Tagged: a4a2012

Interview with Prowork Founder Francis Onwumere [Video]

In a very short period of time, Francis Onwumere has lead Prowork to become one of Africa’s hottest startups. With offers coming from investors in Silicon Valley as well as Africa and being named one of the Top 50 Global Entrepreneurs by Global Forum, one might wonder what makes them such a prize. In an interview recorded late last year, Francis shares a bit of the ProWork story!

>

Congratulating the Apps4Africa 2012 Winners!

In 2012, the Apps4Africa: Business Challenge asked young tech developers to submit their business ideas aimed at solving local problems through a series of brainstorming sessions held in six countries across Africa. The brainstorming events, which engaged local stakeholders, partners, and local US Embassies, focused mainly on engaging and encouraging the next young tech CEOs and teams of change makers that could innovate, create, and transform their technology businesses to provide more employment opportunities and strengthen the economy of their region.

 

We’re excited to announce that of the near 300 submitted applications, from nearly 1000 people, three winners have been elected for funding:

Ffene
Team - Titus Mawano
Country - Uganda
Award - $10,000
Website - http://ffene.com

Ffene is a low cost business management platform that enables small and medium businesses to leverage technology to reduce overhead costs incurred due to administrative tasks, freeing up resources that can be redirected to growth initiatives. Currently, Ffene can be used for accounting, customer relationship management, product management and generation of reports.

SliceBiz
Team - William Edem Senyo, Heather Cochran
Country - Ghana
Award - $10,000
Website - http://www.facebook.com/SliceBiz

SliceBiz, is a disruptive crowdsourcing web and mobile investment platform providing alternative funding for startups. Our mission is to unlock a whole new funding market for startups to access finance by creating the framework that will make it easy and appealing for middle class Africans to invest small amounts of their disposable income into high-growth startups with proven potential to give high return on investment. The solution SliceBiz is offering is to leverage web/mobile (& offline) platforms to create a connection between startups looking for funding and business-savvy young professionals/middle class looking to invest.

Prowork
Team - Francis Onwumere, Opeyemi Obembe, Ernest Ojeh
Country - Nigeria
Award - $10,000
Website - http://prowork.me

Prowork is a mobile first enterprise class project management and collaboration solution for businesses. It’s like Basecamp or Atlassian’s confluence but mobile and easier to use, more powerful, with real time collaboration everywhere, anywhere. Prowork is accessible via mobile, the web, SMS and a robust API to allow developers to extend the functionality.

Apps4Africa 2012 Finalist Announcement!

Appfrica and the U.S. Department of State, with the support of the World Bank, would like to extend our congratulations to the 30 final innovations that have been selected from the Apps4Africa 2012 Competition!

Our expert judges are now voting on the innovations that should be invested in this year.  BIG thanks to The U.S. Department of State, The World Bank (Africa), Nic Haralambous, Liz Ngonzi, Loren Treisman, Makhtar Diop, and Wayne Sutton for your participation in the judging process!

The (30) Final Innovations are:
PENYA Financial (Zimbabwe)
TYAN - OpenApp (Zambia)
The Business Planner (Zimbabwe)
Ama Sampo (Zambia)
Ujamaa (Senegal)
Spell Africa (Nigeria)
1School/Oneskool (Nigeria)
AWPN (Nigeria)
Zambianized (Zambia)
Alsvas (Central African Republic)
Ffene (Uganda)
Prowork (Nigeria)
Esaja (Zimbabwe)
Yaalda (Cameroon)
Prep-hub (South Africa)
Youth Village (South Africa)
Intumwa (Rwanda)
Click Tradex (Ghana)
Exportunity (Benin)
SliceBiz (Ghana)
Learnitug (Uganda)
StudyMate (Zambia)
BrainShare (Uganda)
Yeboao/KKYB (Ghana)
MyCareer (Uganda)
Jobs-in-Nigeria (Nigeria)
Miguide (Ghana)
Opportunity Pour Tous (Cote d’Ivoire)
Bloorx/Searchlamp (Nigeria)
XCommodity (Tanzania)

What Happens Next?

Out of these finalists, 3 innovations will be selected and funded with $10,000USD each. Appfrica will continue to engage these innovators, providing mentorship, additional exposure and additional funding opportunities.

Look out for our (3) selections to be funded in the coming weeks!

The Apps4Africa 2012 team: (L to R) Marieme Jamme, Thomas Genton, Barbara Birungi, Jon Gosier, Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson