Latest updates on technology and innovation trends in Africa

Popular tags: All Tanzania Startups Innovation Mobile




As part of the Buni Entrepreneurship Bootcamp at Buni hub. We will be sharing the resources, video, articles and talks through this website. You can catch up and read recaps of things happening during the Bootcamp from this blog.

 Day1: #BuniEntrepreneurshipBootcamp is all about building successful startups in Africa focusing on individual startups and the ecosystem in general. The video by Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz on how to start a startup will challenge the attendees of the Bootcamp on how they view the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa. Do we share the same challenges facing startups in developed countries? How can we establish successful startups by solving local problems and adding value to existing systems?

 Getting the right idea, team  and solving real problems facing the continent has been one of the challenges facing most of the African tech startups. Getting the right team to form successful startups is an obstacle. The article by Ndubuisi Ekekwe on Havard Business Review, explains on methods that African startups needs to apply to hire and keep talented individuals.

 Day 1 guest, Co-Founder of Kwetu Chalks, Amiri Hassan who will be sharing his experience as an African entrepreneurs on what it takes to build successful startups. Kwetu Chalks is the only startup which manufacture Chalks at small scale in Tanzania. Most of the chalks are being imported from abroad. How did he come up with this idea? What motivated him to establish his small manufacturing plant? What are the challenges he had to face in the process?  

The lifecycle of the African startup is always considered to be short and most startups that are considered to be doing fine, they are doing fine in the media. Is hype killing African startups? You can read the article from Mbwana Alliy about hype in the startup ecosystem in Africa, Kenyan perspective. Are we really growing? What is the role of the grassroots innovation initiatives on the growth of the startup ecosystem in Africa? Is the ecosystem balanced? What is missing and how can we replace it?

 Do you believe Africa will never produce Facebook, Groupon, Zynga or Google as Mfonobong Nsehe wrote an article in Forbes magazine?



Resources:

The return of the King or let's say the King and the King's brother; Samsung S6 and Samsung S6 Edge are already here. Although they are not going to be available globally until April 10th this year. Already everyone on the wide web village knows about this cool gadget.


Among the distinguished features of the phone includes wireless charger, high speed charging capacity with estimated 50% battery charge 30 minutes after plugging the phone on the charger. Oh, I forgot you don't have to plug anymore. The phone also have upgraded the camera to a new amazing experience. Does it have what it takes to make 2015 good year for Samsung lets wait and see, game on Apple!!!
The First e-waste 3D printer in Tanzania.

It is great to see what is happening at Buni Hub, a local technology hub in Dar es Salaam. The hub has been the first space in Africa to produce the e-waste 3D printer. The printer has been developed from printed 3D parts, used motors and recycled iron bars.

 What does this mean? Is Africa ready to leapfrog and start to manufacture devices and sell to the global market? The idea sound ambitious but already STIC a local fabrication laboratory have developed interest to pioneer the first small scale e-waste 3D printer production plant just outside Dar es Salaam.




3D printing technologies have already shown its ability to revive the manufacturing sector in Africa. The technology can be used to print; models to teach science subjects, artificial body parts for disabled and allow innovators to prototype quickly, smartly and in the most effective way. Is this the day we witness the South start to produce for the North to use? Let’s wait and see. 
Image from the GSMA report

According to report by GSMA over 3.3 million Tanzanians have been reached by mHealth services. Although Tanzania is among the countries suffering the most on maternal mortality, the mHealth initiative has shown a lot of promises to improve the health sector although up to now only 32% of the interventions made by mHealth are related to improving the status of maternal mortality rate. 

The full detailed report has released by GSMA can be accessed from here
Mobile industry is one of the fastest growing industries in Tanzania. Tanzania has more than seven mobile network operators (MNOs). The exponential increase in terms of number of mobile subscribers is due to the role played by mobile phone on improving people's lives.

Is this the right time to cut down the cost of importing mobile phones in Tanzania ? By reducing tax and creating supportive ecosystem for growth of the sector will encourage even more people to access mobile phones at a cheaper cost.

"TANZANIA is the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa and ninth globally for demonstrating most conducive environments for financial inclusion, according to the new Global Microscope 2014 by The Economist Intelligence Unit. " Daily news

Among clear reasons for Tanzania to perform brilliantly on financial inclusion is due to the fastest adoption of mobile money services. People access to mobile phones simply means they can have access to the formal financial system. Some of the services that comes from the MNOs these days includes ability to deposit and access loans from your mobile money account. 

So, what is this weird stuff ? this cool but weird stuff is called nano drone, something that might transform Africa through so many different ways. 

Already there so many people who have shown the interest to buy and import the product for different uses; covering sports events, national public events, monitoring road traffics and getting real time news coverage from up above since its cheap compared to using a helicopter.

The nano drone is already available in Dar es Salaam local innovation hub called 
Buni Innovation hub to help local techies to get a feel of piloting a drone. Buni Innovation hub also have plans to make drones using e-waste materials and the project is already on the pipeline.

The brother of this guy who his bigger in size can take pictures and record event from up above is the one we are talking about. These guys can transform so many things in Africa. 

