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Yeelenpix – the African startup changing the way Africa is seen

10 June 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Featured

yeelenpix

Yeelenpix is the startup company selling images of Africa that reflect the continent’s diversity.

Yeelenpix is a company in its infancy, having only been launched in 2013, but it aims to broaden the way that Africa is presented in pictures. Asking someone to pick an image that represents a vast continent would be impossible, and the team behind Yeelenpix felt that the images available were too limited.

From the Pyramids of Egypt to iconic wildlife on safaris, there are images that are distinctly African, but whole areas of African life, trade and experiences had little documentation. Yeelenpix founder Moussa Fofana felt that this was problematic, not just for how the continent was seen by the rest of the world, but for businesses in Africa who needed stock images for marketing.

Fofana elaborated on the catalyst for starting up his company saying, “It all started with a remark made to me one day, by a friend who works in communications in Abidjan…she had to go and buy images on the western platforms to illustrate papers for her African clients, without the benefit of African images that are at hand.”

Moussa Fofana

Moussa Fofana

Fofana set up the company with his close friends Alex Poblah and Maguette Mbow, who were living in Paris at the same time as Fofana. Fofana is from the Ivory Coast, and the word “yeelen” actually means “light” in his native language of Dioula.

An African database

With a gap in the market identified, the three friends set up Yeelenpix, and immediately looked to source additional funding. However, thus far the company has been entirely self-funded as, according to Fofana, “The private equity firm with whom we were negotiating in Paris has proved too greedy.”

This setback did not stop the company from having early success. Yeelenpix quickly built up a large cache of over 10,000 images from across Africa, and they currently have a network of 50 professional photographers providing them with photographs. In addition to providing employment opportunities for African photographers, Yeelenpix also works with British and French photographers who spend extensive time on the continent.

Within 2 years of their launch, Yeelenpix’s clients include the TV station Africa 24, and Morocco’s Chaabi Bank. The range of images is set to grow, as Fofana has stated they aim to have 100 professionals working for them within a year, and they are also happy to work with amateurs if the quality of their work is good enough. If a company needs images of rice farming in Nigeria, or the cotton industry in Mali, then Yeelenpix can provide the pictures needed to create promotional brochures.

By accepting work from amateurs, Yeelenpix is not only providing work opportunities for aspiring photographers, but it is increasing the range of its reach. Areas of life that might not have attracted professionals become accessible, and countries with less status (than some of Africa’s most famous destinations) get greater opportunities for exposure.

Fofana explained the company ethos on utilizing talented amateurs saying, “They can express their vision of Africa and the market. Young people who are not yet professional contact us, word of mouth starts working.”

Democratizing the process of how the continent is represented puts at least some of the power into the hands of the people, who live and work in the nations being portrayed.

Affordable Accessibility

Yeelenpix operates a flexible price structure to allow as great a number of organizations as possible to access their database, and use their images. On average, it costs $22 to use a Yeelenpix image for a website, with a commission rate of 35% to 60% of sales paid to the photographer.

There are additional fees for companies wishing to use an image on printed materials, but pricing structures are negotiable, thus allowing smaller clients to still benefit from the wide stock of images available at the Yeelenpix website. The images are also hosted in various categories to help clients filter out images that are not relevant to their needs.

Fofana and his team want Yeelenpix to create jobs, but also to inspire pride in showcasing Africa in new ways. Talking about what drives his team Fofana sums it up saying, “We wanted to participate in the dissemination of a new image of Africa. Africa is changing and evolving. (We want to) enable African photographers to become better known and live their art.”

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Elumelu Foundation: Entrepreneurs will lift Africa

9 June 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Featured

tony Elumelu Foundation

The Nigeria-based foundation pledges $100 million to train and mentor 1,000 entrepreneurs a year for 10 years with a goal of creating one million jobs.

One thousand young African entrepreneurs will receive intensive training, mentoring and networking opportunities as participants in the 2016 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP).

The program, launched in 2015 by the Nigerian entrepreneur and philanthropist Tony Elumelu, is designed to identify 10,000 entrepreneurs over a 10-year period and empower them to launch ventures that will create one million jobs and add $10 billion to the African economy.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation has made a $100 million commitment to the program.

More than 45,000 entrepreneurs from 54 countries applied for the 2016 program, more than double the number of applicants in the first year. The successful 1,000 candidates represent a variety of fields including agriculture, information and computer technology and fashion.

