AfricArena Podcast with Patrick Craig: Recent Episodes

AfricArena, EXPERIENTIALIST Sound Lab

Welcome to the African Innovation Podcast, the African tech and innovation audio show brought to you by AfricArena. For those who don't know, AfricArena is a pan-African ecosystem accelerator whose mission is to help African startups access bigger markets and raise more capital. Each year during our tour, we scour the major capitals of the continent in search of the most game changing startups in each region which we then bring to our annual summit in Cape Town in Nov of that year. In each episode we chat to the the most interesting thought leaders, founders, investors and corporate change makers of our time, about their work, impact and ideas. We unpack their many insights around innovation, growth, challenges, mindset and investment because our mission is to accelerate the rate at which our ecosystems are growing throughout this amazing continent.

For Tickets visit: www.africarena.com

AfricArena Tunis Summit: https://www.africarena.com/
FMO: https://www.fmo.nl/ventures-program

Hello beautiful people, welcome to SEASON 6 of the AfricArena podcast, and what an epic journey its been. To kick off this season, I’m going to take us back to Dakar, to the beautiful conference space at hotel Terrou bi where we hosted our latest West African Summit.

Throughout the conference I chatted various stakeholders in our ecosystem to gather their insight into on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting frontier tech ecosystem, of Dakar.

Massive thanks to our partner's DER, La Délégation Générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, International Trade Centre, Amazon Web Services, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be sharing this all with you today.

In this episode we’re going to unpack what it is that makes the West African ecosystem so exciting and specifically what is happening on the ground in Dakar. We’re going to deep dive into what made them come to Dakar, why they’re excited about it, and if you’re curious about this region, perhaps this episode will give you some further insight into why it’s worth taking seriously.

So let’s get stuck in shall we.

Today we caught up for a brief chat with Kohei Muto, the CEO, Founding Partner at Double Feather Partners one of AfriCArena's partners for the investor unconference part of the grand summit.

Double Feather Partners is a corporate finance & strategic advisory firm with a VC Investment arm providing comprehensive support to innovative African companies with strong social impacts.

We managed to catch Kohei after the unconference to get his views on the ecosystem and hear what they are up to/.

Today, we're sitting with Sacha Haider who is an investment associate at Global Ventures. Global Ventures is an international venture capital firm, investing in founders and ideas across emerging markets. They back global-minded founders that are leading growth-stage companies and using technology to transform emerging markets and the world. Global Ventures is made up of a super great team of a diverse, collaborative, talented, and curious group of professionals who, combined, have years of experience and expertise building and scaling companies.

We caught up with Sacha at our Grand Summit in Cape Town to unpack her latest developments on the continent in regards to their Africa-focused funds and get her to take on the ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Papa Amadou who is the Minister, General Delegate for Entrepreneurship in Senegal, an initiative called the DER.

The DER is a fund of 30 billion FCFA ($50 million USD) launched by the President of Senegal to catalyze entrepreneurship all around Senegal, targeting youth up to 40 years and women from 18 years old and up, with no age limit.

Announced in Sept 2017 and formally launched in April 2018, the fund offers four main types of entrepreneur financing. The most innovative are the latter two:

Small Financing: focusing on “smaller, simple economic projects”
Incubation funding: funding incubation, empowerment, or training programs for young entrepreneurs
Equity financing: a corporate finance fund that will offer capital in exchange for equity in a young company, that is validated by external DER partners
Low-interest loans: at 4-5% interest rate with a specific focus on certain clustered economic activities or certain value chains

Today, we're catching up with Grace Legodi the Africa Director of Grindstone Ventures as well as Philippe Mourrain, founder of Amiliros, a consulting and investment co, and professor of Psychiatry, Behavioural & Neural Science at Stanford University.

First up we chat to Grace, from Grindstone Ventures - a female-led fund that invests in and supports post-seed, pre-series A equity (incl. quasi-equity) investments. Our focus is on early-stage innovation-driven and/or technology companies with strong intellectual property, evident growth potential, with the aim of delivering capital growth and sustainable cash yields over the long term.

