At a recent tech conference, one Silicon Valley investor told me his strategy is to go where most traditional venture capitalists don’t. He plans to spend the majority of the year in Africa.

Why Africa? The continent’s one billion people are increasingly connected — at least 600 million have mobile phones. It is estimated that by 2040, Africa’s working age population will be the largest in the world.

Opportunities are rife, particularly in urban areas, but major hurdles exist for indigenous entrepreneurs. The lack of bandwidth is still an issue, and there is a shortage of both angel investment and venture capital.

Entrepreneurs speak out at DEMO Africa.

At the inaugural DEMO Africa, entrepreneurs spoke about their startup ideas in the e-commerce and mobile space, which aren’t “a dime a dozen” like in Silicon Valley. As one on-stage speaker put it, “innovation is born from necessity.”

The overriding theme of the conference? “Mobile is changing Africa, and Africa is going to change mobile,” an attendee said.

The footage was shot on location at Nairobi, Kenya on Oct. 24-25, 2012, and whittled down for a mini-documentary. If you have a spare 20 minutes, it’s well worth a watch! 

“Going between the two worlds, I can’t help but notice all the contrast between the cynicism about tech in the U.S. and Europe, and the excitement about it in developing countries,” said the documentary’s producer Jon Gosier in an email interview. “There’s so much going on in Africa that no one ever hears about.”

Inside DEMO Africa 2012 from Jon Gos on Vimeo.

Adsolut launched today as the “admeld for Africa.” It is an ad network and management platform that helps web publishers more effectively reach their target audience and sell and manage their ads online.

“Nigeria has thousands of blogs and websites catering for every facet of human life,” said founder Morzook Biobaku in an interview. “There are the blogs but there are no advertisers, yet advertisers want to have their products on the net. This is where adsolut comes in; we will be the bridge between advertisers and web publishers. There is a huge market for online advertising in Nigeria and adsolut wants to pioneer the movement.”

Biobaku said advertisers in Africa struggle to find the right channels to promote their products, and Adsolut is a local, “home-grown” solution that makes it easier. The company not only provides a network, but also takes on an agency role by using actual marketing professionals to help customers identify and target the right audience. The company also monitors ads and provides analytics.

Adsolut is currently in the process of building its own ad servers. The company is raising a seed round on Angel List which will support building out the technology and growing the network of advertisers and publishers. Attracting venture capital is not easy in Africa and the cost of getting online is still high. Furthermore, there is not consistent electricity so startups have to rely on electric generators which are expensive. Biobaku said that while these factors increase overhead costs and slow growth, Nigeria is currently home to an Internet “craze” and the market is bubbling with opportunity.

There are other a few other homegrown ad networks that serve Nigeria (and Africa), including mobile advertising network Twinpine and South African Offer Forge. Adsolut currently has three employees and is based in Lagos, Nigeria.

Photo Credit: crashdburnd

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

While volunteering at an orphanage in Ecuador, former Amazon executive David Risher came across a padlocked library. When he asked the orphanage’s leader why it was locked, she said that the key was lost, the books were out of date, and the children were uninterested in reading. That’s when Risher decided to set out to make books more accessible to people in the developing world.

He founded Worldreader in 2009, a nonprofit organization that puts Kindles and electronic books (e-books) in the hands of children and their families. Today, WorldReader expanded its program by launching a mobile application that will deliver e-books to millions of people around the world.

“Worldreader has this crazy vision that every child on the planet should have access to the books they need to improve their lives,” Risher said in an interview with VentureBeat. “Mobile phones are the way people in the developing world stay connected and learn about the world around them. This is an opportunity to have an enormous impact on education in these parts of the world.”

Fifty percent of schools in sub-Saharan Africa have few or no books, while the USAID found that nearly ever home in sub-Saharan Africa has access to at least one mobile phone. Worldreader Mobile is designed for low-end feature phones most commonly used by people in Africa and Asia. Users download the free app and have access to a library of 1,200 books, ranging from romance novels to health textbooks.

Feature phones don’t high processing capabilities and usually operate on slower 2G networks. Furthermore, users cannot afford to spend a large amount on data. The new mobile program takes all of this into account. Worldreader partnered with BiNu, a platform that improves Internet connectivity on mass-market phones, to develop the app. All the data processing happens in the cloud, rather than on the phone, and the data is compressed so people do not rack up high charges while reading.

After months of beta testing, Worldreader Mobile is already on five million feature phones around the world. The organization has over 500,000 active readers a month, and they spend 60,000 hours reading on their phones. In January alone, people consumed roughly 17,000 books on their mobile phones. Risher said the biggest mobile market is India, with 106,000 users, and that the app see use from teachers caregivers, siblings, parents, and children.

Risher formerly served Amazon’s senior vice president for retail and marketing. After leaving Amazon, he took a trip around the world with his wife, their two daughters, and two Kindles, which were just coming to market. Growing up, Risher spent hours at the library and went on to major in comparative literature at Princeton. Reading has always been his passion, he said, and many of the opportunities he had were a result of having books in his hands.

