Meet Yaya Kone, the co-founder of Coliba, a startup specialized in collecting and recycling plastic waste in Côte d’Ivoire. Yaya had worked as a teacher in France, when, during a visit at home in Abidjan, he noticed how much waste was going unrecycled and what the negative implications were. So he and his co-founder Genesis…
In this episode, we speak with two entrepreneurs, Tosin Adelowo & Dare Odumade, that have built a business that is dedicated to making sure that you and your loved ones are staying healthy in the new year. Their business Chekkit is an anti-counterfeiting platform that helps consumers make sure that the goods they are consuming,…
Meet Amine Slimani, the founder of Epicerie Verte, a marketplace specialized in organic and natural products, both food and cosmetics. Before starting Epicerie Verte Amine was a management consultant. He did a big project for a major foundation in Morocco, a study on entrepreneurship in the country. Through the study he met around 600 entrepreneurs mostly…
In this interview meet Ropafadzo Musvaire & Bekithemba Ngulube, two co-founders of the Kweza founding team. So Kweza is sort of a last mile logistics solution that is working with informal retailers in South Africa. The team noticed that the informal retailers, called spaza shops in South Africa, often pay a premium for their products. So…
In this episode, meet Adama Kane, the founder of JokkoSanté, a social enterprise and health focussed digital payment platform, that allows people that don’t have money to buy medicine to get access to meds despite their limited financial resources. And it allows NGOs, government entities and private companies as well as individuals in the Diaspora, to…
Meet Dieudonne Kwame Agudah, the founder of WASHKing, a social enterprise working to supply bio-digester toilets to low-income urban households in Ghana with the aim of ending open defecation and at the same time focussing on giving employment to young people while equipping them with transferable skills. In the interview Dieudonne speaks about: What a bio-digester…
Meet Danielle Benedict Moreau, the founder behind Sakura, a fresh natural juice company in Libreville Gabon. Danielle started the company after she got inspired by her little niece. She observed her little niece being independent and quite active for her young age. At that phase in her life, Danielle did not find a job, despite…
Meet Dr. Alfred Mbinglo, founder of the Research and Counselling Foundation for African Migrants, short RECFAM and the initiator of Pridepad, a social enterprise initiative producing organic biodegradable sanitary pads made from banana plantain fibre for rural schoolgirls and women who lack access to menstrual products in impoverished communities. But it is not that Pridepad is…
Meet Elohor Thomas, co-founder and CEO at CodeLn a panafrican tech startup that helps companies find their IDEAL pre-vetted software developers on the continent and at the same time helps software engineers find their dream jobs. They do that by automatically efficiently and consistently testing the skills of the software engineers before making recommendations to…
Meet Cédric Singa, the founder of Kintrack, a business that creates solutions around GPS Tracking, like Fleet Management, Fuel Consumption Monitoring, Vehicle Tracking for businesses and as anti-theft measure but also tracking for school kids to provide parents and children more safety from an increasing threat of kidnapping, especially in the Eastern DRC. In the interview…
In this episode, meet Aime Lebon, the co-founder of Papersmart Industries in Windhoek Namibia, a company manufacturing products from recycled paper, first and foremost, pens and pencils. When Aime first had the idea to use recycled paper in pencils, he didn’t think about building an enterprise around it. Instead, he just wanted to use the pencils…
In this episode, meet Adepeju Jaiyeoba, the founder of Mother’s Delivery Kit a social enterprise working in rural maternal healthcare, that is supplying birthing kits at affordable rates to health centres, hospitals, traditional birth attendants as well as maternal and child health organisations across Nigeria to tackle high maternal and infant mortality rates in rural…
In this episode, meet Vannel Dzigba, the founder of Abossey Okai Online, a business with the aim of revolutionizing automobile parts trading across Africa and bringing more convenience to car owners in Ghana and West Africa. According to Vannel if you drive in Ghana, chances are that you know Abossey Okai because that is the place to go to get…
Meet Tomisin Adeshiyan, co-founder of Vesicash, a company that is focused on providing payment security for people in online transactions, with their flagship product being a digital escrow service that allows people to make sure that they get the value that they’ve paid for. The idea for the business stems from a personal need of…
Meet Aldred Dogue, the founder of Africa Foods Mill, an enterprise in Benin that was created to help smallholder farmers in the country reduce post harvest losses. Aldred had learned many of the smallholder farmers were incurring losses because they couldn’t get their produce to market on time and he saw this an an opportunity to…
In this interview meet Blessing Achu, the founder of 360 Creative Hub in Lagos Nigeria. With her business she provides a co-working space for fashion designers, aka a co-sewing space, she brings together young designers with professionals in the field and she runs a fashion design accelerator that helps young designers understand the business of…