Next, we catch up with Phillipe on his first impressions of the ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Zachariah George, the founder, and partner of Launch Africa Ventures and Startup Bootcamp.

Launch Africa Ventures is Africa's leading venture capital fund that solves the significant gap in Seed to Series A investments across the continent. They back startups across multiple regions, sectors, and products, all of whom tackle the most meaningful challenges on the continent through technology and innovation.

When he is not launching African ventures, or on an adventure, he can be seen leading Startup Bootcamp, the first and largest multi-corporate backed tech venture accelerator on the African continent with a portfolio comprising several of Africa's most successful and iconic technology ventures.

We caught up with Zach at our West African summit in Dakar as well as our grand summit in cape town to unpack his latest developments on the ground, her work so far, and to unpack his view on the current lay of the land within the ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Yasmin Larbi who is the communications officer at Expertise France as well as Wassiem Ben Larbi, the well-known radio presenter, TV host, and entrepreneur from Tunis.

Expertise France is a public agency and a key actor in international technical cooperation. It designs and implements projects that sustainably strengthen public policies in developing and emerging countries. Governance, security, climate, health, education… It operates in key areas of sustainable development and contributes alongside its partners to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

We caught up with both Yasmin and Wassim at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments on the ground, their growth so far, and to unpack her perspectives on the North African ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Matsi Modise - a lady of many hats and but for this interview, she is the founder who is the founder of Furaha Afrika Holdings.

Established in 2013, Furaha Afrika Holdings is a progressive Pan-African organization dedicated to enabling and leveraging growth across the African continent. By forming strategic partnerships with like-minded dynamic organizations that seek to move Africa forward, they unearth opportunities for meaningful investments – both in the continent’s infrastructure and in its human capital services. Meaning ‘happy’ in Swahili, Furaha Afrika Holdings is founded on the vision of a progressive and prosperous Africa where the richness of our continent is celebrated and amplified. Propelled by their values of doing things differently, working towards inclusivity, and valuing collaboration, their various subsidiary companies play to their unique strengths, while nurturing Africa and its potential.

We caught up with Matsi at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments on the SA startup Act, her latest projects and perspectives, and to unpack her view on the North African ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Hiba S Sharief who is CxO & Startup Advisor | Global Thought Leader | Intersection of Innovation & Humanity | Investor and Board Member

She is a lady of many hats and but for this interview, she is the founder and chief strategy officer at Elevoro. Elevoro is an inclusive community of global leaders that elevate human potential and drive positive change. We orchestrate connections between companies, experts, and investors with common values and goals. We cultivate a culture of continuous development, empowerment, and innovation while genuinely seeking to improve lives.

We caught up with Hiba at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments on the ground, her work so far, and to unpack her view on the North African ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Salma Baghdadi who is the Startup ecosystem director at Smart Capital the operator of a fantastic initiative called startup Tunisia.

Startup Tunisia is the name of the national program aiming to make Tunisia a country of Startups at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, the MENA region, and Africa.

This program is powered by Smart Capital, the company in charge of developing the Tunisian entrepreneurial galaxy by implementing all the components of Startup Tunisia.

We caught up with Salma at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments on the ground, their growth so far, and to unpack her view on the North African ecosystem.

Today/s featured start-ups are all startups we met at our North African summit who are each doing some incredible work in their respective countries.

First we will chat with Hassan Haider who is Data Analytics Manager at Tirhal, a ride-hailing app en route to becoming a super app in Sudan.

Then we chat with Alex from Shipzer, SAAS software company to manage empty container depots.

Lastly, we catch up with Ida, from Mytindy a marketplace in North Africa that connects buyers to the many artisans across the region who have traditionally never sold online.

We caught up with all 3 at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments in Sudan, Morocco and Tunis respectively, find out about their growth so far and get their view on the North African ecosystem.

Today, we're sitting with Dr. Fawaz and Namek Zu bi who are the managing partners at Silicon Badia. They are a venture capital firm that partners with passionate, bold entrepreneurs to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

We caught up with Dr. Fawaz and Namek at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack their latest developments on the continent in regards to their Africa-focused fund and get their take on the North African ecosystem.