“We heard there were 200 million kids in sub-Saharan Africa with no books,” he said. That is a whole generation of children who are growing up in a world with no culture of reading. Publishing, printing, and shipping books is expensive and books are often out-of-date. But beaming books into kids hands over a cell network should be easy.”

The first Worldreader program began in Ghana in 2010, which distributed e-readers to 20 students. Worldreader works with publishers around the world including international companies and small local publishers alike, to distribute their content, and the digital library includes over 440,000 e-books. This mobile program is a significant step for the organization because it does not require procuring and delivering devices, but works with the technology people already own. It will greatly expand Worldreader’s reach and scale and make books of all kinds and subject in the hands of those who need them most.

“Worldreader is a combination of my pragmatic and romantic vision,” Risher said. “It was opportunity to take technology and put it to a higher use. As I look at my own background, loving books and working at Amazon, it was a way to tie it all together and find a way to change world that taps into my passion and skills.”

 Photo credit: Worldreader

SAN FRANCISCO – At GDC today, execs from an African game studio talked about the 55 countries, 3,000 cultures, and myriad languages that make up their “target demographic.”

Leti Games’ CEO Eyram Tawia and CTO Wesley Kirinya spoke as part of GDC’s localization summit. As with game technologies around the world, vast improvements have been made since the early 2000s.

Today, web games from Africa’s west coast are becoming a bigger deal, and mobile games are becoming huge around the continent, Kirinya said.

Source: Jolie O'Dell/VentureBeat

Leti Games executives CEO Eyram Tawia and CTO Wesley Kirinya speak about African games and the cultural diaspora at GDC 2013.

Hundreds of millions of Africans have no Internet connections at all, the team revealed. But the connections that do exists come in the form of web-connected feature phones and, to a lesser but growing extent, smartphones. “Android is huge,” said Tawia, “so most developers try to learn Java.

Moreover, these mobile devices, which so often serve as a person’s only connection to the web and games, are a huge economic force. In Africa, mobile payments are a $61 billion market (compare that to $30.5 billion in in Europe and North America combined).

“People do not have credit cards; mobile is the preferred way to do payments, from shopping to paying bills,” Kirinya said.

Internet bandwidth is also picking up speed in the continent, he said.

Still, the continent claims only around 10 notable gaming studios, including Ubisoft (Morocco), Luma Arcade, Afroes (Kenya, South Africa), and Kola Studios. Kirinya said more studios are being founded in recent years and months, even in sub-Saharan Africa.

These studios, Kinyara said, focus on developing games for the countries in Africa. But to create titles for such a diverse diaspora is a challenge.

“We look at the blocks in the continent,” he said, starting with the obvious first roadblock of language. Colonization means that a handful of European languages were adopted around the continent in the 1700s and 1800s. So building a game in English and French first makes sense, moving into Swahili later, and leaving many other African languages as a long tail to tackle in the long run.

Numbers are generally lower in Africa; the Leti team said that one of the top games in the continent has 6.850 downloads with 20,000 games played every day.

“It’s hard to get Africans to play, because they can’t access the app stores,” Kirinya continued, noting that distribution channels are improving. Partnerships with mobile carriers are likely a more profitable route for local game studios, he said. Other opportunities include paid custom development, which can yield around $5,000 per platform for a mobile game.

Tawia talked a bit about game verticals and genres that are popular in the continent. Many games, he said, are serious in nature, revolving around civic education or career development. Casual and puzzle games are also popular, but games are universally simple.

“First-person shooters, action-packed bloody games are yet to come, “ he said.

Game devs, he noted, are overwhelmingly male, with only one woman to every hundred male attendees at a local game development conference.

Outside organizations such as Meltwater and the British Council help to foster and fund entrepreneurship and creatives in the continent. Still, creative talent for graphics and writing remains scarce, Tawia said, and developer resources are limited. As a result, studios often end up training less-qualified people in their own networks rather than cherry-picking a new hire from a pool of highly qualified candidates.

Still, the Leti execs are hopeful for the future of African gaming and developers. They see games as a way to retell local legends and stories, casting them in an attractive, modern light and bringing a new excitement and pride to African mobile users. Imagine a pharaoh as a Marvel-style superhero, for example, or the traditional figure Ananse as a Spandex-clad African version of Spider-Man; Leti did.

Image credit: Leti Games

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88mph, a South African accelerator program, just received backing from the local venture capital firm 4Di in a move that seeks to forge a lasting connection between African entrepreneurs and African investors.

“It is important for startups in Africa to get local investors,” said 88mph founder Kresten Buch during a Skype interview. “4Di is the first venture capital firm that has supported more deal flow here. People with money here don’t go for tech investments, but there is so much potential in the emerging market here, and less competition. 4Di is investing in 88mph because we generate opportunities for follow-on investments. We seed them and 4Di takes them forward.”

Funding is a major hurdle in the African startup economy and mentorship is not enough to get startups off the ground. While 88mph provides training and education on design, programming, and business development, offering capital is a necessary part of moving the businesses into the next stage of their lifecycle. The accelerator’s approach is to make a large number of small investments, creating a more robust environment for entrepreneurs and investors alike.