In this episode meet Simon Mokgotlhoa & Lesego Ndlovu, the founders of BallTalent, an online application that showcases young talents in sports and let’s international scouts and clubs, get information like videos and stats on local players. The two of them came up with the idea when they saw many young talented people in their neighbourhood…
Meet Kamal Yakub, co-founder of TROTRO Tractor, sometimes called the ‘Uber for tractors’ in Africa. TROTRO Tractor is an agricultural technology company that makes it possible for smallholder farmers to access agricultural machinery services ranging from tractors to combined harvesters, planters etc. as well as post harvest machinery, like shellers and treshers. Why that is…
Meet Sinenhlanhla Ndlela, foodpreneur and founder of Yococo, an artisanal vegan ice cream brand in South Africa with the mission of serving love in scoops, all the while doing their best to be good guests to planet earth. After quitting her job, realising that the 9 to 5 grind, that barely allowed her to cover her rent was not how…
In this episode, meet Ifeanyi Umejei, co-founder of ICE Commercial Power in Lagos, Nigeria. He and his co-founders are on a mission to solve the power problem in Nigeria through solar micro grids. By creating these grids for SME’s, small and medium enterprise clusters, they are able to provide power for businesses, saving them money, allowing them…
Meet Sename Koffi Agbodjinou founder of Woelab in Lomé, Togo and Ashoka Fellow. Before you jump into the full interview, let us just say, that Sename is working on one of the biggest visions we have heard of so far. He himself calls it a utopia. And yet, while some of the ideas he has…
Meet Mamoudou Touré, agricultural engineer by training, who with his friend and business partner, turns the plant Typha into a material for construction with their business HABIDEM in Mauritania. In the south of Mauritania there is a lot of Typha and it presents a challenge as it is spreading rapidly and blocking irrigation channels for the…
★★★ In this interview meet Mahmud Johnson, founder of J-Palm Liberia, a social business, contributing to employment opportunities for young people in Liberia as well as higher incomes for farmers, by increasing productivity in and yield from sustainable palm oil and palm kernel oil production. But that is just part of the impact. The other…
★★★ Meet Nkem Okocha, the founder of FinTech Social Enterprise Mamamoni, whom we interviewed in September 2019 in Lagos. Mamamoni is dedicated to eradicating poverty and uplift low income women from poverty through multiple vehicles which are #1 capacity building which their foundation is in charge of that #2 access to finance, which they realise through…
In this episode, meet Pedro Da Fonseca, the founder of Black Gold Engineering, a Namibian LED light manufacturer and distributor, that has a patented LED solution for streetlights that provides up to 70% in energy savings compared to conventional solutions. At the time of the interview in November 2019, Pedro shares, that his patented LED is ‘the…
In this interview, meet Vanda d´Oliveira and Ricardo Figueiredo , the two founders of Bantumakers, a startup studio in Angola. In our interview we chatted about how they launch businesses how they financed their first two startups, the first Angolan crowdfunding platform called DEYA and a micro job platform called SALO AND their personal journey as…
Meet Sobel Ngom, founder and director of the Social Change Factory. Sobel’s changemaker journey started, when during an internship in rural Senegal, he experienced first hand, the injustices in the education system. It is was then that he decided, that he would have to do something. Together with a group of friends that he asked…
RIVE Maroc is an annual meeting of electric vehicles that takes place in Morocco, the starting point being Tangier and the end point Ouarzazate. The goal behind this project is to promote electric mobility and sustainable tourism. To ensure that participants can charge their vehicles along the approximately 800km distance, the RIVE Maroc duo Silvia Brutschin…
Complete Farmer is a crowdfarming platform founded and based in Ghana that makes it easier to source for quality farm produce in the African market and at the same time, allows anyone to fund a farming cycle as a crowdfarmer from their smartphone, get regular updates about the farm, sign up for an in person…
In this episode, meet Adulai Bary, a serial entrepreneur from Guinea-Bissau. He was named as one of the most influential young people in West Africa and when you listen to this interview, you will begin to understand why. One of the things that struck us in the conversation with him, and that we have observed…
Meet Satta Wahab, the founder of Naz Naturals in Monrovia, Liberia Satta started her hair care company for natural African hair with just a 100 Dollars. She noticed there was a gap in the market, after she ‘went natural’ herself. Trying to find the products she needed for this transition, she realised that the products…
In today’s episode, we speak with Oduwa Agboneni, the founder of Neni’s Autocare in Lagos. Actually, Oduwa was already a serial entrepreneur before starting her own car repair shop in the bustling Yaba district of Lagos. She had worked as an engineer for a telco company, started a side hustle doing online ticketing and reservations and then built a travel…
