dealing with the epidemic of counterfeit drugs using the mobile phone. The service helps people to ensure that the medicines they are buying are legitimate and safe.

In his interview “Bright hope for continental scourge” for ITWeb, Simons recognizes that “I felt I could do something more than just write about the issue”. A massive tragedy in Nigeria related to fake drugs that killed 90 children and the daunting statistics about Africa’s plague of counterfeit drugs prompted him into action. From the drugs that find their way onto the market, 30% are illegitimate. And according to the UN, at least half of the anti-malaria tablets that are sold in Africa are counterfeit, meaning a business of about $438 million a year. Simons added that: “A 2001 Interpol research conducted in Lagos, Nigeria showed that 80% of all the medicines on sale were counterfeit.”

With his endeavour to transform lives, he bootstrapped the mPedigree system, which is very accessible and easy to use. Manufacturers place an unique code on the medicine label, which the consumers have to SMS to see whether the medicine is safe. Consumers are responded to with a simple “yes” or “no”, assuring whether the medicine is good for consumption or not. This is in effect a great consumer experience, simple and easy, but it wasn’t that way for Simons to implement it. In the interesting article “Innovative Mobile Phone Strategies in the Developing World“, Simons stressed that “when you develop new technologies, you are not trying to change the consumer; you are trying to change the manufacturer to serve the consumer”.

The raising figure of the entrepreneur in the emerging markets as an agent of change is backed up by academic research, as the article in The Economist points out. Demographers have often noted that most of the emerging world will stay young while the rich world ages. Among other benefits brought by this factor, this will be favourable due to the boost of a more entrepreneurial business culture. This is being reinforced by two big changes in the emerging world:

1- The information-technology revolution: Many consumers in emerging markets are much more likely to access the Internet via mobile devices rather than PCs. “That gives local entrepreneurs an advantage”, says Rob Salkowitz, the author of “Young World Rising”, meaning that Africans can build companies around coming technology, while their Western peers first have to transform old systems and mindsets to do it.

2- Pro-entrepreneurial revolution: Global institutions such as the World Bank and the World Economic Forum as well as several big companies have helped to popularise entrepreneurialism.

These facts may show that Bright Simons, as many other successful African social entrepreneurs, could be in fact representatives of a new leadership scenario in the emerging markets, which drives change and promotes transparency by connecting people and organizations via communications technologies. If this is true for the whole of Africa, it has to be proved, but cases like Simons’ clearly show that technology and entrepreneurship can be a solution to fight some of the toughest plagues that hit the continent: political and economic inefficiencies.

Do you think entrepreneurialism could be an agent of change for Africa?

]]> The Tech4Africa PR campaign: a resounding success http://blog.tech4africa.com/the-t4a-pr-campaign-a-resounding-success/ Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:19:28 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=960 Continue reading ]]>

Good news still coming from our great event! Emerging Media, the team behind Tech4Africa’s PR strategy and implementation, has just released amazing results obtained for the conference.

The Tech4Africa media campaign has been a huge success, becoming a PR and social media case in its own right.

More than 11 million people exposed to the conference through the press, online and social media.
Campaign exposure valued at US$621,123
Over 4400 online mentions.

Find more juicy bits of information in this fascinating infographic created by BrandsEye, the company that tracked Tech4Africa’s online mentions for Emerging Media. The PR guys had something to add too and they shared their experience in their post “Tech4Africa PR campaign sets up conference for longevity and sustainability”.

The successful PR and social media campaign developed for Tech4Africa was ground-breaking, as it had no reliance on traditional advertising but nevertheless managed to secure full attendance.

The high levels of online media coverage reached are due to the great job of our PR partners and the support we received from the press. But it was also possible because speakers, delegates and people interested in the event actively participated in online conversations and discussions before, during and after the conference. To all of them, thank you for helping to spread the word and making Tech4Africa the inspiring event it became!

]]> Tech4Africa: The PanAfrican Perspective http://blog.tech4africa.com/t4a-the-panafrican-perspective/ Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:20:02 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=599 Continue reading ]]> “Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” ~ African Proverb

That proverb has been used to sum up the continent’s state (or fate) for a long time. And what’s become more apparent is that in some cases, you need to point out which Africa you are referring to, South Africa or the rest of Africa. Given that we’re now seeing the kind of innovative web & technology startups coming from Nigeria and Kenya, the Tech4Africa conference put a lot into perspective.

South Africa has always been one of the main doors into the continent. A leading economy no doubt with a vibrant entrepreneurial space with the likes of Naspers showing how powerful an emerging market this is. However, even as the crown jewel of the continent, with we’re beginning to see a balance play out with the South, East & West shifting as each develops not on a linear path, one after the other, but each on its own tangent, converging and diverging with time.

