Telling Africa's Stories
A summary of my notes from the recent Women Techmakers Leads and Google Developers Groups (GDG) Summit held in Lagos, Nigeria. I woke up on Monday morning to an invite to the Summit from my friend, Aniedi Udo-Ubong, Developer Ecosystem Manager at Google (Sub-Saharan Africa). It was to a two-day gathering of Women Techmakers Leads and […]
Originally published on AfricaBusiness2020 via Skrife. He is referred to as an ‘accidental entrepreneur’, one with no intention of starting a business who saw a problem and set out to fix it. Introducing… Sesinam Dagadu, the founder of a Solutions Company called tinyDAVID. tinyDavid was set up to develop solutions for the developing world, and SnooCODE, their first […]
In this video, I share info on how to get equity-free seed funding for your business idea or startup. I also share a list of accelerators around the world to help you get started on your journey. https://youtu.be/1jnqvbZDgdU < p style=”text-align: left;”>List of Equity-free Accelerators Around The World Ready to take a bold step into […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog, In the last couple of months, Andrew Berkowitz of The Global Startup Movement has been on a mission to understand the fast-growing and evolving technology ecosystem in Africa – Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and all other 50 African countries. He virtually stopped by our HQ Campus to have conversations with the team behind […]
Originally published on AfricaBusiness2020 via Skrife. Introducing… Kelvin Nyame, one of three Ghanaian entrepreneurs, (including Rashad Seini and Kofi Amuasi), who founded MeQasa after receiving US$90,000 seed-funding from Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in 2013. MeQasa went on to raise US$800,000 from Frontiers Digital Ventures, a global VC firm in 2015, and is rising to be the […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Please introduce yourself and share a little about your background. I’m a half-Ghanaian, half-Gambian that has lived most of my life in the US (New York, Ohio, Texas, Boston, Los Angeles, and now Chicago!). I went to undergrad at Harvard, worked in management consulting for a few years at […]
Originally published on AfricaBusiness2020 via Skrife. Introducing… One of the stars of Nigeria’s recent startup success stories – fintech startup Paystack. Paystack was admitted into Y Combinator’s (YC) accelerator programme in winter 2016, making them one of the first Nigerian startups to join the programme. This was no small feat and it ushered in an era of international exposure […]
Two speaking engagements in one weekend! I really am growing and sticking with my resolutions – doing good that benefits more people. At the beginning of this year, my mantra was “do the work and fall in love with the work.” And five months down the line, I’m still on it. 2017 plan: Fall in […]
Published on MEST Africa Blog. Popcorn, big screens, and good conversation afterwards! On Friday, 21 April, join us for a special one-time screening of this new empowering documentary on female entrepreneurship titled: She Started It. She Started It aims gives a new face to the popular image of the tech entrepreneur: a female face. This documentary / film follows […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Emmanuel Quartey was a mastermind at MEST – connecting stakeholders and partners, organizing ecosystem events, contributing original thought pieces and long-form product design articles, projecting just the right amount of MEST energy into everything he was a part of, and managing the 20+ companies at the MEST Incubator. After […]
Originally published on AfricaBusiness2020 via Skrife. Introducing… Nana Agyemang Prempeh, one of four co-founders of Asoriba, a startup on a mission to revolutionise churches in Africa. Asoriba has been voted Best Startup in Ghana twice by Seedstars and Ringier/Pulse, Best Startup in Africa by Seedstars, and were participants in Techstars’ first cohort in Africa. How would you describe […]
Published on the MEST Africa Blog. On Saturday, 25 March 2017, Dave McClure, Monique Woodard (Partners at 500 Startups) and other Geeks on a Plane made a stop at MEST as part of their first ever tour of sub-Saharan Africa. They stopped at MEST in Ghana, right after exploring the vibrant tech ecosystem in Lagos, Nigeria. Geeks on […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Harish Vemuri, a consultant from Bain and Company, spent six months with us as an Incubator Fellow. He, so generously, volunteered his time with us, working with 3 MEST Incubated startups on everything from product design, sales, financial projections to partnerships and growth hacking. Harish got into MEST via […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Culled From Our Mother Org: meltwater.comAt Meltwater, we hear so much about the developments at MEST that we may run the risk of being desensitized to the very real, very global impact the school, the incubator, and the Entrepreneurs-in-Training (EIT) are having. This is especially true when it comes to looking at […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. 