Please excuse the sound quality of this interview, unfortunately, this was the only space that was private and quiet enough but being a glassed walled room the echo is present but the interview is audible and packed full of insights.

Today, we're sitting with Cyrine Ben Fadhel who is an investment associate at Global Ventures. Global Ventures is an international venture capital firm, investing in founders and ideas across emerging markets. They back global-minded founders that are leading growth-stage companies and using technology to transform emerging markets and the world. Global Ventures is made up of a super great team of a diverse, collaborative, talented, and curious group of professionals who, combined, have years of experience and expertise building and scaling companies.

We caught up with Cyrine at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack her latest developments on the continent in regards to their Africa-focused funds and get her take on the North African ecosystem.

Welcome back If you're joining us for the first time, this podcast is a series of conversations and debates where we unpack the latest trends & insights within the African Tech ecosystem. Our mission is to capture the many stories that are shared, the lessons learned, and to openly chat about both the challenges and the vast opportunity that exists within the major tech ecosystems on this incredible continent of Africa.

Each year, we travel to West, East, North, and Southern Africa to chat to key ecosystem players so we can dive deep into what's happening, as it happens when it happens.

So ladies and gent's welcome to Tunis, the capital of magnificent North African country of Tunisia. The temperature is a mild 23 degrees and right now I'm sitting in the foyer of the majestic Movenpick hotel about to welcome our first delegates to our first-ever North African summit here in Tunis thanks to our partners at Smart Capital and Startup Tunisia, Expertise France, The Dot, GIZ Tunisie, and Fondation Tunisie. If it wasn't for them we, wouldn't be here, and if we weren't here, we wouldn't be able to share what we discover with all of you.

Today, we're sitting with Ben Marrell, the founder of Breega. Breega is a founder-friendly VC, with €260M under management, investing in promising European and soon African, high tech start-ups at Seed and Series A stage.

Breega is more than just a normal investor. Built for founders by founders, Breega supports its portfolio companies through each phase of their development, providing them with free-of-charge operational expertise (talent, biz dev, marketing & legal) and international development opportunities. We caught up with Ben at our North African summit in Tunis to unpack his latest developments on the continent in regards to his Africa-focused fund and get his take on the North African ecosystem.

So let's get stuck in shall we!

This conversation with Thierry Barbaut was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Lin Dejean Yun was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Tosin Adelowo was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Zachariah George was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with thierno sakho was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Mubarak Sumaila was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Tidjane Deme (Partech)was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Youma Fall was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Carine Vavasseur was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Gabriela Marin was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Thierry Barbaut was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Dmitry Fotiyev was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Christophe Viarnaud was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Birame Sock was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Elohor Thomas was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Baboucarr Njie was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Moudilou Dramane was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Adenike Sheriff was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Mareme Dieng was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

This conversation with Papa Amadou was recorded at the AfricArena West African Summit in June 2021, held at The Raddison Sea Plaza hotel in Dakar.

Throughout the conference, I chatted to as many stakeholders as possible to share with you as much insight on what’s happening on the ground in this exciting tech ecosystem. So be sure to check out all the micro episodes from this West African Summit Series, following this one, you can understand the perspectives and ideas coming out of this exciting region.

Massive thanks to our partners' DER, La Délégation générale à l'Entreprenariat Rapide, The International Trade Centre, Thé French Embassy in Senegal, Amazon Web Services, Orange Ventures, and our greater partner network for making this summit happen. If it wasn’t for all of you, we wouldn’t be here today.

Right now that’s out the way, let’s get stuck in shall we.

AfricArena Podcast Ep #17 - Future of Work facilitated by Patrick Craig ft Annette Muller, Rajiv Daya, Sean Friedrich & Vincent Viollain.

Ep #16 "Smart Cities - Africa & The 21st Century" facilitated by Aaron Fu ft Boldewijn Sloet, Abraham Cambridge, Lance Greyling and Vuyisa Qabaka.

