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Thanks for everyone who showed up to our first meetup. We had tons of ideas and the collaborative effort was awesome! The main ideas were:

  • e-book Kenya distribution: platform to enable a more speedy and cost-effective way of getting books to kids in Kenya
  • online hub to connect investors to innovators in africa (kickstarter africa project njangilist)
  • pair programming ngo: a platform to help programmers learn quickly from mentors on a pair programming online app
  • networking platform to bridge cultural differences across countries in africa through visuals eg images, videos, (perfect way to communicate)
  • finger print biometrics software to speed up patient recognition and speedier care
  • interactive software game to facilitate learning through multilingual games (yeepa)
  • voice social network app equivalent to a radio talkshow that enables the broadcast of important issues

We asked the idea pitchers to give a brief write up of how they'd like their ideas to be implemented and we even though we only got one back it's outlined below:

##Njangilist Pitch

njangilist.com

As you may know, small and medium size enterprises (SME's) are the backbones of many strong economies today, contributing to GDP, employment and economic growth.

In Africa, governments were in the past the biggest employers. When their corporations suffered, the economy suffered.

Today, a new generation of Africa's youthful population is taking over, creating innovative Startups that solve some of the key problems in their communities and countries that governments cant solve. In the most cases, they are using tech to solve these challenges.

The rise of this generation is giving hope to Africa. Think about the hundreds of millions of youth that would needs jobs in the future. Where will the jobs come from? Someone will have to solve that eminent (un)employment, because Africa has a youthful population.

So these young founders are our hope. But they a lot of challenges as they try to start off. These include but not limited to:

  • lack of funding (70% of SMEs in Sub saharan Africa don have access to bank loans)
  • talent (there is a talent gap: mismatch, universities not up to the time etc.)
  • mentorship (there are no role models and mentors that the youth can look up to)
  • infrastructure (either lacking or inaccessible)

The funding and talent issues can easily be addressed. Thats what I think can be quickly addressed and thats what I am doing with Njangilist. A listing, rating and review, networking and crowdfunding solution tailored to the african market and diaspora. The concept has been inspired by Angellist.co, Angieslist.com, F6s.com, seedrs.com.com. No reinventing of the wheel here!

Mentorship can easily be solved too, but needs the preliminary work above. That is my belief!

The overall goal is to:

  • Help Startups flourish and become engines of growth. With growth, so many problems will be solved automatically!
  • Encourage Africans to start a culture of investing because that is how we create wealth for ourselves while helping Africa.
  • Spur the tertiary system to see whats needed and tailor courses to meet demand.

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Manny Acquah


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ABAWT

Building a team of like-minded, determined and focused individuals who would love to contribute to the welfare of Africa through technology.

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