Somali diaspora and mobile money: a research on hawala presented at Afrikoin
After a few panels and talks on mobile money at Afrikoin, we had the opportunity to listen to Gianluca Iazzolino, a researcher from the University of Edinburgh. Gianluca studies the way Somali people deal with mobile money, particular as a people who are constantly moving – whether as refugees or traders of gold and other goods that can be exchanged […]
How will technology and Bitcoins disrupt the remittance market? Discussion with African startups at Afrikoin
Talking about mobile money at the Afrikoin conference in Nairobi cannot be done without tackling the hot topic of remittances. The African diaspora sends $60bn/year back to their families and friends back in their respective countries, with Kenya accounting for $1.1bn. Remittances are a hot topic for four reasons: Remittance fees (12%) are higher in Africa than in any other continent (the global average is 8% and […]
Helping African merchants to accept mobile money: an Afrikoin discussion on education to new currencies for businesses
Several online payment providers from East Africa attending Afrikoin discussed another hurdle/opportunity in the mobile money field. If customers seem to enjoy MPesa as way to send and receive money, merchants need another approach to be educated and convinced to join the mobile money movement. Customer considerations when adopting mobile money Another great panel at Afrikoin gathered entrepreneurs […]
Big data in Africa: how an insurance company provides an optimized cover for farmers in Kenya
If you don’t have data on your business, how are you going to run it? Well, more likely than not, you’re going to use HIPPO, says Joel Macharia, founder of Abacus, a provider of data solutions for businesses. HIPPO stands for the “HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion”, and this is not the lead you want to follow. Joel showed us […]
East African E-commerce: key findings from iHub Research team in Nairobi
The #Afrikoin conference is organized and hosted by iHub, Kenya’s famous and main innovation platform for web technologies. Their research arm, iHub Research, gave us a few insights on a research they have been running in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda) on e-commerce. The first e-commerce ventures in East Africa used to focus on affluent costumers and the […]
Africa is the future, but their innovation ecosystems need help
The quality and diversity of panelists and delegates of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kuala Lumpur make it possible to learn a lot about distant innovation and startup ecosystems, as we’ve shown with these insights from Russia, Indonesia and New York. We’ve also met with a lot of people from Africa and have tried to connect as much as possible. As a speaker said […]
Comparing or Connecting Startup Ecosystems?
Our project and mission in Kuala Lumpur is to learn how innovation ecosystems work all over the world, starting in year #1 with by visiting 10 countries over the next 10 months during their key events. We had covered our first ecosystem while attending Austin’s SXSW back in March 2013. We talked about a crowd funding campaign, tons of contents, contacts, […]
Malaysia startup ecosystem: build it, and they should come
How is managed the Malaysia startup ecosystem? What are the specifics of this 30m people country located between Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand? Can a resource-based country turn its population into entrepreneurs and innovators? Following our trip at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2013, we compiled data from people we met, startups we talked to, and data found here […]
Building an Entrepreneurial University: Global Entrepreneurship Summit
A tale of 2 universities Some universities can be a place for innovators to learn and grow. Others are an obstacle to innovation. On the one hand, companies like Google are tightly intertwined with the support from their partner universities. They are a place to nurture ideas, spearhead research, establish patents and are sometimes first drivers for growth. On the other hand, many […]
How Russia, Tanzania, Indonesia and the US analyze their own startup ecosystems
Is there a 2nd best innovation ecosystem? Answering the question “what is the 2nd best innovation ecosystem in the world” is both provocative and eye-opening. No one seems to be able to identify a comparable model to what Silicon Valley has built over the last 50-60 years (see this cool timeline from NPR). And the second “rank”, if it still makes […]