Ep #15 - Scale Big & Scale Fast facilitated by Motlhabane Koloi ft Anton van Vlaanderen, Louw Barnardt, James Townsend-Rose, and Anton Kleingeld

Ep 14 - Privacy & Ethics Hosted by Mercy Zulu-Hume ft Eitan Stern, Aissatou Sylla, and Gwen Ngwenya.mp4

Ep 13 - Facebook for African Startups and how to leverage it- Hosted by Ali Parr (Facebook) ft Glenn Gillis (Seamonster), James Hedley (Quicket) and Antoine Paillusseau (Finchat Bot).mp4

Ep 12 - Education Enabling Learning Through Tech hosted by Zach George (Startup Bootcamp, Vincent Viollain (Viva Tech), Wesley Lynch, Victoria Jackson (Naspers Labs), Naadija Moosajee (Womhub), Gilles le Cocguen (BPI)

Guys welcome back to the show, thank you for listening, welcome to episode no 11. . As we all navigate covid 19 and watch the impact that it has on Africa, we've, as a result, been forced to move our annual AfricArena tour where we would visit our top 11 digital partner hubs across the continent, to a digital format. But the upside is that that now we've been able to find even more incredible startups from across the continent as many more people are online and see what we do. So if you're you're someone who's keen to see who the best of the best are then stay tuned to this show, I will be announcing dates for our renewed hybrid summit at the end of the show. As you may or may not know, our role is to act as an ecosystem accelerator and our mission is to help African startups, connect to the right people, access bigger markets so that they can go on an impact their world - and that all starts with the help of our continent's Angel Investor network.

This episode recorded at our summit last year, but released for the very first time features 3 giants in our industry discussing a very important topic: being Next Generation Angels, where do they come from, who are they and how will they impact our world and more importantly our continent of Africa.

This episode was moderated by Tim Harris, the CEO of Wesgro and he chats to Tomi Davis - AFCA and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji - Future Africa.

Welcome back to the show, if you're new, thank you for listening, AfricArena is a pan-African ecosystem accelerator and our mission is to help African startups, connect to the right people, access bigger markets so that they can go on an impact their world

In each episode, we chat to all sorts of people who play a key role in building the African tech ecosystem. We unpack their many insights around innovation, growth, challenges, mindset and investment. We hope that by sharing these incredible stories, about failures and success, that we will change the perception and narrative about African ideation and innovation. If there is one place where are people are forced to innovate, its in Africa.

Right let's get stuck in, as we gear up for this year's summit, we thought we'd share a fantastic panel discussion from last year that we've not shared yet which is titled the 4th Industrial Revolution is NO Silver Bullet

Rochelle Mountainy from Microsoft

Antoine Paillusseu - Finchat Bot

Gwen Ngwenya

Courtney Bentley - Visibility Insights

Vusi Tehmbekwayo - My Growth Fund

Charlie Stewart - Roger Wilco (Moderator)

Guys welcome back to the show, if you're new, thank you for listening, AfricArena is a pan-African ecosystem accelerator and our mission is to help African startups, connect to the right people, access bigger markets so that they can go on an impact their world

In each episode we chat to all sorts of people who play a key role in building the African tech ecosystem. We unpack their many insights around innovation, growth, challenges, mindset and investment. We hope that by sharing these incredible stories, about failures and success, that we will change the perception and narrative about African ideation and innovation. If there is one place where are people are forced to innovate, its in Africa.

Panelists include:

Clive Butkow, - CEO the CEO of Kalon Venture Partners, a disruptive digital technology Venture Capital Fund (VCC).
Sascha Breuss, - CEo Zando / Jumia Group (First tech unicorn in Africa)
Mike Mompi - the CEO of Enza Capital, a private fund investing in early-stage African technology companies solving large and meaningful problems.
Aaron Fu - Head of Growth at Catalyst Fund, a fund which accelerates inclusive fintech startups to build more affordable, accessible and appropriate solutions for underserved communities, and develops innovation ecosystems in emerging markets.
Ben Marrel - Founding partner at Breega - a founder-friendly VC, with €250M under management, investing in promising European high tech start-ups at Seed/Series A stage.
Facilitated by Tanya van Lill - CEO at Southern Africa Venture Capital Firm.