Elumelu Fondation participants

Elumelu Fondation participants

All regions represented

All five regions of the continent are represented. The largest numbers of entrepreneurs came from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon.

(Here is a list of the entrepreneurs from each country and their areas of interest.)

Elumelu predicted the 2016 group of entrepreneurs “will become a generation of empowered business owners who will show that indigenous business growth will drive Africa’s economic and social transformation.”

He said his foundation has invested $8 million in the 2015 group, including $5 million that went directly the entrepreneurs as seed capital. “The results have far exceeded our expectations,” he added. With funding and networking, the program has “helped extraordinary people take control of their destinies.”

In addition to receiving training and networking for nine months, the entrepreneurs will participate later this year in the Elumelu Entrepreneurship Forum.

Elumelu is #31 on list of Africa’s richest

Elumelu is a Nigerian entrepreneur and investor who is listed as #31 on Forbes’ list of Africa’s 50 richest people. He owns the controlling interest in Transcorp, a Nigerian conglomerate with businesses in hospitality, agriculture, oil production and power generation. Forbes puts his net worth at $700 million.

Elumelu became prominent in African business circles nearly 20 years ago, when he persuaded investors to take over a small, failing commercial bank in Lagos and turned it around and made it profitable within a few years. It later merged with United Bank for Africa, which has subsidiaries in 20 countries as well as the United States and the United Kingdom.

According to his profile on Forbes, he also has a stake in the mobile telecom MTN Nigeria and owns extensive real estate across the country.

Entrepreneurs will drive growth

As many African nations work to diversify their economies and move from resource-based revenue to manufacturing and services, entrepreneurship is considered an important way to drive economic growth.

While the continent is already seeing returns, experts say entrepreneurship holds untapped potential to drive economic development to the next level.

A 2014 study ranked Uganda as the most entrepreneurial country in the world and listed Cameroon, Angola, Botswana and Burkina Faso among the top fifteen.

The study, by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, counted the percentage of the adult population that owned a business and paid wages for at least three months. In Uganda, the percentage was 28 percent. (Suriname in South America was the least entrepreneurial in the world with less than one percent.)

African Development Bank pushes employment

Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank, recently reaffirmed the lender’s commitment to entrepreneurship as it seeks to promote a sense of urgency about youth employment on the continent.

In Africa 10-12 million young people enter the workforce each year but only three million jobs are created annually. Even when there are jobs, young people often lack the skills employers required.

“We need a sense of urgency for tackling unemployment,” Adesina said, noting that the bank has created a strategy that could create 25 million jobs for young people on the continent. These programs focus on agriculture, manufacturing, and information and computer technology. The bank will also index youth employment and track the labor market over time.

“The skill sets and the jobs of the future are digital. The world is changing fast,” Adesina said.

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King of Soto: Benin’s answer to Caribbean rum?

6 June 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Business, Featured

king of soto

Entrepreneur Mabel Adekambi creates King of Soto, a new take on a traditional liquor that is growing in popularity.

Inspired by a tradition of fine palm wine produced in her native Benin, entrepreneur Mabel Adekambi in 2014 launched King of Soto, a high quality rum produced entirely with local ingredients.

“When we say ‘rum’ all over the world, we know it comes from the Caribbean. Why not have a proper product in Benin?” Adekambi asked.

Adekambi’s product comes in 10 different flavors including pineapple, orange, mango, papaya, strawberry and passion fruit. King of Soto only uses natural ingredients and no chemical additives.

Rum production begins with the harvest of sap from palm trees. Rich in yeast, it quickly ferments juice called palm wine. Then the wine is distilled to produce a liquor the Beninese call sodabi, or soto for short.

The nickname inspired the name King of Soto, rum produced from sodabi, spices and fruit.

Process takes 6-12 months

Typically, rum-makers use wooden or aluminum barrels like those used in wine making. However, Adekambi found those were not available in country and would be very expensive to order. Instead she uses 20-liter gasoline cans.

The fruit, spices and sodabi are mixed together and stored cans for six to 12 months before the rum is ready for bottling.

Because sodabi is a seasonal product, it is difficult to produce large volumes of rum. King of Soto uses sodobi that has been distilled several times in order to achieve a refined liqueur.

Adekambi learned about rum production as a student in France.

Studies in entrepreneurship

After studying entrepreneurship, communication and tourism in France, she returned to Benin to work as a manager at Residences Celine Hotel in Cotonou.

King of Soto has become popular, mostly by word of mouth. Production rose from 10 bottles a month to 100 bottles within the first year of operation. The rum is sold in super markets for less than $2.

