GSMA Mobile for Development

Exploring the incredible growth of the Cameroonian entrepreneurship ecosystem

During the last week of July, Peter Ndichu from the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team was in Cameroon to provide further support to GiftedMom, one of the Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund start-ups, and to reflect on the progress made since we first funded them back in ...

Meet our portfolio start-ups: Kea Medicals, Benin

The current status of the African health environment reveals a disconnect between hospitals and doctors regarding the medical history of the patients. Physicians are struggling to provide care, or to act promptly, due to an information deficit and in some cases they need to ...

Six months into Round 3: Updates from the Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund

Back in November 2018, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator programme revealed its third Innovation Fund start-up cohort consisting of 11 start-ups from across Asia Pacific and Africa. These start-ups recently crossed the six-month mark with the Ecosystem Accelerator programme and ...

Takeaways from Mobile 360 – Africa 2019: Mobile innovation and inclusive partnerships are unlocking digital dividends

The GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator and portfolio start-up teams attended and participated in the Mobile 360 – Africa event from 16 – 18 July in Kigali, Rwanda. This year’s event attracted mobile operators, government officials, regulators, start-ups, donors, NGOs and ...

Benin’s tech ecosystem: Driving inclusive innovation through partnerships

The GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team, represented by Peter Ndichu and Max Cuvellier, was in Cotonou, Benin in mid-June 2019, firstly for a market visit to our local portfolio start-up, Kea Medicals, secondly to meet with stakeholders in the local entrepreneurship ecosystem ...

Mobile operator and start-up collaboration in emerging markets: A landscape of current and past initiatives

Today in emerging markets, more than anywhere else, there are opportunities for mobile operators and start-ups to collaborate. Mobile operators have reached the scale that start-ups lack, while start-ups have the local innovation that mobile operators need. Back in 2016, the ...

Showcasing Pacific innovation through start-up competition in Papua New Guinea – Seedstars Port Moresby

The first of three events, being held in the Pacific region by Seedstars, in partnership with the GSMA and supported by the Australian Government, began on 16 July in Port Moresby, Papua new Guinea. There were two days of a bootcamp for local start-ups, followed by a ...

Africa Tech 2.0: A growing ecosystem with convening power

Between 10 and 14 June, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team participated in four Africa start-up focused events held in three different countries: Tech in Ghana Conference (UK), Africa Tech Summit (UK), Africa NOW By Google and Partech (France) and MEST Summit (Kenya). These ...

Join the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team at Mobile 360 – Africa 2019

The 2019 GSMA Mobile 360 – Africa conference is fast approaching and will be held in Kigali between 16 and 18 July. From start-ups to mobile operators, regulators to tech hardware manufacturers, NGOs to banks, the event will bring together over 1,000 mobile industry ...

618 active tech hubs: The backbone of Africa’s tech ecosystem

This blog has been co-authored by Dario Giuliani (Founder of Briter Bridges) and Sam Ajadi (Senior Insights Manager, Ecosystem Accelerator team). Technology ecosystems across Africa have witnessed incredible growth over the past few years, mainly boosted by a torrent of ...

Coming back to Senegal: A digital transformation in progress

During the last week of June, our team was invited to participate in the first edition of Sonatel (Orange Group)’s Digital Teranga Days, aimed at driving digital transformation across Orange countries of the region. The objective of this week was also to support our two ...

The Ethiopia tech ecosystem: A sleeping giant is waking up!

The GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team, represented by Martin Karanja, was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in early June 2019, firstly for a market visit to our local portfolio start-up, TaskMoby. Secondly, to participate in Startup Ethiopia, a first of its kind event focusing on ...

Propelling Women in Tech across emerging markets: Our reflections on female entrepreneurship

In 2017, we published a blog highlighting the socio-economic benefits brought by female entrepreneurs to their local economies. Borrowing the words of Warren Buffet, to exclude women from the ecosystem would be ‘a waste of human talent’ – pushing ‘50% of the population…into ...

Fostering ecosystems and entrepreneurship in the Pacific – the Australian Government, GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator and Seedstars

Kenya, Indonesia, Tanzania, India, Jordan, Colombia, Vietnam, Brazil, Ethiopia – over 90 local Seedstars start-ups competitions, now Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Samoa! Our mission is to build synergies between start-ups and mobile operators, with the aim of scaling innovative ...

Meet our portfolio start-ups: Coliba, Côte d’Ivoire

According to a 2018 report by the World Bank, more than five million tonnes of waste are generated each year in Côte d’Ivoire, and this is expected to double by 2030. Less than half of the current waste is being collected and only about three per cent is being recycled, with ...

Re-imagining solar distribution: The Fenix International – Musanga Logistics partnership

Last-mile delivery is often one of the most complicated steps in the logistics process, particularly for hardware companies with potential or actual customers in remote areas of emerging markets. This layer of complexity, which also exists in the solar energy supply chain, ...

Two years into Round 1: Updates from the Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund

Two years! It’s already been two years since we announced the first cohort to be selected to receive funding and support from the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator Innovation Fund. While this first group of start-ups has now graduated from our programme and completed their ...

Inclusive, digital, and innovative: The African Tech at AFSIC, Afrobytes and VivaTech events!

Between 8 and 17 May 2019, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team, represented by Max Cuvellier and Maxime Bayen, was invited to participate in three consecutive events focused on African Tech in London and Paris. We had the opportunity to present our work for the first time at ...

A bird’s-eye view of the Samoan digital ecosystem

In April 2019, the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator team visited Samoa to work with Innovation Fund grantee SkyEye and their partners. We met with various stakeholders in the market and thought we would take this opportunity to share a few learnings about the tech ecosystem in ...

Meet our portfolio start-ups: Ensibuuko

According to the FinScope 2018 survey, only three per cent of adults in Uganda had borrowed from a commercial bank in the 12 months prior to the survey and 11 per cent of adult savers had done so through a commercial bank. In contrast, approximately 50 per cent of adults who ...

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