10 AFRICANS MAKING WAVES IN TECHNOLOGY

Here are ten of the up-and-coming entrepreneurs who are making some serious waves in the technology space – either by reimagining established products or services, expanding radically into new areas, or developing better solutions for Africa.

Bankole Cardoso, Co-founder and CEO of Easy Taxi Nigeria (image: file)

1. Bankole Cardoso, CEO of EasyTaxi Nigeria

Born in Nigeria, Cardoso attended Boston College in the USA to study Accounting and Business Management, after which he moved to New York City to work as an associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), where he earned a Certified Public Accountant qualification. After a brief period at The Carlyle Group, he moved back to Nigeria as an entrepreneur. Easy Taxi is one of the world’s largest taxi booking apps, and Cardoso was offered the CEO position after he returned from the US. The Nigerian branch recently teamed up with Samsung to offer its services to even more customers across Nigeria. The Easy Taxi app will be pre-installed on all new Samsung Galaxy S5 devices as part of the Galaxy Gift Exchange.

Rebecca Enonchong, founder and CEO of AppsTech. (Image source: Google/tech360ng.com)

2. Rebecca Enonchong, CEO of AppsTech

Tech entrepreneur Rebecca Enonchong is the founder and CEO of AppsTech, a global provider of enterprise application solutions. The Company, established in 1999, is reported to have a client base that includes 50 countries over three continents – Africa, Europe and North America.Enonchong has been selected as one of the 2013 WIE Africa Power Women in the Business and Technology category.AppsTech’s value proposition is the provision of enterprise software, service and support to international clients. Enonchong is also serving as a mentor and advisor to several African-based technology startups and sits on the board of VC4Africa, as well as serving as the director of the award winning Salesforce.com Foundation.

Clarisse Iribagize from Rwanda. (Image source:

3. Clarisse Iribagiza, CEO of HeHe Limited

Italian think tank LSDP (Lo Spazio della Politica) has listed Clarisse Iribagiza, a young Rwandan tech entrepreneur, among their top 100 global thinkers. LSDP explained that Iribagiza was added to the global list, as “she is one of the faces of a communicative and technological revolution in Africa.” Iribagiza is the founder and chief executive of Rwanda’s Hehe Ltd, a start-up tech firm that majors in software development among other services. According to The New Times, “she was placed 32nd coming behind Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in a list that included political leaders, businessmen, scientists, academics, journalists and intellectual leaders selected from across the globe.”

'NIGERIA'S MARK ZUCKERBERG' PUTS TECH INTO HIGHER LEARNING

GOSSY UKANWOKE

Every week, African Start-Up follows entrepreneurs in various countries across the continent to see how they are working to make their business dreams become reality.

(CNN) -- At 23, many people around the world are still at university -- at that age, Gossy Ukanwoke had already started one.
The young entrepreneur is the founder of Beni American University (BAU), Nigeria's first private online university. Launched in late 2012, the school allows students to access their classes at any time of the day with any internet-enabled device.
"We are providing executive programs for graduates who are looking for employment and want to build up their resumes, or managers who want to climb up the hierarchy of their companies," says Ukanwoke, now 25.
"We also have courses targeted at people who want to start their own business."

'Nigeria's Mark Zuckerberg'

Ukanwoke's idea to start BAU came from his previous online venture called Students Circle, an educational social networking site he'd launched while in university that allows learners to interact and access free resources from leading schools.
"When I created Students Circle in 2010," explains Ukanwoke, "I found out that ... many were looking for certificates, hoping that they could get something they could use to maybe find employment or get a promotion in the workplace.
"There was a need for a new institution to be created in Nigeria," adds Ukanwoke, who was once described by Forbes as "Nigeria's Mark Zuckerberg."
Now, some 18 months into his new business endeavor, Ukanwoke has hired 10 instructors and has about 200 students, with an average age of 26.
But the startup's journey so far has not been without challenges -- Nigerian laws require universities to have a physical campus so last year Ukanwoke went and bought land in the country's Benue State with the goal to build a private campus that could accommodate some 10,000 students.
Education is about teaching people how to make a living and teaching people how to live.
Gossy Ukanwoke, Beni American University
The project is expected to launch next year, but in the meantime the web courses are up and running -- a 12 week online program can cost between $100 and $300. Among the courses offered are corporate diplomacy, global marketing, leadership and management, digital journalism, project management and entrepreneurship and innovation, which is the university's most popular class.
"It's good because I have four kids," says Chinenye Madukwe, one of BAU's students. "I have opportunity to work at the same time, because I have a small interior design outfit."
Oo Nwoye, another BAU student, says he enrolled "for the knowledge."
"It is just helpful for my business and that is the most important thing to me," he explains.

Education is key

A son of two teachers, Ukanwoke says he is driven by his passion to use technology to solve social problems.
"I grew up within the framework where education was put at a very high level of importance, and entrepreneurship is something that I always wanted to do," he says.
"Without education I don't think we can do any progress," he adds. "It's not just about getting a certificate -- education is about teaching people how to make a living and teaching people how to live; how to interact with others, how to lead their lives and make something out of themselves," continues Ukanwoke.
"With education comes discipline and we need a lot of discipline in Nigeria as well, so education is really important."
Ukanwoke relies mainly on social media to advertize but says that it's student referrals that are increasing BAU's enrollment.
"We still have a long way to go, we have a lot of work to do, a lot of policy wrangling too," he admits. "But it's a work in progress and we are quite happy with where we are."

[CNN]

U.S. INVESTMENTS SURGE FOR AFRICAN TECH ENTREPRENEURS

From the largest technology companies to early stage investors, American high tech companies and venture capitalists are increasingly supporting startups across the African continent.