Buch said that a viable business model is crucial for portfolio companies because they cannot rely on venture capital for a runway. The goal is to release products as quickly as possible and make money within the first three months. A few years ago, this posed a significant challenge due to low levels of internet connectivity and penetration, as well as insufficient education.

However, Africa is now at the brink of a technological Renaissance. Mobile technology has totally transformed the local economy and there are a wealth of online resources to learn about computer science, design, business etc… Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund forecasts that sub-Saharan Africa will be third fastest growing region in the world in 2013 and 2014, and the international venture capital community is paying more attention to startups in emerging markets.

Buch founded 88mph in 2011 in Kenya. Since then, the program expanded into South Africa. It has made 24 investments adding up to over $1 million and claims to be Africa’s most active seed fund. Buch is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience (and multiple exits) in Europe and Africa. He met Justin Stanford, a cofounder and general partner of 4Di through their involvement with Google Entrepreneurs, a program where Google partners with tech hubs across Africa to provide coworking space, training opportunities, and host events and workshops. Google also provides technical content, business tools, and infrastructure upgrades.

While Google helps sooth technical growing pains, 4Di’s seeks to sooth financial ones. 4Di targets investment opportunities with high growth potential in the seed and early-stages in the relatively under-serviced mobile, enterprise software and web start-up markets in Southern Africa. Stanford also founded the Silicon Cape Initiative, which seeks to elevate Cape Town’s position as a hub for IT innovation and entrepreneurship. Both are dedicated to nurturing the local ecosystem.

According to Katie Sarro, 88mph’s brand strategist, its startups have serviced 100,000 customers and have generated over 100 jobs in Africa. The most recent batch of portfolio companies include map, payment, and transportation solutions, as well as tools to manage electricity consumption and property online and an extreme sports booking service. The unifying theme is they are companies founded by African entrepreneurs geared towards the African market, and now, backed by African money.

MacGyver, you’re out of a job.

According to a study published today in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, scientists used the hacked-together microscope to examine almost 200 stool samples taken from children in Pemba Island in Tanzania. Each glass slide with the sample was covered in cellophane, taped to the iPhone, and lit from behind with the flashlight. Then the researchers took a picture with the phone’s camera, and examined the image on the iPhone’s screen.

The results were not perfect, but not bad: 70 percent accurate.

Source: Newswise

The iPhone microscope

“We think cell phone microscopes could soon become a valuable diagnostic tool in poor, remote regions where intestinal worms are a serious health problem, particularly in children,” study co-author Isaac Bogoch said in a statement.

The challenge in remote areas is not so much cost — a conventional light microscope costs about $200, almost certainly less than the iPhone 4S the researchers were using. The challenge is that that light microscope requires consistent access to electricity, and the highest-risk portions of our planet for intestinal worm infection, which afflict some two billion people, are not known for reliable or even accessible power.

Hence, the smartphone solution.

“There’s been a lot of tinkering in the lab with mobile phone microscopes, but this is the first time the technology has been used in the field to diagnose intestinal parasites,”

The health hack needs to get better: Bogoch says it needs to detect 80 percent of infections to be “of clinical use.”

Most readers of VentureBeat would probably tell him that he could likely get that additional 10 percent by upgrading to an iPhone 5, with its improved camera, or one of the newest Android models.

photo credit: United Nations Photo via photopin cc

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Like its American forebear, Jumia sells a wide range of goods at low cost with easy delivery and returns. The retailer is currently active in Nigeria, Egypt, and Morocco and sells clothing, electronics, furniture, books, baby products, cosmetics, home appliances, and even booze. Rather than paying online, shoppers can pay at their doorstep.

Jumia launched about a year ago out of Rocket Internet and quickly grew its customer base. Many of Africa’s e-commerce companies focus their operations in South Africa, where the economy and access to technology is the strongest. However, e-commerce is still a tricky issue in Africa, as payment technology and Internet connectivity are not strong and many consumers don’t have smartphones, computers, or extra money to spend shopping online.

Although Internet and mobile penetration still has a long way to go in Africa, the rates are climbing, particularly in the mobile sector. A growing middle class means more opportunities for business are arising.

“There is very much a demand from the growing middle class to have quality products both in beauty and in fashion that is currently not met in the Nigerian market or in many other African countries,” said former Rocket Internet CEO Stiegeler in an interview with VentureVillage. “That means that either they buy things abroad or have other people ship the product in, which is obviously very time-consuming, expensive and tedious.

Rocket Internet is a Berlin-based incubator program that has been a fervent supporter of African startups. It has a commercial presence in Egypt, Morocco, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. Furthermore, Rocket Internet CEO Leonard Stiegeler was actually one of the founders of Jumia. He previously founded online fashion retail store Sabunta, which then merged with another company to form Jumia.

Summit Partners also believes in the potential of the African e-commerce market. The firm led this round through its German holding company to fuel Jumia’s growth. In October, Summit Partners also led a $26 million round in Zando, the ‘South African Zappos.’

Rocket Internet and Summit Partners aren’t the only ones excited about Africa’s potential. Google has teamed up with African accelerator 88mph, and other incubator and accelerator programs are cropping up as well. Again, most of the efforts and activity are focused on South Africa, but if Jumia’s growth signals anything, it is that the rest of the continent wants a piece of the action as well.