 · Feb 3
The world smallest affordable drone, The Nano drone, already in Tanzania


Already there is a project by World Bank consultant, Frederick in Tanzania which uses drones to improve the sewage and sanitation systems. The drone take pictures from the above and help experts to analyze areas where the sewage systems are not working properly. The project is piloted on slums of Dar es Salaam and help to encounter sewage blockage which cause a lot of problems to the city's sewage system.

This is just one area where these toy look alike gadgets can be used to create an impact. There are so many areas such as large scale farming on agriculture sector and animal husbandry. The device can be used to supervise and monitor while recording videos from above. Recently, there were suggestions for wild animal poaching control agencies to use drones to control poaching.


As smartphones are getting cheaper by day they are becoming even more accessible to the people at the bottom of the pyramid as this report by InfoDev analyze.

 While everyone is busy talking about Internet of things in Africa we will be more practical, if we talk mobile of things.

Things that you can do with your mobile phones are surprisingly increasing; you can even pay for the football match ticket using your mobile phone now, you can pay your road license using your phone or even get a bank a loan. This is the reason the financial inclusion of Tanzania is improving day by day.

 In Tanzania while internet penetration is still at 20%, the mobile penetration rate is approaching 70% and mobile phone subscriptions at 30 million according to the GMSA report, mobile money for the unbanked.





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On Monday, 20th of January 2014 Buni space in cooperation with the Mobile Monday team organized a Mobile Monday session with the theme “Status of Mobile and Online Payment in Tanzania”

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The Percentage of M-Pesa users is 53, while Tigo Pesa and AirTel money is 18 and 13 respectively.










The facts of Mobile Payment systems in Tanzania, opening the discussion during the session, Vodacom Tanzania Head of e-commerce operations Mr. Franklin Bagalla talked about the scope and the opportunities that comes with the mobile payment systems in Tanzania and the necessity of the systems. Mr. Bagalla shared the story of M-Pesa Tanzania and how they are changing lives. According to him M-Pesa is all over Tanzania and it has been among the major sources of financial inclusion, giving the poor the opportunity to be involved in the formal financial sector of Tanzania. He believes with all the opportunities that comes with mobile money we should be able to exploit more by creating a “cashless society”. He talked about the future plan of M-Pesa, which is, to give values to the users to make them be able to purchase not only consumer services but also commodities with their mobile phones.
The statistics shows, mobile money have created jobs to thousands of Tanzanians who got commissions by transforming cash into digital values. The so called “wakala” the merchants are believed to be the most important group in the mobile money systems value chain, according to Mr. Bagalla.
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Audience of the Mobile Monday Dar
 session last Monday listening to
 the speaker at Buni Space.
From the presentation “The facts of Mobile Money Tanzania” by me (the article writer), using the report of Kevin Donovan in World Bank (InfoDev)  journal “Mobile Money for Financial Inclusion”, roughly one billion people have access to mobile phones but no bank accounts. In developing countries half of the households lack account with financial institutions but they have mobile phones. This shows the necessity of stable mobile money systems in growing economies.
The challenges, one of the biggest challenge so far was getting the mobile service companies to interact and work with local developers to create more values to the mobile money systems. Mr. Bagalla agreed on this, he said, we haven’t yet utilized mobile money systems to its potential as per my presentation (article writer) on three possible opportunities in any mobile payments system (Mobile Finance, Mobile Payment and Mobile Banking). Most of the mobile money users in Tanzania use mobile money for only making payment for services and checking banking transactional records. There is still a lot of opportunities from the industry to create business in stuffs like savings, insurance and credit. Even though there was a tough discussion on the willingness of the mobile companies to work with startups companies to achieve this. Individuals from the meeting complained most of digital business and online transaction systems in Tanzania fails due to lack of support from the mobile companies. Some individuals questions, if there was a conflict of interests between banks, mobile companies and local entrepreneurs and how they can work together to increase efficiency and productivity.
The future of Mobile Money in Tanzania, Mr.Gustav Vermaas, Managing Director of Smart Banking Solutions Limited Company explained, according to him he does not see any competition in the mobile money business in Tanzania, the only competition is between the digital money solutions against cash ownership culture of Tanzanians. He said the market is still vast for any new incumbent on the business to exploit. Smart banking solutions companies are coming with their smart cards that will allow individuals to pay and purchase almost anything from the market and creating the cashless society in few years to come. He explained about their pilot projects and the success stories and how they are going to expand their business. The audience was eager to know how will the company be able to change the culture of the people, he asked if people can share experience few years ago when mobile money was starting to get attention from developing countries and compare with the current situation and finishing by saying, “anything is possible”.
The session ended by application demos from Benedict Tesha, Jamaa Technologies showcasing his application, Jamaa Pay and Eric Mutta talking about Minishop systemthe product to help local SMEs and businesses to track records and improve efficiency. it was another great Mobile Monday session.
Do you have an idea for how to improve children's lives?