Sodabi is common liquor in West Africa, although it goes by different names in different countries: koutoukou in Ivory Coast, Akpeteshie in Ghana or Ogogoro in Nigeria.

Each region has secret methods for extracting the palm wine, which creates a variety of tastes and styles.

In Benin, the name sodabi derives from the name of its inventor, who learned distilling techniques from Europeans about 100 years ago.

king of soto bottles

A staple of celebrations in Benin

Benin, especially the region of Adja, is well known for its expertise in producing sodabi, according to Professor Koblévi Aziadomé, former minister and director of the Benin agricultural research center.

Often sold in plastic bottles, the popular beverage is consumed at celebrations and festivals.

Some people add plants, spices or fruits in their sodabi to give it medicinal properties or special tastes.

Negative image

In the past, producers have failed to adequately ferment or distill the sodabi, giving it dangerous levels of methanol and creating a negative image. Both Benin and Ivory Coast have at times banned its production.

But Adekambi seeks high quality, well distilled sodabi to create rum that customers can safely enjoy.

Adekambi believes King of Soto will only grow as the quality and flavor of her product becomes more widely known.

She sees King of Soto as both a business and a patriotic effort as it grows into an export product and employs more people. “For the moment, it is not profitable. But it will become profitable and hundreds of families in Benin will benefit.”

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Alamine Ousmane Mey: Cameroon’s economic mastermind

5 June 2016 Comments (1) Africa, Featured, Leaders

Alamine Ousmane Mey

Cameroon’s Finance Minister has energized the country’s economy through reform, infrastructure developments and his own determination.

Cameroon’s Finance Minister, Alamine Ousmane Mey, has been lauded as a brilliant fiscal tactician, a shrewd manager and a facilitator of new business enterprises. Earlier this month, Mey was recognized as Finance Minister of the Year at the prestigious African Banker Awards 2016. The honor is well deserved. While not everyone will have heard of Mey, he is the mastermind driving Cameroon’s fast developing economy, and his recent award gives credit to an exceptional career.

Education and banking success

Born in Kousseri in 1966, Mey grew up in an upper-middle class family. He later gained a solid financial education by studying abroad in Germany, Belgium and Turkey. Mey studied electro-technical engineering alongside banking, which bestowed him with a keen understanding of modern economics.

Upon his return to Cameroon in 1993, Mey obtained a job with the CCEI Bank, which later evolved into Afriland First Bank. He rose swiftly through the ranks, and in 2003 he was appointed General Manager of Afriland First Bank, which was the only non-foreign owned private financial institution at the time. Mey quickly ushered in a new era of success at the company. Afriland had a key role in financing the Cameroonian economy and driving consumer spending. In 2010 the bank issued the equivalent to US$ 567m in credit, an astronomical amount by regional standards. Under his leadership the bank saw rapid growth, and quickly became one of the major banks in the region that still enjoys a strong international reputation to this day.

Government career

Mey’s successes at Afriland bank did not go unnoticed. In 2011 he was offered the role of Minister of Finance, despite no previous government experience. He quickly undertook a range of financial reforms which increased real term government revenues and cracked down on misspending. He also refocused government investment towards sustainable projects that have driven growth in the economy.

Mey has carefully borrowed money to finance key infrastructure developments outside the capacity of the government budget; this has been a particularly astute move, as the loans have been used to target under-developed sectors of the economy with high potential gains, both in monetary terms, and for the people of Cameroon. He highlighted his strategy saying, “Yes, we will borrow, but we will focus on life-changing projects.” In doing so, Cameroon has grown its economy, while comfortably servicing the loans which kick-started the process.

Lom Pangar Pipeline modification

Lom Pangar Pipeline modification

Mey has since has earned a reputation as an expert in putting together and overseeing ambitious projects incorporating multiple parties. One such example was the recent completion of the $86m Lom Pangar Pipeline modification. This complex infrastructure scheme was cost-shared between the Cameroonian government, the World Bank, and the contractor COTCO who undertook the project. The scheme has been heralded as a great success as it was finished safely, on time and under budget, while indirectly benefiting thousands of local Cameroonians. Christian Lenoble the general manager of COTCO, praised the efficiency of the working relationship: “The collaboration between the project and government was superb. To me, it was a key factor in our success in completing our work on time and within budget.”