Photo credit: Axel Rouvin/ Flickr

While I was preparing for the climb, the parallels between mountaineering and founding a company became very interesting. While I am not sure if being an entrepreneur made me a better climber, or vice versa, there is tremendous overlap between the personalities of people who want to be entrepreneurs and people who want to climb Kilimanjaro. What separates those who dream of success and those who actually succeed? It really comes down to how you find the motivation to get up and get going, and how you make critical decisions along the way.

Here are six things Mount Kilimanjaro taught me about being a better entrepreneur.

1. Hope for the best and plan for the worst, in that order.

Before embarking on my journey to Tanzania, I researched everything from altitude sickness and climate changes to the local culture. In my business life, I am also an information sponge. The more I know, the more tools I have to identify, understand, and problem-solve when inevitably unexpected issues come up. Savvy entrepreneurs find out everything they can about their market, competitors, etc., and they never stop learning.

2. Choose the most efficient route.

There are at least six different routes one can take to the summit of Kilimanjaro, each with their own pros and cons. I chose the Umbwe route, which is the most direct, but also the steepest and most challenging. Entrepreneurs can’t afford to take a round-about, stop-and-start approach to building their businesses. Taking the most direct route – creating a business plan and then doing everything you can to execute on that plan quickly – is the fastest way to succeed. Don’t waste time with constant distractions. Instead, get to your goal as quickly and as efficiently as you can.

 3. Celebrate your arrival at base camp.

Making it to base camp is an accomplishment. You aren’t all the way to the top yet, but you’ve reached an impressive milestone. When I reached base camp on Kilimanjaro, Barafu at 15,300 ft., and looked up at the peak of the mountain towering thousands of feet above, I was reminded of launching Reply.com and signing on our first customers. It’s exciting when your tireless work starts to turn into a real company – and many entrepreneurs don’t stop to reflect on these early milestones. But every milestone is worth celebrating, considering many entrepreneurs never make it to the first step of creating a revenue generating company. Take a moment to celebrate each milestone and then evaluate how well you’ve met goals and steps you need to take to make it to the next level.

4. Surround yourself with a competent team.

There is a reason most entrepreneurs and climbers fail to succeed; the higher you climb, the more challenging the journey becomes. In times of resource deprivation, be it physical, financial or mental, it is critical to surround yourself with people you can trust. On Kilimanjaro, I surrounded myself with a reliable, experienced team including great guides who knew the mountain like the back of their hands. Entrepreneurs must build a cohesive team that can quickly identify signs of weakness in your business plan, execution, or results – and then offer strategic solutions. The right team has significant expertise and will help keep you motivated and focused.

5. Reach many summits.

In business, the goal post is always moving. There are new competitors, new markets, and new advances in technology. The world’s best entrepreneurs are always thinking ahead, even when they’ve just crossed a tangible finish line. When I summited Kilimanjaro, I sat on top of the mountain looking out at the most amazing view I had ever seen. But did I stay in the moment? No, my mind began wandering to the next adventure. What mountain will I climb next? Where will my next adventure take me? If I am capable of this, what else am I capable of?

The instinct to push forward, to look ahead, to run past the finish line is what separates entrepreneurs from ‘want-trepreneurs’. The most successful entrepreneurs don’t just reach one summit; they reach many during the lifetimes of their companies or whatever challenge they take on.

6. Make the challenge meaningful.

At Reply.com, we do not instill world peace or solve world hunger. However, amongst other philanthropic efforts, we also host an annual event called “Holidays with a Purpose,” a benefit that promotes “Universal Philanthropy” and helps raise funds to provide for basic needs such as food and education. We also contribute one percent of our profits to the Mona Foundation to provide quality education to all children and raise the status of women and girls. We do this to bring more meaning to our business endeavor and take a small step to better the world. Similarly, I focused my trip to Africa on raising funds for girls’ education in India and promoted both the Mona Foundation and FEED Foundation along the way. In fact, I took banners with their logos along with me to the summit.

I’m not a climber and will never be one but it is not about climbing but rather about challenging yourself and persevering at every step of the way.

What peak will you climb?

Payam Zamani is Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Reply.com Inc., the leading marketplace for local advertisers.

Nomanini is a social enterprise company that sells a “business in a box.” Called Lula, this portable orange device is like a little digital vending machine for prepaid vouchers for mobile airtime, electricity, water, and insurance. (Many in Africa use prepaid mobile to pay for such services.) People can buy one of Nomanini’s boxes and quickly set up a “mini-business” to supplement their incomes.

Chief executive and founder Vahid Monadjem is an Iranian-American who was born in Germany and raised in the U.S. and Swaziland. In 2008, he took a job with the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey, where he worked as a global fellow for emerging market product development. From his post in Johannesburg, South Africa, Monadjem found that reaching consumers was his biggest challenge. Most people do not have computers, Internet access, or even smartphones, and many do not even have a documented home address. Mobile prepaid services are so popular because they don’t require Internet access or a bank account, and you can purchase them in small or large amounts.

