When you talk of startups in the Kenyan ICT industry, Carft Silicon will most likely come to mind. Craft Silicon has grown over the last decade to become a force to reckon with regionally in the development and implementation of financial institutions around Africa. Key among its clientele are the Equatorial Commercial Bank, Jamii Bora Bank, Nakumatt Holdings Limited and Safaricom Limited in Kenya as well as Fullerton India Credit Company Limited, Dar es Salaam Community Bank and First Bank Nigeria (FBN) Microfinance Limited in other regions around Africa as well as beyond. The Kenyan market is rapidly changing. Contrary to the perpetual dominance by the ‘big players’ in the ICT space, there is, certainly, new room for startups. Moreover, there is a growing interest in local solutions to local problems using technology.
The second edition of Pivot 25 held on June 5th and 6th in Nairobi is a case in point. The regional competition allowed technology enthusiasts to show cases of their talent. The event provided an avenue for upcoming mobile entrepreneurs to market their products and receive support from interested capitalists or finance initiatives. Participants in the competition were drawn from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi and South Sudan. The event was organised by m:lab East Africa and its consortium partners led by the World Wide Web Foundation, iHub, University of Nairobi and eMobilis. The sponsors of the event included; Nokia, Equity Bank, Samsung, Google, Tigo and Elma.
There were five categories in the competition; Mobile Payments/Commerce, Mobile Gaming, Entertainment and Utilities, Business and Enterprise, Government, Agriculture and Education and Health. Out of the 100 participating teams, the best 25 mobile applications were selected to pitch for their products at the Pivot 25 conference in Nairobi which was conjoined with an array of interviews with various executive in the ICT industry. Prizes of $5,000 were awarded to the winners of each of the 5 categories. Now, isn’t that good startup capital? The overall winner will go to pitch for their product at the DEMO conference in California.
This year’s winner were mShop by MTL Systems from Kenya in the Mobile Payments/Commerce category, Whive by Space Kenya in the Mobile Gaming, Entertainment and Utilities category, Uhasibu by PlusPeople in the Business and Enterprise category, SchoolSMS by Tusqee Systems in the Government, Agriculture and Education category and MedKenya by Shimba Technologies who were the overall winners in the Health category.Another upcoming event presents an opportunity for startups. In October 24-26 this year, the first DEMO conference in Africa will be held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi. DEMO has partnered with the U.S. Department of State, Microsoft, Nokia, African Development Bank, USAID, and Global Entrepreneurship to form the Liberalizing Innovation Opportunity Nations (LIONS@FRICA). LIONS@FRICA will be facilitating the first DEMO event in Africa.
DEMO has been in existence for 21 years, providing a platform for innovators to launch their products. Previous DEMO events have helped introduce new products and services that have become well-known brands such as Adobe Acrobat, WebEx, Salesforce.com and Tivo. Scouts from established companies like Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Symantec, HP, SAP and Yahoo would attend the event to invest in viable ideas. Essentially, the event is a global stage for startup to pitch to venture capitalists. Other International DEMO conferences including: two DEMO conferences in the United States, DEMO Asia, DEMO China and DEMO Brazil.
On the African continent front, another startup event will be held in Senegal. The Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) Startup Boot Camp will held on July 10th and 11th 2012 in the capital of Senegal, Dakar. The event has been organized by LIONS@FRICA, by CTIC Dakar which is a Senegalese incubator and the African Development Bank. During the boot camp, the startup entrepreneurs are intensive trained on creative and innovative thinking and harnessing talent in the fields of ICT, energy, healthcare and agriculture. The boot camp is available to a representative from 100 of the most-qualified ventures. There is a second day of mentorship and venture pitching on Wednesday, July 11 that will be available to the forty most-qualified ventures. A similar event was held in Marakesh, Morocco, on January 15-16 to nurture creative ideas and innovation.