Now versus then

Before Mey took the helm, Cameroon’s growth stood at a middling 3.3% in 2010. Since Mey took over, the economy has grown year on year and is estimated to hit 5.5% for the financial year 2015. This performance is particularly impressive when considered against both international and regional trends. Many of the world’s nations have struggled to achieve any meaningful growth since the financial crisis. Similarly, many of Cameroon’s neighbors have posted disappointing growth figures in the years 2014 and 2015, largely due to falling global commodity prices or political instability. Cameroon has bucked both of these trends, thanks in part to its economic diversification. Initially, strong commodities exports allowed Cameroon to shrug off the worst of the global financial crisis, but Mey realized the economy was still vulnerable. Under his counsel, the government implemented diversification schemes to develop the construction, agriculture, transport and energy sectors. The fruition of these strategies has allowed Cameroon to largely sidestep the commodities crash, marking another success for the Minister of Finance.

No one would disagree that Cameroon still faces big challenges ahead, but Mey is not one to rest on his laurels. He is committed to meet a range of development targets set by the IMF, and given his past achievements, there is a very good chance of him doing so. Ultimately, the future of Cameroon’s economy appears to be in the strongest of hands.

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Kori-Odan: Making Africa’s mark on the video game industry

3 June 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Featured, Leaders

Olivier Madiba

A Cameroon developer is one of the first to focus a game on the mythology of the continent.

With the release of one of the first African-themed computer video games produced on the continent, Cameroon’s Olivier Madiba, 30, hopes to shake up a global industry dominated by white game developers who create white heroes.

Madiba’s company, Kiro’o Games, launched the PC-based “Aurion: Legacy of Kori-Odan,” in April on the United States platform Steam to positive reviews.

To Madiba, it represents more than a video game, Madiba said.

“Our dream is bigger than that. We want to build a bridge between the gaming industry and Africa,” Madiba, the co-founder chief executive officer of Kiro’o Games said.

Game based on African myth

Based on African mythology, the game features Enzo Kori-Odan and his wife, Erine Evou, as they try to take back his throne in a land called Zama after his brother-in-law stages a coup and ousts them.

The game was a long time in the making. He first started talking to friends about making a game about Kori-Odan in 2003 while he was studying software development at the University of Yaoundé.

His father worked at a sugar factory and ran a video store in Douala when Madiba was growing up and video games became his obsession. However, since Cameroon has no video game industry, he could not find a career path in his own country.

After graduating from the university with a degree in computer science in 2009, Madiba taught himself how to create games on the internet and decided to start his own company, based on the Cameroon capital, Yaoundé.

Screenshot from Aurion

Screenshot from Aurion

Investors, Kickstarter campaign fund effort

Madiba launched the studio Kiro’o Games, in 2011, and his team began working on the game in earnest.

The studio, which has a staff of 20 artists and developers, raised $270,000 from investors and more than $55,000 in a successful Kickstarter campaign, which enabled them to complete the project.

When he was young, he had noticed few games had African heroes and the continent was often shown through the lens of war and crisis. Most games feature white heroes because most game developers are white, he said.

Game takes place in the future

Madiba wanted to change that with the story of “Aurion: Legacy of Kori-Odan,” an epic 2D adventure in which the usurped king and queen fight to regain their thrones from the evil brother-in-law.

While the story comes from African myth and tradition, the name adds an element of science fiction: The game takes place in a world that exists 10,000 years in the future on another planet far away from Earth.

Using African characters rather than the typical warriors and magicians of role-playing games, Madiba said he wanted to create a world where “Africa was on top.”

Other Africa studios are developing video games. In Nigeria, Maliyo develops smart phone games with African stories. In Kenya, Leti Arts creates puzzle games with local narratives.

Game captures international attention

But Aurion has captured much wider attention, enough that the U.S. State Department invited Madiba to participate in the 2016 Mandela Washington Fellowship Program, which is part of the Young African Leaders Initiative launched by President Obama.

In addition to being a Kickstarter Staff Pick and being featured in The Wall Street Journal, the game is receiving very good reviews, complimenting both the design and the storytelling.

It is available only for PC but Madiba hopes to develop it and other games with animation for mobile platforms as well. With low labor costs in Cameroon, he believes he can create a profitable business creating games that also tell the African story.

He hopes the game will help foster more diversity in games and create a better understanding of Africa. “Being African isn’t based on your color … It’s how you see the world and what you want to share.”