In this problem, Monadjem saw an opportunity for himself and the locals. He left McKinsey to found Nomanini, which means “anytime” in Zulu, in 2010.

“There are about 200,000 minibus taxis driving around South Africa serving 20 million commuters everyday,” Monadjem said. “It occurred to me that the sale of prepaid vouchers could more efficient if we developed a solution that could be distributed to people on minibus taxis. Not only would you be providing a really important service for people living at the base of the [economic] pyramid who need these central services, but you would also be giving a massive sector the benefit of additional income.”

The Lula can print these prepaid vouchers on the go. Owners can sell the vouchers anywhere, in minibuses, their homes, or even just walking around on the street. They deposit their earnings into a Nomanini account to reload the terminal and earn a commission on all of their sales. The terminal costs about $200 and is “built like a truck” to endure whatever Africa can throw at it. The backend system and all of the transactions are run on the Google App Engine.

In December, 40,000 people bought airtime through Lula devices. Monadjem told me stories of Vuyile, a man who worked as a night shift security guard and barely earned enough to support his family. Through Nomanini, he has increased his monthly income by 20 percent.

The success of the business is largely due to the Nomanini’s intimate understanding of the African market. Monadjem and his cofounders strived to develop a uniquely “South African born-and-bred solution” that specifically targets the needs of the local population.

“What is missing with a lot of tech efforts in Africa is learning from the market,” he said. “Rather than importing the latest solution from the U.S. or Europe, we need homegrown solutions, particularly in transactions. There is massive expansion in the mobile space, but we need to build solutions that work with unreliable networks, poor internet connections, and a user that may be screen illiterate. If Nomanini is successful, hopefully we will get another set of entrepreneurs to be thinking about Africa as a target market rather than trying to build a video-sharing service.”

Right now, Nomanini is only active in South Africa, but the company has received requests for the boxes from all over the continent. Projects for Kenya and Nigeria are in the pipeline as well as plans to sell additional types of vouchers.

Startup Spotlight is a new weekly series that features a company with a unique idea or story to tell. If you want us to consider your company, please submit an application at http://venturebeat.com/news-tips.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

There are over 1 billion people in Africa. And Microsoft wants to sell them all Windows Phones.

Teaming up with Huawei, Microsoft is introducing the Huawei 4Afrika, a $150 device that will enter a mobile phone market largely dominated by crummy feature phones.

A tweaked version of the Huawei Ascend, the phone has a four-inch screen, 4GB storage, and a dual-core processor. It also comes in four colors –  blue, red, black, and white.

The phone’s introduction is a part of Microsoft’s larger Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, which essentially is about making more Africans daily Internet users. A big part of that effort is the smartphone, which more Africans can use to get online without the need for established wired infrastructure.

The move also has a business angle, of course. By expanding the Windows Phone footprint in Africa, Microsoft and its hardware partners will have more people to sell their devices and software to.

“We believe there has never been a better time to invest in Africa and that access to technology — particularly cloud services and smart devices — can and will serve as a great accelerator for African competitiveness,” Microsoft International president Jean-Philippe Courtois said in a statement today.

The Huawei 4Afrika should hit Angola, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa by the end of this month.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Information may want to be free, but the organization behind Wikipedia wants knowledge to be free, too. So Wikimedia has formed a partnership with the world’s sixth-largest telecom, VimpelCom, to deliver Wikipedia mobile sites for free to developing countries.

It’s part of the Wikipedia Zero program, which is the project to deliver Wikipedia “free of data charges” on mobile devices in developing countries.

“The world’s sixth-largest telecommunications company and fifth-largest website globally are coming together to offer our customers a better mobile experience and greater access to free knowledge, particularly in emerging markets,” Mikhail Gerchuk, VimpelCom’s chief strategy officer, said in a statement.

You’ve probably never heard of VimpelCom — the organization typically does business under other brands, such as Wind and Mobilink — but the telecom has a strong presence in Russia, former Eastern bloc countries, parts of south-east Asia, and Africa, with 212 million subscribers in a service area with 780 million people.

With this partnership, Wikipedia Zero now will be providing free access to 330 million mobile users around the world, Wikimedia’s Kul Takanao Wadhwa said, adding that it was an important step towards the organizations’ ultimate goal: “free knowledge to everyone on the planet.”

The 18 countries that VimpelCom is bringing onboard include Russia, Italy, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Laos, Algeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burundi, Zimbabwe, and the Central African Republic.

The roll out will start this year, Wikimedia said, with a focus on Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa.

photo credit: Absolute Chaos via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Will the iPhone 5 be coming to China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers? Apple needs this, sure, but make no mistake: China Mobile needs it just as bad.

China is the world’s largest market for smartphones, edging out the U.S. in July of 2012 to take the crown. But the country’s biggest carrier, China Mobile, does not yet officially carry the iPhone, despite the fact that probably tens of millions of its customers have purchased Apple’s smartphones elsewhere, jailbroke them, and are using them on its network.

But the need to jailbreak an iDevice to get it to work on China Mobile may soon be over, as Tim Cook and China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua met today to discuss “matters of cooperation,” according to Reuters.

