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…
Tag: Kenya
A archeology of innovation and startups in Kenya with Mbwana Alliy from the Savannah Fund
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 brief history of Kenya mobile money system M-Pesa
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,…
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 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…