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Tidjane Dème : the face of Google in Francophone Africa

29 May 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Featured, Leaders

Tidjane Dème

Meet the face of Google in French-speaking Africa

Senegalese Tidjane Dème, 41, is working with Google to unlock affordable broadband access for Africa. Dème has worked for the giant global internet search and advertising giant since 2009.

Google recruited him to be its lead for Francophone Africa in Dakar well before most Africans had regular access to the internet, he noted, and Google understood that.

“Their approach was: ‘In a few years, Africa will be ready. It will be a big business opportunity for us,’” Dème recalled.

He said Google had also decided it didn’t want to recruit an expatriate for the job. Instead they were looking for someone with tech skills, with knowledge of the region and experience working in it.

“For them, that combination was necessary to develop their activities in the region.”

Tech education, experience

With European studies in technology, a stint working in Silicon Valley in the United States, and a record of entrepreneurship in Senegal, Dème fit the bill.

After high school in Dakar, a scholarship enabled him to continue his studies in France. He studied science at the prestigious Ecole polytechnique in Paris, where he discovered programming and computer studies. He went on to do specialized studies in telecommunications and information technology at the National College of Advanced Techniques, also in Paris.

From there, Dème worked as a consultant to Cap Gemini, one of the first information technology firms in France.

At Cap Gemini, “I was often the youngest, most inexperienced in a position where I could learn a lot from my colleagues,” he said.

Witness to the dot.com boom, bust

Then he joined a U.S. telecom start up with an office in Paris, which led to a job in Silicon Valley and a close-up view of the internet boom of the early 2000s.

“There was still a lot of energy and innovation in the Valley, but the bubble was about to burst,’’ he recalled.

After a few years, he returned to Senegal to start his own company. Actually, he attempted to start several companies but none took off.

Learning from failure

The lesson of failure? “It was necessary for someone like me who wanted to do entrepreneurship, innovation. You come out of a certain academic background and an early career that makes you believe you belong to a certain elite. It is a very good thing to discover your limits and learn to work with people who complement you.”

He also worked as a tech consultant in Dakar. In this role, in 2008, he met Google officials who wanted to launch a push in Africa from an office in Dakar.

Skeptical of Google

“At first I was very skeptical because I figured they would immediately try to market their products,” he said. “But they just asked what can be done to develop a dynamic, open internet for Africa.”

That convinced him to take the job.

Since joining Google, Dème has focused on fostering a technological community that can develop local content and supporting development of startups that ultimately will drive internet access and adoption. He also directs a Google team working on encouraging infrastructure investment in Africa.

Expense is a barrier to access

According to Internet World Stats, less than 30 percent of the population of Africa had access to the internet in 2015.

A May report by the World Economic Forum said affordability of broadband and equipment was a major hurdle to greater internet adoption in Africa.

Other obstacles are lack of skills and lack of understanding of the economic value of internet access, the report said. Finally, many African countries would require massive investment in infrastructure to assure affordable access to citizens.

But Dème is helping to change that. He sees a bright technological future on the continent – Africa will surprise the rest of the world.

“People underestimate the capacity of Africans … to use tools solve problems in their lives. It is the same for the internet and for every new technology that comes along.”

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Eric Kinoti: Young Kenyan serial entrepreneur

26 May 2016 Comments (0) Africa, Featured, Leaders

Eric Kinoti

At age 32, Kinoti operates four businesses, including a tent manufacturing company with $1 million in annual sales.

Kenyan businessman Eric Kinoti says entrepreneurship is a journey. At age 32, he has already come a long way.

From a humble start selling eggs by day and working the night shift at a hotel, Kinoti has gone on to launch four companies, including the successful flagship Shades System East Africa, which manufactures canopies, military and party tents, gazebos, and car park shades.

The company, which Kinoti started when he was just 24 years old, has customers in several African countries including non-governmental and humanitarian organizations and reports annuals sales of $1 million.

Kinoti also founded and runs Alma Tents, a tent rental company; Bag Base Kenya Ltd., which manufactures bags from canvas remnants from the tent business; and Safi Sana Home Services, a cleaning company.

Forbes 30 Under 30

One of a growing number of Kenyan entrepreneurs, Kinoti has been recognized twice by Forbes as a top African entrepreneur and in 2014 was named to Forbes list of 30 Under 30 Most Promising African Entrepreneurs.

Born in Mombasa and raised in Mombasa and Meru, Kinoti went on to earn a degree in business management at Tsavo Park Institute. He became interested in business as a child. At 10, he worked as cashier in his father’s shop and sold snacks to his classmates at school.