Hello Ladies & Gents. Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs. Habari wana wake na waun gwana to our Swahili brothers/ sisters. How u de? How's everyone doing!

Welcome to today's Webinar on The State of Tech Innovation in Africa.

Normally it would be at this time, during our tour which would be happening right now we scour the major capitals of the continent in search of the most game changing startups in each region .

So as we cannot continue with our usual tour schedule, the AfricArena team thought it would be a great time to leverage the knowledge of all the stakeholders in our African Tech ecosystem with the goal of putting together a super in-depth and insight packed report to share with everyone on The State of Tech Innovation in Africa.

Shortly I will hand over to Christophe, who will unpack the key drivers behind the report and share his perspective on why this report is so necessary at this time

But before I do, I just wanted to give you a little structure on how today's webinar will go, share some house rules and of course introduce the incredible line up of panelists who have all graciously given their time to chat to us to share their perspectives and ideas on what you're about to hear today.

Today's webinar will be broken down into 3 main sections, which will be presented by Leo Boisnier the AfricArena ecosystem manager and one part of the fantastic research team at AfricArena.

After each section we will have a 15 min discussion

The 3 sections are themed around

1) Building & Funding a Venture in Africa,
2) The opportunity for corporate open innovation in Africa
3) What are the key trends & sector highlights from 2016-2019 and what might the African ecosystem look like post the Corona pandemic

At the end we will run a Q&A with all of you where we will do our very best to get as many questions answered as possible

Femi Adeyemo - CEO, Arnergy

a Nigerian startup operating in off grid energy whos mission is to provide Reliable and affordable solar energy solutions to homes and businesses in Nigeria and emerging markets, and it has been super exciting to watch them scale

Philip KIRACOF - CEO, Startupbootcamp AfriTech

Philip brings two decades of direct operational and venture financing experience to today's webinar which spans across a diverse range of industries and across three continents. He has also co-founded, led, advised and invested in disruptive companies including a pioneer online grocery service company, two venture capital funds, the first large-scale social networking site, and a New York-based property development firm. He shares the same vision with us at Africa Arena in that he has helped bring world-class accelerators to Africa, and is the CEO and co-founder of Startupbootcamp Africa and to date he has accelerated and/or invested in more than 50 African startups since 2013.

Welcome Philip

Seraj TOE - FI - Entrepreneur, University lecturer, Strategist.

Seraj Toefy is a serial entrepreneur based in Cape Town with a rich background in marketing, communication and entrepreneurship .He is a Custodian of Entrepreneurship at the University of Stellenbosch Business and lectures on Entrepreneurial strategy and management at a few leading universities throughout Africa and is a regular guest speaker on the topic in Europe.

Seraj is CEO of Ukondla Holding which consists of Bespoke Media, Centuro Global Africa, Clic Tech, Krest Signs and Ukondla Consulting.

Welcome Seraj

Tanya van Lill - CEO, Southern African Venture Capital & Private Equity Associaition (SAVCA).

Tanya is a great supporter of AfricArena and is a passionate about human and organisational development. During her time as a learning and development specialist focusing on management and leadership development valuable experience working with various companies across a wide range of sectors. She spent an incredibly rewarding 10-year career at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) with her last role being Director of Academic Programmes as well as serving on the board of the Executive MBA Council

Welcome Tanya

Rochelle MOUNTAINY - Strategic ISV partner recruit for MEA at Microsoft

Rochelle Mountany has been with Microsoft for over 6 years, joining the organisation as a Digital Architect, she set the digital transformation strategy for many of their top customers in sectors spanning from Hospitality and the Financial Industry to various Public Sector organisations.

She currently leads the strategic new partner recruit strategy for the Middle East and Africa Region, working with partners to accelerate their business growth by leveraging the immense Microsoft ecosystem. Prior to her time at Microsoft, she fulfilled the role of CIO for the International AXA ICAS group, leverages this breadth of experience and knowledge to drive impactful results across the broad ecosystem of customers, alliance partners and ultimately society as a whole.