The application period for 2013 is now open. The deadline for submitting applications is 11:59 pm on November 29th.
Then you can apply to the Tigo Reach for Change Program. If selected you will receive financial support (beginning with seed funding of $25,000 in Year 1) as well as coaching from experienced business people to help you turn your idea into a sustainable venture.
The criteria they are looking for includes:
  • Be innovative, creative, and fresh.
  • Be early-stage or ready to grow.
  • Be something doable, clear and focused.
  • Have potential for great social impact, being able to improve the lives of children (up to 18 years).
  • Have potential to be system changing. By system changing, we mean ideas that can create long-lasting change for many children by changing the system which is either causing the problem, or restricting or limiting its solution. System change takes time, but is the ultimate strategic goal of all the ideas which we bring into our Incubator
  • Be scalable. Ideas which have the potential to improve the lives of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of children.
  • Have a sustainable financing plan. You should be able to explain to us how you intend to generate revenue to finance the delivery of your idea in a way that minimizes the risk of the social impact stopping due to running out of money
The person we are looking for (you!) must have: - Entrepreneurial skill, such as being result-driven, goal oriented, pragmatic and flexible - Leadership skills; able to inspire other and get people involved - A passion for improving the lives of children - You must also be the leader of the organization established to bring this idea into reality. For More Details follow this link.


The Information has been provided with Tigo reach for change Team.

The technology world is moving so fast that, cooperate industry can’t afford to run without the use of technology no more. Technology is like everything in the way we work these days from planning meeting, setting schedules, file sharing, information storage and even decision making.

I remember back then to have an internet in the office it was an issue, organizations used to spend a lot of money to implement ICT infrastructures. By back then I meant less than 10 years ago, remember when Nokia 3310 used to be the most expensive phone in town you could ever own. Few years from then there are thousands of smart phones in streets and some at very affordable prices, even a young college or high school student can own a Samsung Galaxy or Apple’s smart phones.

I remember chatting with my old boss at Tanzania Ports Authority about the seminar that senior official of the port received, on efficient usage of the Blackberry smart phones to send and receive emails, organizing and planning meetings. He said “there is no way I can escape this, 20 years experience of working with the port, today I have to learn how to use a phone to run my department”. That is the power of technology, no matter what educational background you have, experience you posses or even skills you have you can’t escape the trap of technology.

It has been a challenge to a lot of people when their organizations migrate from old manual systems to technology based systems. Most of them felt to be left behind and even some of them believe technology is the tool to exploit them and taking their positions in the organization, which to some extent and some situations appear to be true but not all the time.  The questions remain what should I do when my company or organization is taking it to the next level technology wise. I remember this question was asked during the Nokia developer’s forum Bangalore 2009 and the answer from the speaker was “just get into the train and ride with them”.

Few things that should be clear to you, first, everyone will be trying to adopt the systems the best thing you can do is collaborative learning and knowledge sharing. Be yourself and be free to ask questions and get to know the system. Never pretend you know the system, even if you know it you should always be careful with the way you present it to others and working with them. That is the first rule of the organizational politics, wither you know it or you don’t know it always depend with whom you are working with, especially bosses they always love to be in control. In some situations and some bosses and co-workers who entertain the “Win-Win” situation they will be happy to see an officemate who knows the system already and they will open the door for you to teach them and learn while others won’t.

Second thing you should understand is that, there is always a solution for your technology related problem available online, that is why internet exists. I have done this so many times in job interviews, I read the job description and if I find something that I don’t understand I just Google it and get the fast track information about it and in few days I become an expert. Once you hear new technology is coming to your office or organizations make sure you search online for the possible details about the system. Most of the time lot of resources, materials and even sometimes video tutorials available online. Most of these resources can help you to adopt the new system before others or even before the company decides to hire the trainer to teach you.

Third, if you are the boss this is the time you do two things, first to work so hard to understand the system so that you can be able to help your subordinates to migrate to the new system while understanding who is in charge and second to learn about your employees capabilities and abilities to adopt and practice new ways of doing work. When the new challenge emerges is when you realize people’s potentials. Always entertain innovation and creativity at your workplace is the biggest secret to improve efficiency and productivity. The biggest mistake most of the bosses do is to be afraid of the new systems. They always feel new systems make them to be left behind and undermine their potentials. Leave no room for your subordinates to realize you are afraid to adapt to the new system this will make you look weak in front of them, something you don’t want to do.

If you are just a normal employee at your organization this is an opportunity you have been waiting for. I can’t tell you how many people I know personally that have been hired or promoted since they know something that others can’t do or use. Don’t accept defeat before entering in the ring. Try to see if what is about to be introduced is something that you can hustle to learn and put into practice. One shut is only you have to prove yourself and the opportunities they don’t come that much frequently. It could take an organization another 10 to 15 years to move to a new technology or new way of doing things.
No, I can’t, it won’t work and other answers like this are totally not accepted when you are trying to adopt the new system. The best answer you should provide when you are asked to work with the new system is that, I will try my level best, am working on it, I will adopt and so on. Organizations and companies want people to deliver, if you can’t deliver why should they keep you in their organization? Instead of just replacing you, wise man once told me in this world people they don’t care on what you have or who you are as long as you can deliver something they want in time. Now take your time and ask yourself if you are ready to get into the train and ride with them to the new era of running your organization.


Jumanne Mtambalike
jumanne@tanzict.or.tz