Take Kenya for instance, who recently trumped South Africa in broadband thanks to services like Wananchi Online & Cisco’s Zuku which brings fiber-to-the-home and an uncapped service of 1 MBps as well as 100 television channels. Crisis mapping and visualisation platform Ushahidi was the centre of attention at Tech4Africa, from cofounder Erik Hersman sharing their missteps, challenges and shortfalls in “failing spectacularly.” Even to mentions from Clay Shirky at Tech4Africa and his most recent TED Talk where he shares how it began, and how it fits in with his thoughts on collaboration and cognitive surplus. Or in West Africa, where Bright Simons and mPedigree are changing the pharmaceutical landscape by allowing consumers to verify via SMS the authenticity and safety of their medicines.

Leila Janah, keynote speaker at T4A, spoke about her non-profit Samasource, who’ve created a network of 800 women, youth and refugees across the world in developing countries and empowering them with digital work and resources to make better livelihoods. Her keynote showed the scale, reach and impact of Samasource’s efforts as well as their plans and challenges. It’s certainly clear that East and West Africa are learning from South Africa and now more than ever, the continent’s developing three pillars to build on.

Any pan African approach will present very unique challenges in comparison with what works in South Africa and Tech4Africa’s ability to share between tried and tested practice in the Southern part of Africa, with input from The East and West and an international perspective is what differentiated it for me.

Whether it was debating approaches for the mobile marketing arena shared or the insightful tips and tricks behind the proposed redesign of Payfine.co.za or Andy Budd’s entire session at that. The value in creating simple, relevant user experiences may inadvertently not be at the top of many priority lists across the continent but from what the principles behind it are, what they unlock can be the difference between success and failure. We can expect that with time, these user experience and interaction principles will adapt and be tailored to fit the African context in new ways.

The inspiration and vision to shift perceptions about Africa and those in Africans about the possibilities for great things when it comes to technology are what struck me about Gareth and his remarkable team. Gareth Knight, the man who returned to South Africa bearing the Tech4Africa vision has been the one brave enough to take the first step. And if one African proverb proves true then as Gareth leads this generation to plant the seeds, we’ll wait to how the next generation of Africans use the shade.

It was certainly an honour to witness this beginning.

Mark Kaigwa
http://ukwelii.wordpress.com
@mkaigwa

]]> Take-Aways from Tech4Africa http://blog.tech4africa.com/take-aways-from-t4a/ http://blog.tech4africa.com/take-aways-from-t4a/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:01:44 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=583 Continue reading ]]> News from the conference room: this is a series of blog posts in which blogging experts briefly review key Tech4Africa 2010 talks and panels from Day 1 and 2.

By the time we got to the closing remarks at the end of two fantastic days at Tech4Africa, the atmosphere was a mix of exhaustion, inspiration and eagerness to get to the after party and then beyond into the world, to start applying the learning’s and following up with new connections made.

I had already started asking people what their number one take-away from the unconference-conference had been, so was delighted when the panel opened up their closing remarks along the same lines.

Hearing what other attendee’s pick out as their number one take away, is a great way to summarise the key points and highlight any trends from all the information that was imparted.

So here are some of the take-aways that were shared with me and that I picked up from the panel:

Simon Dingle declared that “Tech4Africa has arrived!”

Duncan McCleod is “going to make it a priority to come to next years Tech4Africa”.

Ivo Vegter felt that “our (as in South Africa’s) engineers and developers are at the top of their game”.

Andy Higgins said his take away was “to build small and good, rather than big and mediocre”.

“Only Africans are going to solve African problems. The international context is a great wake up call, but it needs to be applied to the African context by Africans. It’s only a matter of time before Tech4Africa is dominated by the rest of Africa’s start up’s and speakers. The time is now to look forward!” exclaimed Mark Kaigwa from Kenya.

Dustin Diaz was a man of few words, all he could say to me was: “Blown away!”

Whereas Darren Smith was a bit more verbose with his points, being: “T4A take-away: Seedcamp and Tech4Africa was an eye-opener, in as much meeting the local and international innovators brought home just how fast the world is moving, yet how small its boundaries have become (something that Clay Shirky alluded to in his keynote). What it brought home to me though, was the difficulty in bootstrapping a genuine tech start-up in this country. There seems to be a massive gap between the bootstrapped start-up, and genuine VC investment in a BUSINESS. Most of the entrepreneurs I chatted to and listened to during Tech4Africa were long on tech, passion and ideas, but short on business acumen. And in the absence of a degree of working capital, these start-ups simply will never start-up. Its simple economics.

