East Africa This Week: Startup Events Glimpses [October 8th – October 14th, 2018]
Skills-enrichment was a dominant theme in East Africa tech space this week. With the prediction of data science becoming a core requirement for developers over the next 10 years, Outbox held a Data Science Career workshop at its Lumumba Avenue location in Kampala, Uganda. As the name suggests, data was at the center of the session with a focus being given to career entry points into data scientist roles, data mining and Predictions, data policy, protection and privacy as well as the launch of a mentorship program for Data Science and Web Development.
The panel speakers were Shakirah Nakalungi who is a Data Scientist with Strongminds, Nelda Limilimi who is a Data Analyst with WeFarm and Mark Okello who is the Lead and Organizer at Kampala R Users Group. The evening ended with the launch of DevCKla mentorship program over networking conversations and pizza. The event was organised by Facebook Developer Circles.
Outbox panel discussion – image source: Outbox twitter
In the evening of the same day at a different venue, The Innovation Hub together with Microsoft and Liquid Telecom held the Azure Accelerator Conference. Azure cloud solution could be deployed to provide software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) while supporting many different programming languages, tools and frameworks, including both Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. This event that was attended by close to 100 entrepreneurs exposed them to practical ways they could tap into this solution portfolio to empower their IT solutions infrastructure.
In Tanzania, Dar es Salaam hosted the co-organised Sahara Sparks and Afrilabs Annual Gathering 2018 to recognise the role that innovation in the community as the engine for economic growth and development. This forum brought together close to 20 high-powered speakers over a period of 3 days at Golden Tulip Hotel from 11th to 13th October attracting the participation of former Tanzania President Hon Jakaya Kikwete, IPP Media business mogul Reginald Mengi, Tomi Davies who is president of African Business Angel Networks, Ben White who is founder of VC4Africa among other personalities in the world of Tech, IT, leadership, venture capital and entrepreneurship.
The theme, Innovation in the Data Age as emphasized by the former head of state underscored the need to invest in Science and Maths skills for young people so as to involve them in the advancement in technology and Innovation. Dr. Elsa’s telemedicine service in form of an AI-powered, smart health assistant won the #TheBotnarChallenge.
Youth Connect panel. Image credit: @YouthConnektAf
Rwanda hosted young people during this year’s Youth Connect Summit from 8th – 10th of October at the Kigali Convention Center. In attendance were 2,500 delegates from 90 countries drawn from government, the private sector, development partners and other players who work with or represent the interests of young people for social economic transformation. The technology and innovation goal of Youth Connect Summit is to nurture 5,000 digital ambassadors in each country to help connect and digitally empower 100 million Africans, allowing skills to be transferred to their local communities. Isam Chleu who is the managing director of Suguba , mooted the “Made in Africa” clarion to become the first Pan African consumer Activism movement.
With so many lessons learned, Blanchine Mazanga who is CEO of Source Creative in Kinshasa Congo implored on participants to now engage the execution gear after learning so much. This year’s forum was hosted by the Rwanda Ministry of Youth, UNDP, African Development Fund and the African Union with partnership support from over 20 organisations.
Image credit: Sahara Sparks forum in Dar es Salaam: Image credit Sahara Sparks Facebook
