Centerstage Africa

Sim Shagaya, founder of Konga.com Drinks.ng Major brands, such as Guinness, have found a huge market for alcoholic beverages in  Nigeria . Drinks.ng, founded by Lanre Akinlagun, offers an online platform for Nigerian consumers to buy any volume of verified authentic drinks. ToLet.com.ng Nigeria’s urbanisation and economic growth have had some side effects. A shortage of high-quality rental  property  has been exacerbated by opaque and manual mechanisms for customers. In 2013, Sulaiman Balogun created Nigeria’s first online property broker, helping urban consumers quickly find property. Hotels.ng Casual visitors to Nigeria often have a shared complaint – that hotel rooms are prohibitively expensive, and it is tough to find a room. Spotting that there was no centralised listing and booking service for independent hotels, Mark Essien created one. Jumia For all of its  consumer  potential, the evolution of Nigeria’s online retail industry has be...

Donald Patrick Bambara is the 20 year old behind Green’Act, a social enterprise founded in March last year when a team of students introduced a recycling system on their Institut Supérieur de Management (ISM) campus in Dakar, Senegal. Donald Bambara of Green’Act Inspired by a Swiss exchange student visiting his school, Bambara was part of the team which decided to do something about the lack of waste management systems in  Senegal , visible in the heaps of rubbish that have been piling up for years on many of Dakar’s streets. “In Senegal the waste management system is very bad and we noticed that there is no recycling system installed in schools and campuses,” Bambara told  How we made it in Africa . “So this is the main reason we started Green’Act; to bring a change and to actually transform a society, the way they act and the way they manage their waste.” After installing the first recycling system at his school, Bambara and his team started to focus on educating ...

Entrepreneurship is no easy journey. Kenyan Mark Kaigwa says that despite the challenges entrepreneurs face in Africa, it is still worthwhile for young people to go into business. Mark Kaigwa, founder of Nendo Ventures Kaigwa is the founder of social media consultancy Nendo Ventures. According to the 26-year-old business and IT graduate, entrepreneurship can be the “hardest thing” one can do, but it is a rewarding and fulfilling journey. “The continent needs people to genuinely be committed to creating enterprise,” says Kaigwa. “It may end up being the hardest thing you ever do in your life given the amount of sacrifice, the comforts that you choose to waive, the risks you take and how you react in the face of failure or circumstances that don’t go your way. It’s probably the truest way to find out what you are made of.” Kaigwa rose to prominence in Kenya’s tech scene in 2009 when he founded consumer service startup GotIssuez, which operated much like an online suggestion b...

Ghana may have lost its opening match to the USA on Monday, but the country is surely winning all-round with the ‘Ghana Village’ which was set up on Monday, June 16 ahead of the Ghana-USA fixture. The trade and culture hub, which will be active in Natal for a period of the World Cup, aims to project the investment potential of the country to Brazil and all participating countries in the world cup. The hub can boast of an exhibition centre for Ghanaian world cup merchandise , arts and crafts as well as a musical stage which has become not only a hotspot for everyone in Natal to enjoy Ghanaian music but African music at large. On Monday, the Ghana Village opened with performances by Amanzeba and Gyedu Blay Ambolley. On Tuesday, it pulled thousands of patrons with live performances from Ambolley and the Shabo Crew Band. Natal also went alive and partying with one of Ghana’s finest, DJ Nii Ayi Tagoe, as he hit the deck with some of the biggest tunes out of Ghana for the liste...