[kictanet] Inaugural DEMO Africa 2012 sets a precedent in bringing startup and innovation ecosystem actors together

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

2012 DEMO Africa winners: mPawa, Flowgear, Qabila, Sasa Africa, Maliyo
Games inaugural DEMO Lions Dennis Mbuvi
October 27, 2012 0 Comments and 0
Reactions<http://www.cio.co.ke/news/main-stories/2012-demo-africa-winners-mpawa,-flowgear,-qabila,-sasa-africa,-maliyo-games-inaugural-demo-lions#disqus_thread>
[image: DEMO Africa Lions]
The first ever DEMO Africa Lions with DEMO Africa organisers. The five
startups are headed to Silicon Valley.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Five startups drawn from across Africa have made it to the inaugural group
of DEMO Africa Lions. This comes after two days of more than 42 pitches at
the event held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC). DEMO
is an annual event now held in five continents where startups apply to
launch new products and solutions. The five startups will be heading to
Silicon Valley where they will receive mentorship and exposure to potential
investors.

mPawa is based in Accra, Ghana and co-founded by Maxwell Kofi Efrem Donkor,
Anthony Agyekum-Mensah, Nancy Neizer and Shadrack Boadu. The startup seeks
to solve Africa’s jobless problem by focussing on the informal sector,
which is the biggest employer in Africa. mPawa lists informal jobs such as
carpenter’s on a portal where those who need such skills can find people to
carry out their tasks. Maxwell says mPawa has already matched 2,000 job
seekers in the previous 3 months, has raised $90,000 is looking to raise
$100,000. (http://mpawa.com/https://twitter.com/mpawa_africa )

Flowgear, from Gauteng, South Africa was among the few startups  targeted
squarely at the Enterprise. Co-founded by Daniel Chilcott and JJ Milner,
the startup is looking to exploit a $2.79 billion opportunity (Gartner,
2011) in the Cloud integration sector . Chilcott says the startup provides
cloud management tools for firms allowing them to interconnect the
different cloud solutions they have deployed, such Salesforce and
SharePoint. Flowgear provides a codeless dashboard which allows a fast
deployment. Drawings can also be imported from Visio and implemented in
Flowgear. The SnapLogic competitor says its has received  $ 200,000 funding
to date. (http://flowgear.nethttps://twitter.com/flowgear )

Qabila is a multimedia content crowdsourcing platform based in Cairo, Egypt
and co-founded by Mahmoud Elshafie, Perihan AbouZeid, Mostafa Saeed, Amar
Abu Shady and Ahmad Fatehlab. Perihan says that Qabila came about as a
platform to provide better content than what was been shown on Egyptian TV.
The platform was founded almost around the Egyptian Arab spring and rose in
popularity with the spring with their content being featured in Al Jazeera.
Qabila currently has 20,000 contributors and current clients include the
World Bank, UNESCO and UNDP. The startup has funded itself to date and is
looking for an additional $250,000 in funding.
(http://qabila.tv https://twitter.com/QabilaTv )

Sasa Africa is an ecommerce platform connecting offline craftsperson to
online consumers. Through the use of a mobile phone, craftspeople upload
their products through SMS and MMS. Consumers then find the various crafts
on sasaafrica.com. After a product is bought and paid for, a crafts person
then receives a text message. They then have 48 hours to take the product
to a mobile money kiosk where they are also able to collect their payments.
The startup currently retails jewellery.

Sasa Africa has so far been in testing and plans to launch in the coming
week. Based in Nairobi, Kenya and founded by Ella Peinovich, Catherine
Mahugu and Gwendolyn Floyd, the startup predicts to have 600 retailers by
end year and 3500 products.  Sasa Africa has raised $125,000 through grants
and prizes and is looking at raising $500,000. SasaAfrica target is 84
percent of women in Sub Saharan Africa which it says work in the informal
sector hoping to serve 100,000 artisans by 2015. (http://sasaafrica.com
http://twitter.com/SasaAfrica )

Maliyo Games was the only gaming entrant in DEMO Africa. Based in Lagos,
Nigeria, Oluseye Soyode-Johnson says that Africans are in need of locally
relevant multimedia content. This he says is evident from the multi-million
dollar film and song industry in Nigeria. He therefore believes that a
casual gaming platform providing African themed games on mobile and PC has
lots of potential. Amongst such games is the “mosquito smasher” game where
players thump mosquitos across various levels, each with its own theme. A
social impact aspect in the game is a multi choice quiz on mosquitos and
malaria in between each level. Maliyo games says the casual gaming industry
is worth $20 billion. The startup is seeking  $300,000 in funding.  (
http://www.maliyo.com/  https://twitter.com/maliyogames )



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