And both companies need each other. Badly.

Apple needs to grow, and while it has had a great past few months domestically — rising over 50 percent market share stateside — global market share is another matter entirely, as 75 percent of all new phones are being activated in Asia and Africa. China is the world’s most populous country, buys the most smartphones, and has the most cellular subscribers, and China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers could easily become tens of millions of Apple customers — if Apple can do the deal.

Meanwhile, China Mobile might be the queen of carriers right now, with that massive subscriber base, but the company has its own issues.

China Mobile’s share of the most lucrative customers is dipping, with a seven percent 3G subscriber market share loss in 2012. The company’s situation is analogous to Japan’s NTT Docomo. Docomo, long the digital darling of mobile carriers and Japan’s premier mobile telecom, is losing subscribers at a record rate due to its easily-solvable lack of iPhonicity.

Simply put: iPhone subscribers are the most valuable segment of telecom markets. By missing out on this segment, China Mobile is hurting its own profits and benefiting its competitors, who do carry the iPhone.

But 700 million subscribers is a very nice little cherry indeed, and it sounds like China Mobile will not do a deal without significant concessions from Apple — possibly including a share of app store revenue, something Apple has never done before and is unlikely to do today.

These two companies have been talking since 2009. Now is the time for both of them to do a deal, for both their sakes.

Today is World AIDS Day. Every December 1, we take a single day to remember the millions around the world living with HIV/AIDS and to raise awareness about the spread of HIV/AIDS and its prevention.

Since the web in all its forms is one of the best media for spreading information, a slew of entities have taken to social media to talk about AIDS and show you what you can do about this epidemic, even if all you can do is share videos, upload a picture, and spread the word to the folks you know.

On his Facebook page, Microsoft founder Bill Gates calls World AIDS Day “a day to remember, but also a day to remind ourselves of the progress we have made against this disease. If we stay the course and maintain our resolve, we can end this epidemic.”

The tycoon-turned-philanthropist also posted this video:

Over on Twitter, (RED), a campaign focused on ending AIDS in Africa, has been tweeting up a storm with statistics on AIDS and products you can buy to support the (RED) cause.

(RED) is also promoting a Dance (RED), Save Lives album presented by Tiesto, asking followers and fans to make the album pop to the top of the iTunes charts today and to join in its YouTube dance party livestream.

Catch our livestream of Dance (RED) Save Lives presented by @joinred & @tiesto. Dance your face off to fight AIDS! thrl.st/SzOxmy

— Thrillist (@Thrillist) December 1, 2012

And back on Facebook, (RED) is making a gallery of cities that have “gone red” to commemorate the day.

#WorldAIDSDay is a promoted trend on Twitter today. Top tweets include a photo from @whitehouse, the official U.S. presidential account; a special (RED) track from Rolling Stone magazine; and a tweet from Magic Johnson, a longtime champion of the cause, who thanked God, his doctors, and “the meds” for his own victory in his battle with HIV.

Photo: A red ribbon is displayed on the North Portico of the White House in honor of #WorldAIDSDay on.wh.gov/WUJ19Xp twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

— The White House (@whitehouse) December 1, 2012

Today I celebrate #WorldAIDSDay! I want to thank God, Cookie, our kids, Dr. Ho and the meds!

— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) December 1, 2012

If you would like to get involved online and want your tweets or Facebook posts to carry more weight than usual, this year we’re also seeing a new campaign, 1share1condom. Sponsored by Durex, the campaign will donate one condom for ever social media share of a fact about HIV/AIDS.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Telecommunications giant Ericson has released a massive report on the state of the mobile world. And clearly, unless you live in the almost-fully-penetrated European and North American markets, everything is up and to the right.

China, the rest of Asia, and Africa together accounted for 75 percent of new mobile subscriptions in the third quarter of 2012, with 38 million in China, 31 million in the rest of Asia, and 25 million in Africa. That contrasts rather sharply with only one million new subscriptions in western Europe and two million in North America.

With 6.4 billion global cellular subscriptions and a world population just shy of seven billion, it would seem that almost everyone has a mobile phone or other mobile device connected to the internet. However, Ericsson, says, those 6.4 billion subscriptions are spread over only 4.3 billion people, meaning that many people have more than one plan … for example, a phone and a tablet, both with a cellular connection.

Which leads to a penetration percentage of well over 100 percent in some areas:

Source: Ericsson

Mobile subscriptions penetration globally

40 percent of all phones sold in the third quarter, Ericsson says, were smartphones, but only 15 percent of the global installed base of phones is smartphones … so there is still a long runway for growth. In fact Ericsson is predicting smartphone subscriptions alone will reach 3.3 billion in 2018.

Source: Ericsson

Global total traffic in mobile networks. Yellow is voice; red is data

Global data traffic is skyrocketing as well — doubling between Q3 2011 and Q3 2012 — while voice traffic is only growing slowly. From perhaps 10 petabytes of monthly mobile data traffic in the first part of 2007, the world’s use of mobile data has exploded to about 900 petabytes, per month, today.

In the same period, voice traffic has only grown from perhaps 80 petabytes to about 190.

