East Africa This Week: Startup Events Glimpses [October 1st – October 7th, 2018]

| October 7, 2018

iHub got the region started on a technical note on 4th and 5th October when they hosted DroidCon KE 2018. This two day Android Developer Forum attracted tens of Android enthusiasts who came together to learn new skills and polish up their technical capabilities with regards to the engineering of Android applications. With Android being run on many devices that can now become interconnected this forum provided a fresh ground to examine new possibilities especially in coming up with innovative solutions to everyday situations. Some of the areas covered included chatbots, new languages such as Kotlin, Dart, and Java as well as machine learning for mobile. The sessions were held at Senteu Plaza and sponsored by Google and co-organised by iHub, Android254 and Kotlin Kenya. The format included panel presentations by a team of experts as well as product testing as well as a networking opportunity for techies.

Sinapis Investor panel at Metta

Sinapis hosted an informative session where they hosted five different investors who took time out to explain to entrepreneurs what they look for in a business before they fund them. The investors that were represented were InvesteQ Capital, Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund, Acumen, DOB Equity, and Intellecap. The event took place mid-morning on Saturday at Metta, Riverside Drive in Nairobi. Sylvie who is the Director of Training moderated the event. With Kenya continuing to attract significant funding for startups this session was not only timely but highly educative in shedding light on how to court investors who are keen to fund startups.

The team representing the investors spoke openly and candidly about how the character of the founder is crucial in the long-term success of the business being funded. Of particular interest, Arnold Maina articulated the different types of funding available and what they could be used for. For example, entrepreneurs learned about how to ask for grants to carry out experiments not related to their core business so that they don’t have to use their business income to test how the market could respond to new ideas. Sinapis is a faith-based training and mentoring program that prepares its students to develop the values necessary to survive and thrive in a business environment. They hold business competitions for each class where the top performers get linked to investors. The winner receives USD 10k. Since inception in 2013, they have accelerated 1,100 businesses which they claim achieve 15 % revenue growth year on year. They have a presence in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, and Brazil