01 March 2017, Accra – Chris Cox, Chief Product Officer at Facebook, visited the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Accra, Ghana today to meet with Ghanaian entrepreneurs and see how they are working to build sustainable technology businesses. The visit is part of a week-long trip […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Vineet Kumar, one of our most loved Incubator Fellows, leaves MEST this March after a year-long contract with us supporting our tech entrepreneurs and companies. Originally from India, an avid traveler and startup enthusiast, Vineet threw himself heartily into his work here – building up our entrepreneurs and community with enthusiasm. It is with hearts […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Starting in January this year, Ashwin Ravichandran resumes his new role as the new MEST Accra-Incubator General Manager. Ashwin joined the MEST team in July 2015 as a Technology Teaching Fellow niched in design, scale/strategy and innovative technologies. Fast-forward to 2017, and he joins the MEST management team […]
Novelist Philip Roth: You get them [people] wrong before you meet them: you get them wrong while you’re with them and then you get home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling […]
I am the kind of girl who gets a million good ideas in a day! My brain never sleeps, and I’m always thinking of new concepts and business ideas as I go about my daily business. As there are only ever 24 hours in a day though, I’ve never had enough time to work on […]
I spent last weekend at the beach with some friends. It was a much-needed break to unwind from the pressures of being adult, being human. Take as many breaks as you need to cope w life and adulting. But hey, come back from those breaks and participate 100%, when you're strong. — Irony (@kelechiudoagwu) April […]
Hello everyone! This is coming late but I still am pretty stoked about it. My presentation about MEST on the TEDx Accra stage went great. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I’d be. Here are a few things I learned while preparing my presentation: Practice makes everything better. It’s hard to flunk a speech […]
In pursuit of a successful future and a googleable name, most of us lose joy in the present.
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. Dziffa Akua Ametam is one of MEST’s new Communications Fellows. She’s also an entrepreneur, founder of Dziffa.com, a social enterprise that increases the global reach of local businesses by providing them with branding, marketing, and distribution services. Dziffa was awarded the 2014 Entrepreneur of the year by African Youth […]
Originally published on True Africa. ‘There’s definitely no pampering’ – how women in tech drive each other to achieve more Beavly is an online platform that connects people who want to learn skills with professionals who want to teach these skills. Run by Ijeoma Oguegbu and Barbara Okoto, it is one of two African startups accepted […]
Originally published on the MEST Africa Blog. This month, we are welcoming the newest member to the MEST family, Neku Atawodi, who is our first hire in Nigeria and will serve as General Manager for MEST’s Lagos Incubator. In this position, Neku will oversee incubator operations and strategy, startup support, stakeholder engagement, business development and fundraising efforts for MEST. She’ll […]
Originally published on True Africa. Tress is a hair inspiration app targeted at black women. It was created by Priscilla Hazel, Esther Olatunde and Cassandra Sarfo in Accra where they came together due to their shared love for dreaming, learning, building, traveling and innovating. This June Tress, which was founded at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), was accepted to the Y-Combinator fellowship, […]
Originally published on Bella Naija. Ever wondered why we eat with forks and knives? Why forks go with the left hand, and knives with the right? Ever wondered who makes these random rules, why everyone lives by them, and why you almost-always predictably follow them? Doing things different, just to stand out, is a foolish […]
Originally published on Bella Naija. I recently read a story on James Altucher’s blog where he shared how a friend of his made $2million in one morning, without any physical effort on his part. See a short excerpt from their dialogue below: Dave: “Oh! I forgot to tell you. I accidentally made 2 million dollars […]
Published on the MEST Africa Blog. MEST aspires to grow the number of women in tech participating in the MEST training programme and who are a part of the tech ecosystem in Africa. We have been fortunate to have our efforts yield results – from 10% female entrepreneurs-in-training (EITs) in 2008 to 30% in 2015. […]
