Business & founders stories across Africa
Section
Founders solving health, food and education problems at scale.
Wawira Njiru started with a fundraising dinner in Adelaide and a borrowed kitchen in Ruiru. Today Food for Education serves a subsidised hot lunch to children…
After a difficult childbirth and years studying maternal health, Temie Giwa-Tubosun built LifeBank to find blood and deliver it to Nigerian hospitals fast. In 2019 it…
The South African technologist co-founded one of the country’s first free mobile VoIP services, built a learning company, and now co-leads an education charity serving children…
In January 2021 Odunayo Eweniyi and Eloho Oname launched FirstCheck, an angel platform for women-led and women-focused startups across Africa.
A co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, Sheila Johnson later started Salamander Hotels and Resorts and became a leading donor to education and women’s causes.
An American start-up whose most visible work began in Africa: delivering blood, vaccines and medicines to rural clinics in Rwanda and Ghana.
From Daveyton to the boardroom, Wendy Luhabe founded Bridging the Gap in 1991 and Women Investment Holdings in 1993, launching an R120 million private equity fund…
Imagine Worldwide delivers literacy and numeracy through tablet-based learning in Sub-Saharan Africa, and won the 2024 Klaus J. Jacobs Best Practice Prize.
Born in London, the physician and entrepreneur founded Flying Doctors in Lagos in 2007 and later co-founded a venture firm that invested in Paystack.
In the weeks after Kenya’s disputed 2007 election, a small group in Nairobi built a tool to collect reports by text message and plot them on…
The youngest of nine children of a Durban teacher, Vivian Reddy built Reddy’s Electrical into Edison Power, and has backed clinics, schools and an AIDS orphans…
The Kenyan lawyer and blogger co-created the Ushahidi crisis-mapping platform and co-founded Mzalendo, a parliamentary watchdog site, before moving into venture investing.
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