After he finished college, he got a job as night cashier at a hotel in Malindi and spent his days buying and reselling eggs.

After a move to Nairobi, he tried to start business selling milk to hotels. But a breakthrough came when a customer asked him to supply a tent. Kinoti found that non-Kenyan companies dominated the tent business in his country, and the idea for Shades System was born.

Company expands in region

A shades system tent

Shades System, based in Nairobi, has expanded rapidly and now exports products to Somalia, Congo, Rwanda, Southern Sudan and Uganda. Customers include USAID, Toyota Kenya, Bata Company, and East African Breweries.

He said raising capital has been his biggest challenge.

At one point, he borrowed from a money-lender to start his first and saw his belongings sold off when he couldn’t pay. He ended up paying back the full amount, $20,000, plus $10,000 in interest.

But he persisted. Kinoti stressed that entrepreneurship is a journey, not an overnight get-rich success.

He said young entrepreneurs often jump from one idea to another in hopes of making fast money but that rarely pays off. “You cannot be rich in a day. You have to accept that entrepreneurship is a process,” he said.

Difficult lessons in entrepreneurship

He said he has also learned to be careful whom he trusts and not to rush decisions.

Early on, he trusted people with money and some ran off with it.

He also discussed his business ideas freely, only to find others used his ideas. The lesson? “As an entrepreneur, listen more than you speak,” he said.

Kinoti said he also made mistakes jumping in too quickly when a deal sounded good.

For example, he said opening Safi Sana Home Services was premature and the returns so far have not been very good so he is restructuring that business as a web portal offering home improvement solutions.

He said he might better have focused more attention on the tent business and waited to start a new company.

“It’s important to create a strong foundation,” he said. “Then you can proceed to another business.”

Entrepreneurship booms in Kenya

According to USAID, Kenya has become a center for entrepreneurship and innovation. The agency’s Development Credit Authority has sought to increase access to capital for small businesses and promising entrepreneurs.

In 2014, USAID mobilized $340 million in credit and enabled nearly 600,000 loans to small and medium-sized businesses.

The agency’s Yes Youth Can program has helped expand economic opportunities for young people through training and access to loans.

The hope is that young Kenyan entrepreneurs will be able to avoid the expensive moneylender trap that Eric Kinoti had to climb out of on his journey to creating a thriving business.

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In Dubai, child’s play is good business

25 May 2016 Comments (0) Business, Featured, Middle East

Fairytales Dubai

Two Emirati women combine family with entrepreneurship to launch Fairytales, an indoor play area for young children.

Basma Al Fahim and Fatma Al Madani wanted to spend more time with their young children. But to them, that didn’t mean staying at home all day like many of their fellow Emirati women.

Instead they launched Fairytales, an indoor play area for young children in Dubai. For the two friends, business innovation began with family.

Al Madani had left a seven-year career in government to focus on raising her two young daughters while Al Fahim, who has two young sons, had already launched several successful businesses when they opened Fairytales in December.

Arabian Business recently recognized Al Fahim and Al Madani for their entrepreneurship.

The play center is a new idea in the United Arab Emirates, where most women stay home to take care of their children and only 14 percent of the workforce is women, mostly younger women who have been able to attain an education as the federation of emirates modernizes.

Inspiring creativity, growth

Unable to obtain bank financing for their project, the two women funded the business themselves from their savings.

“The concept was inspired by our children,” Al Madani said, noting that their children were playing pirates and fairies while the two women held their first brainstorming session in the same room.

“They reminded us of how we played as kids’’ before digital devices came along, she said. That sparked the goal of creating an environment that stimulates the child’s imagination and intellectual growth.

Their priorities as mothers – education, healthy food, and safety – became priorities for their business, according to Al Fahim, who had already started a fashion brand, an events company, and a beauty salon.

Teach social responsibility

At Fairytales, their goal to spark the imagination and creative thinking of each child as well as to instill social responsibility among the children, who are up to age eight.

They donated more than 200 children’s books during a local donation campaign on behalf of young cancer patients in Dubai Hospital on World Cancer Day.

The two also took part in a Happy Hearts project, organized by The Happy Box in Dubai, which sent more than 600 handmade cards to orphans in India.

Basma Al Fahim and Fatma Al Madani

A serial entrepreneur

Al Fahim brought significant business experience to the venture as founder and managing director of Eventra Events, an event-planning agency.

