French entrepreneur & digital innovation expert in Singapore/APAC
I’ve just finished “How Asia Works – Success and allure in the world’s most dynamic region” (Amazon) by Joe Studwell, a book I found in the yearly recommendation from The Economist. Overall, it is a compelling comparative economic history of countries in North-East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) and South-East Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines,…
I’ve just finished “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” and wanted to share a few thoughts about this amazing book. A bit like Steve Jobs’s biography, you feel like walking alongside Amazon’s founder and get to know more how he works. Actually, the whole substance of the book is summarized right…
During the Afrikoin conference in Nairobi, we were lucky to attend the Demo Day of the Savannah Fund, a Kenya-based VC betting on startups all over Africa. Because sometimes (even for me!), a picture is worth thousands words, I’ll just leave you browse this Slideshare. Startups are all working on local behaviors (gifting from the…
Yesterday night saw Singapore having its first riots for more than 40 years, so you can imagine it’s the hot topic everybody is talking about this December 2013. Incidentally, I’m living in Little India area too, and went to bed hearing the not so common police siren, so I told myself, ok, let’s see tomorrow…
The story of Njeri Chelimo is a compelling one, and a case study for the proverb “where there is a will, there is a path”. This 20 y.o Kenyan girl had planned to attend a hack school in New York a few months ago. The 12-week program was free to attend, and would be a great…
As you may know, we were in Kenya both to attend Afrikoin, a conference on mobile money, and to continue our exploration of innovation ecosystems. How do countries, cities, are turning to entrepreneurship? What are the fundamentals and best local practices when they try to build and nurture communities of innovations? After Afrikoin, we had…
A year ago this day, I began my path as an entrepreneur in Asia. The start was harsh, as I decided to join a local startup first, but the seed of setting our own co was neatly set up by my partner Mathieu who (courageously) stayed in Paris. After (not even) two months of marketing…
During Afrikoin, the first mobile money and digital currency held in Nairobi, I’ve met with Brian Muthiora. Brian joined the local branch of GSMA, the telecom operators professional association, after 5 years at Safaricom handling the regulation issues for MPesa, the mobile money system designed by the Kenyan telco. And during an hour or so,…
To continue our exploration of Kenya as an innovation ecosystem in fringe of Afrikoin, I’ve met with Samuel Gichuru from the Nailab incubator. A fast-paced and jittery conversation proved useful to pinpoint a key challenge of entrepreneurs: the management of cultural differences. If Kenya is the kingdom of mobile money, through its MPesa system, it’s…
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 works on the way Somali people deal with mobile money as a people that moves a lot – for political reasons with refugees, but also as they…