By 2018, Ericsson expects mobile traffic to grow 14 times to over 13,000 petabytes of global monthly data, as mobile PCs will gobble up over 10 GB each per month, and smartphones about 2 GB.

Speeds will increase to handle that influx of data traffic, rising to a current global median of 1.3 megabits/second as LTE networks continue to roll out. LTE can already offer download speeds in the 100 Mbps range, on supported devices, and an more-advanced version known as LTE-Advanced will offer peak

data speeds higher than 1 gigabit/second. Only about 100 LTE networks are currently in operation, covering 455 million people. By 2017, Ericsson expects LTE to be available to about half the world’s population.

Interestingly, Ericsson measured the network impact of free versus paid apps as part of the study. Free apps, which are generally, ad-supported, use much more data than premium apps — connecting with the network 30 times more frequently and use over 100 times more data … presumably for ad downloads.

Tethering is also a massive data consumer, especially iPhone and Android users who use data services on their smartphones to get network access on their laptops and tablets. Users who tether use 20 times as much data as non-tethering mobile subscribers.

The full report is available at Ericsson’s website.

Image credits: Ericsson

As Mufasa said in the Lion King, everyone has a place in the Circle of Life. In the animal kingdom, as in startup land, a dynamic, highly functioning ecosystem is necessary for its residents to flourish.

LIONS@FRICA is a partnership of public and private organization working together to keep energy flowing through the African startup and innovation ecosystem. The initiative launched at the World Economic Forum on Africa in May. Partners include the U.S. State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, Microsoft, Nokia, DEMO, the World Bank Group’s infoDev, African Development Bank, and Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Participating entrepreneurs will receive business development training and capacity building through a series of programs and events. They will have the chance to attend venture capital roundtables and innovation bootcamps around the continent and to learn from experts.

In addition to education and mentorship, growing a powerful network is also a priority. Members of LIONS@FRICA will have greater connectivity to global technology hubs, capital, partnership opportunities, and international support.

LIONS@AFRICA will host the first ever DEMO Africa from October 24-26 in Nairobi, Kenya, where the most innovative African startups can launch their products and tap into the global technology ecosystem, Thomas Debass, the director of Global Partnerships Initiative, a division of the State Department responsible for economic growth, global finance, and entrepreneurship, announced today.

“Africa is growing in leaps and bounds in terms of its economy, and there is a tremendous amount of opportunity for innovation and investment,” Debass said. “At DEMO Africa, there will be 40 companies presenting for the first time, bringing solutions not only to the continent but to the world. It will demonstrate how powerful technology is in connecting the world in a meaningful way. It is a historical moment.”

Sub-Saharan Africa is experiencing rapid growth of its economy and Internet usage. The Economist found that six of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies over the past decade were in sub-Saharan Africa, a conclusion supported by other groups like McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and the Center for Global Development.

Internet usage in Africa is also growing faster than on any other continent, and a Wireless Intelligence study identifies Africa as the world’s fastest growing region in terms of cellular connections. With 700 million mobile subscriptions, Africa has passed the Asian Pacific region for first time in terms of growth.

This environment, combined with high youth unemployment rates and the State’s Department commitment to nurturing the African economy, set the stage to spark Africa’s tech revolution.

“Tech companies created in Africa, by Africans, to address local and global problems have untold potential to change the world,” said USAID Communications Specialist Stephanie Grosser. “Turning a great idea into a viable and profitable business model is difficult, but DEMO Africa is helping move Africa’s startup tech sector closer to ignition.”

Fire may be dangerous in a savanna ecosystem, but it is useful in a startup one, and for African entrepreneurs, LIONS@FRICA is lighting the match.

My first question to Ashish Thakkar, CEO of a pan-African conglomerate, one-time genocide refugee, and one of the continent’s first space tourists: “When do you find time to sleep?”

He chuckles and deftly turns the conversation back to the emerging startup community in his native Africa. This week, the maverick launched a website, “Mara“, which he hopes will provide mentorship and funding to thousands of small businesses and startups in his native Uganda.

The purpose of his week-long visit to the Bay Area is twofold: to check out local accelerator programs like 500 Startups and Y Combinator for inspiration, and to convince Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to advise African business owners for a few hours each week.

He raises the same points when advising East African governments on better ways to inspire its young population through entrepreneurship. “The answer isn’t foreign direct investments,” he said. “The answer is nurturing small and medium sized businesses.”

Thakkar makes a strong case for investing into Africa and its people. At 29 years old, he is the self-made owner and chief executive of Mara Group, a conglomerate with approximately $100 million in revenues and a staff of 5,000. Mara touches every industry from telecommunications to real estate, and its operations span 16 countries.

He cites a statistic that 85 percent of Africa’s population is under 35. It’s an optimistic sign for African business that most countries are projected to have more working-age adults per child in 2030 than they did in 2006, as reported by the Population Reference Bureau.

Thakkar points to the growing market for mobile; it’s the fastest growing in the world after Asia. Read here about startups that are taking advantage of Africa’s mobile market.