Sadly, I left Tech4Africa with little semblance of sufficient support structures for entrepreneurs other than ‘family and fools’. It seems to me that most so-called boot-strapped business successes in South Africa are actually extensions of established businesses, products/services … and are funded through the working capital of their benefactors. VCs are looking for much bigger investment opportunities than offered locally (they’re looking for global scale, and 60% plus returns). Yet many of the innovations NEED to serve South Africa needs, and if that’s all they do, it doesn’t make them any less valuable.

So, a few mixed feelings. On the one hand, a tremendous fillip for tech innovation in Africa, but again a sobering assessment of our ability to harness the capital needed to put this innovation to work.”

Ashley Shaw summed up his take away as “solutions to challenges and meeting people”.

“I had a take away pizza last night” was what came to Gordon Greeff’s mind when I asked him, while Mongezi Mtati felt ”the conference has raised the bar much higher than before, the perception that innovation originates from somewhere outside Africa no longer holds true. The challenge is to transcend the needs of a select few who know what the web is about, and create applications that change lives.”

Renier Meyer asserted that “Tech4Africa was an awesome experience and all the panel discussions and presentations were very inspiring and made me think differently about lots of things and also made me think about things I’ve never thought of before. One thing that I realised is that we as South Africans and Africans, are different. And we do things a lot differently here than in the rest of the world. How we do things here even differs from how they do it in other African countries, I’m especially thinking about the mobile market. But even though its a lot different it works well for us and there are entrepreneurs that see opportunities to make these things that make us different, better for us.”

Jonathan Smit’s primary reason for going to Tech4Africa was to hear and meet the international speakers who we would normally not have access to. His take away was: “It was fantastic to hear from some of the great Internet minds from around the world and to connect with like minded Africans. The skills necessary to create, run and grow great Internet businesses abound within Africa and the learnings from our international colleagues can be readily applied to our context to achieve great success both locally and internationally.”

Irene Walker had this to say as her sum up: “The difference between good and great digital solutions lie in their consideration and implementation of satisfied user needs.”

My take away? I think that there is a lot of innovation in Africa, and the sharing of international best practice mixed with the out of box thinking from Africa which is driven by need, is going to see a lot of exciting new developments originating from Africa.

So what is your take-way?

Share your nugget with us here or tweet it with the hashtag #myT4Atakeaway.

Telana Simpson

http://onematchstick.blogspot.com/

@Telana

]]> http://blog.tech4africa.com/take-aways-from-t4a/feed/ 1 Embracing social media and the state of traditional media http://blog.tech4africa.com/embracing-social-media-and-the-state-of-traditional-media/ Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:16:13 +0000 http://t4a.feedmybeta.com?p=511 Continue reading ]]> News from the conference room: this is a series of blog posts in which blogging experts briefly review key Tech4Africa 2010 talks and panels from Day 1 and 2.

Day 2

There were 2 panel discussions that in my mind are related and the speakers are thought leaders, both online and offline. The first discussion was about social media and how beneficial it would be for large companies to embrace it for their growth. The second was: ‘Traditional Media Is Dead. Long Live Traditional Media’.
In essence the highly influential panelists answered some of the questions many of us have in mind about social and traditional media. For me, the relationship between traditional and social media in South Africa should be seen as one where the one supports the other.

Mike Stopforth (who was on the Social Media panel) rightly said “Perhaps social media is broader than a set of platforms we use on the web and how generally relate to each other.” In my mind there tends to be some unspoken, but very real, conflict between traditional media houses and content producers on the web. Whereas, there seems to be a place for both to exist, with quality content produced for either platform as a means to enable communication.

On the other hand Matthew Buckland quoted loosely said “A clear distinction has to be made between what traditional and new media, we have to look at what traditional media are and what they are not. There are different markets – developed and emerging – and space to thrive in different ways.”

Bringing it all together

The rise of social media – place great content – also means the business models behind traditional media have to be examined. In my opinion, the way we consume media and why I read a lot of blogs (interchangeable with great custom content) is because the content appeals to me.
There might be a great story on the Mail & Guardian, one that’s written to my appeal on Times LIVE but never a whole newspaper. Therefore, not enough for me to buy a newspaper when there is sufficient good content for me. Without tilting the scales unjustly in favor of the social web, I will say – as consumers – we are in search of custom products. People are looking for more of what interests them, not mass produced news or products.
Social media and blogs on the other hand, though they by no way replace good journalism, they need to be seen as a way that can sharpen journalists and advance traditional media. But instead of the same type of content that targets everyone being produced more, there has to be a way of approaching it in a way that appeals and targets a niche. After all, smaller players online are finding ways to do that they are constantly improving – though there is a lot of junk on the web as well.

Nutshells just got bigger

In a nutshell – with this post being that nutshell – I agree that there is space for traditional content and great quality journalism produced by traditional media houses. The “high and mighty” social media is only an enabler, not a replacement of traditional media.

Mongezi Mtati
http://www.mongezimtati.co.za/
@Mongezi

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