Welcome Rochelle,

Madjid Harfouuuush- Operation Director, Leroy Merlin South Africa

Madhid's oversees the groups chain of stores ensuring that they are efficient, innovative and ensuring they are delivering upon their businesses objectives. He has a key role in the elaboration of the global firm's policy and strategy and one of their key strategic vehicles has leveraged our own corporate innovation challenges for the past 2 years.

Welcome Madjid

Vincent Viollain - Head of partnerships & startups,VivaTech

Cofounder and Head of Partnerships & Startups at VivaTech, the global leader of Tech events in Europe, with 4 editions, and over 124,000 visitors in May 2019. He has Over 12years of experience in business strategy, digital transformation, entrepreneurship and Open Innovation as a consultant and entrepreneur and has been a fantastic partner of ours at AfricArena

Welcome Vincent.

4.03 : What is AfricArena ? Goals of State of Africa report : Christophe

4.07 : over to Patrick ->introduces Leo Boinier, AfricArena Ecosystem manager, and credits the team for work (Papama, Leo, Valentin)

4.08 : Growing a Venture , Leo

4.15 : Over to Patrick for moderation of panelists, with options as follows :

Femi : as you represent our start up community today what lessons have you learned, what strategies worked in growing your venture from concept to seed phase to the state which it is in today and since you
Philip : If I could come you, what have you seen that is working really well for incubators and accelerators in terms of creating better access to investors and skills development when the demand far outweighs the access to supply ?
Tanya : from a VC"s perspective what's your perspective on this, what have you seen work during your time at SAVCA and how do we navigate around the traditional concentration by VC's on big ticket investments

**4.30 : Over to Patrick who introduces next section : Corporate perspective on Open Innovation

Thank you Tanya, Femi & Philipe we really appreciate your views on that, next we're going to be chatting about the corporate perspective on open innovation which is still yet to find its groove, so to our ecosystem. So I'm going to hand back to Leo**

4.31 : Corporate perspective on Open Innovation (Leo)

4.38 : Over to Patrick for moderation of panelists, with options as follows :

Madjid : we've seen some corporate / start up collaborations work really well and we've also seen some fail dismally - are corporates and start ups an impossible marriage or what
Rochelle :as youre currently tasked to develop a strategy and recruit the best partners to collaborate with, with the goal of accelerating business growth,knowing what you know, how best can global corporates really support african ecosystems
Vincent : can corporate open innovation help bridge african tech startups with other global tech ecosystems and how have you seen this working really well from your experience.

4.52 : Over to Patrick who introduces next section : Trends of today & tomorrow in post Covid-19 world, what do we expect to see, what should we look out for , where do we see the cards falling once we begin to get back to what will certainly be a new normal

4.53 : Trends of today & tomorrow in post Covid-19 world (Leo)

5pm : Over to Patrick for moderation of panelists, with options as follows :

Will we see more emphasis on Health Tech

Seraj: wearing both your entrepreneur and academic perspective , what do organisations need to do to remain relevant and in business
Femi: Covid 19: a mortal cash flow danger or a golden opportunity for digitalization
Tanya: where will the money go in a post Covid 19 world

Vincent: you engage with a big audience and what's your view on what a post corona world looks like

5.15 : Over to Patrick - Pick 2 or 3 questions from online questions and choose panelist to answer (perhaps you could pick me as last one to answer a question on what’s coming next and what is AfricArena doing in the current context)

Q&A with panelists answering

5.28 : Over to Patrick Closing, final directions (where to download the report etc) and mention the AfricArena / Founders Factory event on Thursday

5.30 : end of recording.

In today's episode, you're going to hear one of the best panel discussions from the 2019 edition of the AfricArena Summit. The topic of today's discussion is: How to build a successful African startup that you can scale globally.

This particular topic is super important to us, not only because we want to change the narrative that is being told around the world about Africa, but also because we want to help as many start ups as possible, scale their businesses globally. TO give you some context: As it stands, African tech startups currently only receive less than 1% of the global equity funding. Less than 1 %.

Its TINY but its growing and over the next decade there is a major focus on what's happening on this amazing content of ours. We certainly want to see this number rise in the coming years, and today's panel will elaborate on how we can all do this.

The people in this panel were purposely selected to ensure that key players of our startup ecosystem are represented to give you a more holistic view on each topic.