After studying marketing at Zayed University, she moved to Dubai and worked in digital and brand marketing. Coming from a prominent business family, she wanted to set a pioneering example for young Emirati women.

Her family’s conglomerate is the Al Fahim Group, whose activities include support for development of oil and gas fields, luxury cars, hotel management and investments. She chairs the company’s employment committee.

Events business succeeds

She opened the events business in 2010, bringing a fresh approach to events ranging from corporate gatherings to weddings to exhibitions. Today, Eventra is a premier event management company in Dubai.

Al Fahim went on to open The Dollhouse, a beauty salon with what she described as a “super chic” atmosphere and attention to detail and glamour.

After establishing The Dollhouse, she also launched Sirkaya, a fashion line that has become a well-known brand in Dubai.

After starting Eventra with three employees, she said she now has more than 100 working on her different ventures.

Advice for young entrepreneurs

She said she has many more business ideas. Growth plans keep her motivated.

“When I say growing I mean improving,” she said.

Al Fahim encouraged young Emirati entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams by having confidence in themselves and focusing on key goals.

“Keep your mind positive,” she said. “Train your brain to think positively to attract the right energy in your life.”

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African banks want share of growing e-money market

24 May 2016 Comments (1) Africa, Business, Featured

mpesa

A top East African bank competes with a major telecom in Kenya as mobile banking booms.

A top East African bank hopes to challenge a telecommunication company’s dominance in electronic mobile-payments service and gain a larger share of Kenya’s electronic banking trade.

Banks in Nigeria, Cameroon and Mali are making similar moves to tap into the continent’s mushrooming market in electronic payments.

In 2014, mobile money transactions generated $656 million in revenue in sub-Saharan Africa and that amount expected to double to $1.3 billion by 2019, according to the research firm Frost and Sullivan ICT.

In much of the world, banks are the leading providers of electronic payment services. But in Africa, where more people have mobile phones than have bank accounts, telecommunications companies have been able to dominate the market.

According to the World Bank, fewer than 25 percent of Africa’s 1.4 billion people have a bank account while 40 percent have a mobile phone.

Equity offers SIM card overlay

Now, Equity Bank, Kenya’s largest in the number of customers, and other banks want to tap into a growing market.

Equity, which also operates in Tanzania and Uganda, seeks to compete with M-Pesa, Safaricom’s popular mobile payments service.

Equity has begun providing its clients with a super thin SIM card overlay that enables them to access their accounts on their mobile phones.

The service, called Equitel, is powered by Safaricom’s rival telecom, Airtel Kenya.

Equity Bank contends that market should belong to the banking sector, not the telecoms.

“We have a major problem with the mobile provider also providing financial services,” John Staley, the bank’s chief of finance, innovation and technology said. “You cannot have the freight company controlling the tracks.”

M-Pesa enjoys popularity Kenya

Safaricom is the Kenya subsidiary of the global telecom colossus Vodafone Group, based in the United Kingdom.

Launched in 2007, M-Pesa has more than 12 million active users and processes more than $18 billion in transactions yearly.

The launch of Equitel follows a yearlong legal battle in which Safaricom raised questions about the security and privacy of Equity Bank’s SIM card plan. A Kenyan court ruled in favor of Equity, enabling the project to move forward.

Bank, telecom partner in Nigeria

Meanwhile, in Nigeria, GT Bank is partnering with Etisalat Nigeria, the nation’s third largest mobile operator to create GTEasySavers, a savings account that can be opened on a mobile phone.

Mobile banking is not as large a market in Nigeria as it is in Kenya. But with mobile penetration of 80 percent and only 57 percent of adults lacking bank accounts, it may be poised to take off.

The mobile market in West Africa is growing. It was valued at $17 billion in 2014 by the market research company Ovum. Mobile data revenue totaled $3 billion, up 30 percent from the year before.

Pan-African Ecobank is partnering with the telecom Orange Cameroon to enable Orange customers with Ecobank accounts to transfer money between the two services. The companies have launched the service in Cameroon and Mali and plan to extend it to Ivory Coast, Guinea Conakry and Niger.

Orange Money is currently available in more than a dozen countries in the Middle East and Africa. With over 16 million customers, the service transferred about $9 billion in 2015.

M-Pesa fails in South Africa

South Africa, where 75 percent of the adult population has banking services, provides a contrasting example of poor demand for a telecomm payment platform.

In May, Vodacom, a Vodafone subsidiary and the country’s largest mobile network, announced it was terminating its effort to attract South Africans to M-Pesa after the service failed to catch on in the continent’s most economically advanced nation.