His own story is a true rags to riches tale. As a young child, his family relocated to Rwanda. Nine months later, the genocide started and they became refugees. Despite everything he has seen, Thakkar remains defiantly proud of his African heritage. “We have a fire in our belly to succeed,” he said.

The accelerator isn’t his first foray into entrepreneurship. Thakkar launched The Mara Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Mara Group, to support startups in Uganda. The foundation funded the development of a small business incubation center (“The Mara Launchpad”) for 110 companies and is conveniently located across the street from the Makerere University in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. Next year, they plan to open a center in Tanzania with space for 40 companies.

Mara Launchpad, a business incubator in Uganda

“We realized that entrepreneurs were working from home or in a garage and were lacking credibility,” said Thakkar. “In Africa, that’s taboo.” The center provides entrepreneurs with a small infusion of capital, and in exchange, they pay a subsidized fee for rent for office space, usually about $4 per month.

The foundation lends support to businesses that will make a positive social or environmental impact. His favorite example is a school girl who began stitching uniforms and selling them to schools. In six months, she was making 700 uniforms per month and employing her classmates. “We taught her how to work more efficiently, buy the right raw materials and market herself,” said Thakkar.

His own entrepreneurial journey began in high school. His business wasn’t school uniforms, but an import-export business for computer parts. He told me he would make a weekly trip to Dubai and carry keyboards, mouses and desktops back to Uganda to sell to friends and classmates, as he couldn’t afford the air cargo.

Ironic considering that Thakkar is the only African who has shelled out $200,000 for a Virgin Galactic flight to space. He recently completed hard-core physical training in Philadelphia and intends to fly early next year.

“I used to say the sky is the limit,” he said. “But it’s clearly not.”

Mara is initiating a call to Bay Area entrepreneurs interested in lending their time. Learn more about mentorship here.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

When it comes to thinking big, MedAfrica takes the cake. The founders are aiming to revolutionize how people in developing areas, particularly on the African continent, access and use health information.

The startup presented at the Demo Fall 2011 conference last week, and we got a chance to catch up with some of the company’s founders, including CEO Steve Mutinda and business development guy Mbugua Niijhia. In this video, we discuss how the MedAfrica platform will work and how the company is also planning to be a sustainable business rather than a “social good” charity.

Briefly, the company will focus on bringing basic information about health and medicine to phones — not just smartphones — and enabling people to use that information on their own. In countries such as Kenya, where on average 14 physicians must serve around 100,000 people, this kind of accessible, self-serve information could be vital in improving national health and wellness.

MedAfrica is set for an official launch October 1, 2011. You can sign up now for the company’s newsletter and notifications.

The company tags pharmaceutical products in emerging markets with a scratch-off code which is verified by sending a text message to Sproxil’s product authentication service. Sproxil was one of two companies to receive an honourable mention from the judges in the recent IBM smartcamp global finals (having previously won the Boston competition) and was one of the most talked-about startups in the competition.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that less than 1 percent of drugs in industrialized nations are counterfeit but that rate could be as high as 50 percent in some developing countries like Nigeria and Congo. WHO calculates that 200,000 of deaths caused by malaria alone could be prevented if all antimalarials were genuine. The U.S.-based Center for Medicines in the Public Interest (CMPI) projects that in 2010, counterfeit drugs will be a US $75 billion business, an increase of more than 92 percent from 2005.

Drug companies have developed myriad methods to verify the authenticity of their products including RFIDs, barcodes and holograms on packaging, chemical tests and laser scanning. Unfortunately, most of these methods have either been compromised or are too expensive for use in emerging markets. Sproxil uses simple scratch-off codes, of the type used to top up pre-paid cell phones, attached to either the drug blister, packet or an entire pallet depending on who needs to validate the product’s authenticity. The code is single use and is sent by text message to Sproxil’s authentication service. In Nigeria, more than 1,400,000 pharmaceutical items have been labeled with Sproxil’s technology.

I talked to Sproxil’s CEO Ashifi Gogo about the market and business model. According to Gogo, Sproxil can provide the mobile authentication technology more cheaply than the pharma companies themselves, because it can aggregate multiple pharma clients. When asked about the other authentication methods most likely to compete with Sproxil’s technology, Gogo mentioned barcodes but pointed out that many phones in developing countries are not yet capable of photographing the barcode and sending it for authentication.

Currently, clients pay a few cents for each code and for the text messages. Since Sproxil currently gets a fee even if the user does not text the code, it generates revenue from unused texts. Gogo intends to switch from this flat fee model to a per transaction fee as the business grows. Sproxil also sends targeted ads to users who have authenticated a code. These ads have increased sales by 10 percent for one client in Nigeria in only 3 months.

Gogo foresees the authentication technology being used for other items such as wines and spirits (fake versions are a major problem in Asia, apparently) and luxury goods. Initially though, Sproxil plans to expand into Kenya and eventually India which has a huge counterfeit drug problem. Sproxil is not the only company out there using cell phones for verification. MPedigree operates a similar scheme in Kenya.

Sproxil was founded in 2009, has 12 staff members and offices in Somerville, MA and Lagos, Nigeria. The company is privately funded and, according to Gogo, profitable.