The 5 experts featured in the panel include:

The moderator – Alison Collier – who heads up Endeavor SA – which is one of the premier accelerators of growth stage companies in SA.
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji – who is the cofounder of 2 of the biggest VC-funded startups in Africa – those being Flutterwave and Andela.
Ryan Harris – a Director at the SA SME Fund – which invests in funds that support and develop entrepreneurs.
Zachariah George – the cofounder of Startupbootcamp AfriTech – one of the leading accelerators for high-potential tech startups in Africa.
Yvonne Maitin – the founder and CEO of One Africa Capital - a private equity investment management firm.

So there you have it. The line-up is incredible and the insights are invaluable so TURN IT UP and enjoy.

So without further ado, let’s get to it. Alison over to you.

Ep 6 - Welcome back ladies and gents, I hope you have been enjoying the series so far. Remember if there is someone you think we should interview and chat to, email me at patrick@africarena.co.za . In this next episode we're featuring another panel discussion from the 2018 summit titled " Smart Education: Recruiting and retaining more women in the tech sector "

We feature a panel of inspiring ladies in the game and it is facilitated by Aaron Fu, ex MD at MEST who does an amazing job unpacking this industry conundrum.

He is joined by a fantastic line up, which introduce themselves in their own way but it consists of:

Kate Wilter (We Think Code) Andrea Bohmert (Knife Capital) Matsi Modise (Fuhara Solutions) Otema Yirenkyi (Nexinova)

So let's get stuck in to this weeks episode over to you Aaron...

In this episode we tuck into the topic of scaling. Charles Ojei the founder of HYBR dives into how to scale, what does it take, what are the challenges and what to do next when trying to scale your business.

He is joined by a fantastic line up, which introduce themselves so I won't double up but it consists of:

Aubrey Hruby (Insider & African Expert Network) Antoinette Prophy (88 Business Collective) James Milne (Wesgro) Eitan Stern (Legalese)

So let's get stuck into this super insightful discussion around how to go about scaling, smartly.

EPISODE 4: In this episode we deep dive into how to find the right partner for your funding process. Startups and businesses looking to scale, turn it up because this episode is packed with great insight.

Facilitated by Battle hardened serial entrepreneur and 88 Business Collective founder Antoinette Prophy, who's woman-focused business accelerator, currently works with 12 women entrepreneurs and she's just getting started.

Joined by an equally impressive line up, which introduce themselves so I won't double up but it consists of:

Siby Diabira (Proparco) Charlotte Koep (4Di Group) Clive Butkow (Kalon Venture Partners) Justin Stanford (Founder of 4Di Group)

So let's get stuck into this super insightful discussion about finding the right funding parter.

In this episode we are going to be sharing a super interesting panel discussion which was all about how tech and innovation is changing the travel space as we know it. This panel took place at our 2018 summit and was moderated by the super interesting Aubrey Hruby. If you don't recognise that name, you will soon - she is the Co-Founder of Insider and the Africa Expert Network (AXN). Her role at Insider, is to work with global entrepreneurs to generate PR and by using a proprietary mobile built technology platform – connect them with investors, media and influencers across the U.S. and Europe.

On the panel she is joined by a heavy weight team consisting of

Bruno Duval - Chief Innovation Officer of Joon a sister Airline of Air France Vuyisa Qabaka - Partner at the HYBR Group and advisor to FOMO travel. Jerome Touze - Chief Marketing Officer of Travelstart Rachel Crawford - Village Capital

So let's get stuck into this super insightful discussion around how tech and innovation is changing the world of travel.

In this episode recorded at the AfricArena Summit in 2018, James Milne (Wesgro) facilitates a super interesting panel discussion titled "Raising the amount of investment into Africa" with Kerry Petrie (Silicon Cape), Viola Llewellyn (Ovamba), Cathy Goddard (Firebird Fund Managers), Jake Bright (Author) and Christophe Viarnaud (AfricArena).

In this episode we chat to the founder of AfricArena , Christophe Viarnaud on why AfricArena began and why it's so necessary for the future of African innovation and acceleration.