The company had hoped to sign up 10 million South African users when it launched M-Pesa in 2010. However, by 2015, only one million people had signed up and only 76,000 were active on the platform.

“The success factors for M-Pesa in Kenya were not present in South Africa,” said Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of the technology research firm World Wide Worx.

Usage grows in other countries

Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said the company saw “little prospect” of M-Pesa being successful in the near term. The service will end June 30.

Vodacom said it would continue to offer M-Pesa in markets where banking access is more limited and M-Pesa usage is growing, including Mozambique, Tanzania, Lesotho, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Kenya and other countries where mobile transactions are popular, consumers likely will benefit from new competition in the e-money marketplace, according to a consultant with the World Bank.

“As long as pricing is low enough, mobile money services and healthy competition will benefit consumers and increase financial inclusion, tech consultant Martin Warioba said.

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Liberia will turn schools over to private operator

21 May 2016 Comments (2) Africa, Business, Featured

bridge international academy school

Bridge International Academies, which runs schools in Kenya and Uganda, will pilot a program in Liberia’s troubled school system.

The government of Liberia plans to turn its troubled school system over to a private company, drawing objections from representatives of the United Nations and threats of a strike from the country’s teachers.

Education Minister George Werner said the country would launch a pilot project in September, when 50 of the nation’s 5,000 schools will be taken over by Bridge International Academies, a private company based in Kenya, which also operates schools in Kenya and Uganda.

Werner noted that the Liberian school system has been “in a state of decay for the last three decades.” He said he decided to turn to Bridge after realizing that incremental change by the government would not happen quickly enough for the system to benefit Liberia’s children.

Werner said education would still be free to Liberian students.

High rate of failure on exams

Disrupted by years of war and then the recent Ebola crisis, the school system was labeled “a mess” by Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2013 after 25,000 of country’s high school graduates failed their university entrance examination.

After Werner announced the pilot program, Liberian school teachers approved a resolution threatening to strike if the government goes ahead with the plan.

One Monrovia teacher said schools are underperforming in part because of the low teacher salaries the government pays, forcing teacher to take two jobs. Joseph Komoreah said Liberians should be in charge of their education, not an outside company.

Meanwhile, a United Nations official said the plan amounts to a “gross violation” of the Liberian government’s obligation to provide a right to education.

State should run schools, official says

Kinshore Singh, the U.N. special rapporteur on education, call the plan an “attack” on teachers and public schools.

Calling the scale of the plan “unprecedented,” Singh said a public education system is “a core function of the state and abandoning this to the commercial benefit of a private company constitutes a gross violation of the right to education.”

Singh argues Liberia would do better to invest in improving its own education system and could approach the United Nations for assistance.

A Bridge International Academy school

A Bridge International Academy school

Schools lack resources

About 1.5 million are enrolled in Liberia’s primary schools but only about 20 percent of them complete 12th grade. Classrooms are often overcrowded and under supplied, even lacking enough chairs for all the students.

Bridge operates more than 350 schools in Kenya and seven in Uganda, charging each student $6 per month. The World Bank invested $10 million in Bridge International in 2014 and social investors including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have also provided funding.

But the company has also been criticized for its teaching methods.

The company calls its approach the “Academy in a box.” Bridge develops teaching materials and delivers lessons to teachers on a tablet they can use in the classroom. Bridge also uses computers to monitor how the students are progressing so educators can intervene if there are issues.

More than 100 organizations object

After it received World Bank funding, more than 100 organizations supported a statement critical of Bridge and the privatization of education in Kenya and Uganda.

A Bridge International spokeswoman said the system enables teachers to give well prepared lessons and uses technology to streamline administrative processes.

She said Bridge pupils had a 22 percent higher pass rate on national exams in 2015 than other students.

In the pilot program, the Liberian government will continue to pay the teachers but Bridge International will vet and supervise them. The company said it is looking for outside funding for the pilot.

If the 2016-17 pilot goes well, Liberia may look for other private education providers to help run its schools.

Bridge International Academies said it is the world’s largest education innovation company with more than 100,000 students in more than 400 nursery and primary schools in Africa. The first Bridge school opened in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009. In addition to its African programs, Bridge is planning to expand into Asia.

Founded in 2007, the company hopes to operate more than 3,000 schools in Kenya, with more than two million students, by 2018. The company wants to reach 10 million students in a dozen countries by 2025 with its own schools or using its model in partner schools.

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