Whether it’s the 16 mobile apps in Botswana that Jim Goetz mentioned in his take on Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp; the launch of IBM’s new innovation centers in Lagos and Casablanca; Microsoft’s partnership with three incubators in Africa, or the African Development Bank’s recent summit on how to engage the private sector more effectively, African entrepreneurship is on investors minds.

In fact, 2013 was the most active year for technology investment on the continent, according to data from CrunchBase.

And Africa’s community of entrepreneurs is only growing. Those IBM Innovation Centers in Lagos and Casablanca will give founders of new tech companies access to IBM technology and expertise around big data, analytics, and cloud computing, as well as skills training and business and marketing support.

“In the last decade we’ve seen a lot of transformation [in Africa]. There’s increased stability and a lot of bandwidth that’s come on line, tremendous economic growth, plus a lot of infrastructure being built and a lot of foreign investment,” said Solomon Assefa, an IBM researcher and vice president of Science and Technology.

Assefa, who also currently serves as a Program Manager for Growth Markets and Strategic Initiatives in Science and Technology at IBM,  said the goal is to create an ecosystem where entrepreneurs can create new products using existing technologies. “We believe Africa is vital and we think IBM is going to be very very essential for productive growth and development.”

Microsoft, Intel Step Up Investments

Other executives at America’s largest corporations agree. Microsoft, which launched its 4Afrika program in February 2013, has recently instituted a new lending initiative which selected its first five startups fr

FACEBOOK'S MARK ZUCKERBERG NOW EARNING $1 SALARY

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now the company’s lowest-paid employee, according to its latest proxy filing. Zuckerberg — worth $27.8 billion mostly in Facebook stock —  requested an annual wage of $1 in 2013, joining the ranks of a handful of other very wealthy CEOs who take a symbolically negligible base pay.

Zuckerberg, who earned $770,000 in combined salary and bonus in 2012, is now in good company among giants of the tech sector. Google's GOOG +1.83% Sergey Brin and Larry Page, worth roughly $30 billion a piece, have been drawing a $1 salary for a decade now.


“The dollar salary really for them is meant to signify that they have large stakes in their company. The value they’re going to receive – the compensation they’ll earn – is coming solely from their stock,” says Aaron Boyd, director of governance for Equilar, a company that researches executive compensation. “You’re not going to question whether or not Larry Page is interested in growing a company’s stock as a shareholder. As one of the largest shareholders, he’s all in.”

Hewlett-Packard’s Meg Whitman (net worth $2 billion) and Oracle’s Larry Ellison (net worth $51.5 billion) also take just a buck in base pay. But unlike Zuckerberg, Brin and Page, the H-P and Oracle head honchos earn significant compensation in other ways. Whitman actually earned $17.6 million in stock and other performance-based awards in 2013, while Ellison was paid $79.6 million almost entirely in stock options — a dip from the $96 million he hauled in in 2012.  Dividends paid on the Oracle shares Ellison owns added  another $255 million to his annual take (before taxes).

Boyd says for somebody like Whitman, who isn’t a founder and was brought in to turn the company around, her compensation is tied directly to her performance — she earns her compensation if H-P meets its goals.

“She would need to achieve success with the company to earn returns from the stock,” he said.

Silicon Valley doesn’t hold the patent on $1 salaries, though. Richard Hayne, CEO of Urban Outfitters, is another billionaire in the $1 salary club — though he did draw a whopping $5,000 bonus in 2013. Oil and gas baron Richard Kinder, worth $9.3 billion, reaps $1 in total compensation from his energy company Kinder Morgan. In the biotech world, Robert Duggan, CEO of anti-cancer drug maker Pharmacyclics, thinks even $1 is a bit too rich. He takes no compensation whatsoever from the company, though he does have a $1.5 billion fortune comprised mostly of Pharmacyclics stock.

Although Zuckerberg will only hit up his social networking company for a $1 salary henceforth, Facebook is still ponying up for airfare and personal security. The company installed and maintains Zuckerberg’s security detail and also covered chartered flights for him and his guests for a total of $653,165 in 2013 — down from $1.2 million the previous year.

OAU STUDENT BUILDS SOLAR POWERED CAR

OYEYIOLA SEGUN, a Part 5 student of the Electronic and Electrical Department of Obafemi Awolowo University. He was interviewed by OAU Peeps.

Excerpt:

OAU Peeps: Can we meet you sir?
Segun: Okay, I am Oyeyiola Segun, a part 5 student of Elect-Elect., OAU

OAU Peeps: We learnt you built this lovely car. Was it a joint project or you did it yourself?
Segun: I did it only. This is not a day’s job, I have been working on it for some months now.

OAU Peeps: So how does the car work?
Segun: Basically it depends on Wind and Solar energy. All the energy derived for these two sources were converted to run the simple car. There are different means of obtaining energy from these two sources but I picked the one that is cool for my car.

OAU Peeps: From what you just said, you can either use the Wind or Solar Energy to power the car’s engine?
Segun: Not either energy, rather both energies are used to power the car.

OAU Peeps: Cool… that differentiates your production from the usual vehicles we see around us I suppose?
Segun: Yes, you are very correct.

OAU Peeps: Could you share with us what actually provoked your innovation? I mean what you thought before coming up with this lovely engine?
Segun: Basically, it is because of the climate change we experience due to the combustion of fuel and you know cars also contribute to that change. So I thought of running a car that will not use fuel for its locomotion. After series of thinking and research work, I came up with the simple method that gave birth to this. So that is the basic reason for the car. Another concern of mine is to produce a car that will function effectively at a reduced cost of maintenance. I believe you know the price of fuel in this country is almost going beyond the reach of a common man?