This is a guest post by Emanual Coen. More about the author and his projects at the bottom of this article. When you think of crypto development and entrepreneurship, you may think of activity in the US, Europe or Asia. But it’s actually Africa that has shown some of the strongest organic demand for Bitcoin. …
In this episode, meet Murendeni Mafumo, the founder of Kusini Water, a social impact water business in South Africa. Kusini Water makes water purification and distribution systems from locally sourced materials such as Macadamia nut shells and uses renewable energy to supply clean water to communities most affected by the lack of access to safe…
An Ashoka Fellow and previous French Teacher, Evariste Aohoui started PARO CI in 2011 because he was tired of how dirty Abidjan was. Initially, they did small and specific activities like cleanups as volunteers, taking the opportunity to sensitise people about keeping the environment clean. Later on is when they started to focus on e-waste…
Wiatta was born and raised in the United States of America, but has her roots in Liberia and Sierra Leone. During her last year in university, she took three courses (Ecology, Sociology of Economics, and African Economics) that significantly changed the course of her life. It is during this time that she realised that the…
It’s very common to observe something in society that is not working and complain about it, complain that it needs to be solved. Less common so, to take accountability for whatever isn’t working, be proactive in finding solutions that work for you and in so doing, fix the problem for the society as a whole.…
Richard Brandt started Codetrain, Ghana’s biggest commercial coding school from his own kitchen after quitting his freelance role as a consultant, to focus on teaching young Africans the coding skills full-time and matching them with companies for employment opportunities. In our interview with him, he shares about the beginnings of his journey into entrepreneurship and…
Many people that want to start a business, but haven’t, will tell you that they need more money or a better point in time. Alhaji however, couldn’t afford to wait for more money or a better point in time to kick off his business Rugsal Trading in Sierra Leone. Born in Kono district, Sierra Leone,…
Regina Honu is a Ghanaian computer scientist, founder of Soronko Solutions, a software enterprise and a Changemaker, that has taught thousands of girls how to create technology and to code through Tech Needs Girls Ghana and Soronko Academy. Now Regina might seem like an unlikely entrepreneur. Like many of us, growing up, she believed that…
Naomi Tulay-Solanke is the case in point, that you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it. Pregnant at the age of 14 in Liberia, she experienced stigmatisation, naming and blaming. Social expectations were, that she would drop out of school. Naomi however, decided to prove everybody wrong. “I always knew that I was going…
Meet Youness Ouazri, the founder of Ecodome Maroc. Based in Casablanca, Morocco, his vision is to revive the earthen construction patrimony in Morocco and to give people who don’t have adequate economic resources access to infrastructure. In 2015, Youness Ouazri graduated with a civil engineering degree and an honorable mention. Before long, he had secured a…
At just the age of 32, Momarr Taal has now been an entrepreneur for 15 years. His first business was in t-shirt printing when he was in university in Canada. He remembers two of his friends complaining that they would spend a lot of money on urban clothing brands that did not represent their culture…
5 min read Friends, this was the least we were prepared for a border crossing. First, all we knew was that we needed to get to Karang which was the border town from Senegal into The Gambia, and then take a ferry from Barra to Banjul, the capital. And second, we left the hotel in…
8 min read Before leaving Mauritania for Senegal, we did all the research for the border process. What we learned was to avoid the Rosso border, which has been referred to by various bloggers as the worst place on earth, a hellhole, the armpit of the world. Our crossing into Morocco and Mauritania were quite…
5 min read Thomas and I left Berlin one month ago on 5th June. So as the romantic and festive human being that I am, I thought it would be nice to set up a little date for myself. Light some candles, put on some background music and pour myself a glass of wine as…
6 min read Two weeks ago, I could not drive a stick to save a life. Past tense. As over the past two weeks I have reacquainted myself with driving a manual car since hitting Morocco. The plan was always that Thomas would get on the Zero and I would follow closely behind with Jolene.…
6 min read I am writing this from a less known guest house on the outskirts of Casablanca, Morocco. When we first saw La Petite Ferme on booking.com, it was not my first choice to be honest, but Thomas loved it instantly. And I am glad we went with it even though it did not look…
5 min read Yesterday was our first very intense driving session. We left Amsterdam at 9:00 am and arrived in Barcelona at 2:00 am. That’s a total of…17 hours on the road. It took me ten minutes to calculate that, not because I am bad at Math, but because Thomas is distracting me with his…
5 min read Hi, my name is Dulcie, and I am an African who has never been to Africa. Well, technically never been to Africa. You see, I was born and raised in Kenya, lived there for 22 years before moving to Germany in 2017. And in those 22 years, I never once traveled to…
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