Bright Simons built mPedigree so that anyone could check a medicine with a text message.
A Ghanaian technologist who studied astrophysics, Bright Simons founded mPedigree to help people verify products and expose counterfeit medicines.
·1 min read
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Takealot launched in June 2011. It took 13 years for the main site to turn a profit.
Started in Cape Town by a former MWEB chief executive and an investment firm, Takealot grew into South Africa’s largest online retailer. Patience was part of…
·1 min read
Jim Ovia lost his father at four and started work as a bank clerk. He founded Zenith Bank.
Born in Agbor, Jim Ovia worked his way from a clerk’s desk in Lagos to founding Zenith Bank in 1990, and later a university and a…
·1 min read
Why Nairobi is called the Silicon Savannah, and what Konza Technopolis is for.
M-Pesa, mobile phones, iHub and a planned technology city, Konza, helped earn Kenya the nickname Silicon Savannah.
·2 min read
Cosmas Maduka hawked akara at six, after his father died. He founded Coscharis Motors with 300 naira.
A failed first start-up and a dismissal at 17 did not stop Cosmas Maduka. The Coscharis Group now distributes major car brands and runs farms.
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Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu started soleRebels in a workshop on her grandmother’s land. It now sells in dozens of countries.
From Zenebework in Addis Ababa, Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu built a footwear brand with soles made from recycled tyres and hired skilled artisans from her own community.
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An ATM in Scotland gave Mitchell Elegbe an idea. Interswitch became a Lagos payments company with its own card.
Founded in 2002, Interswitch started as a transaction switch and grew to include Quickteller, a retail payments platform, and Verve, a home-grown card scheme.
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Esther Ocloo began by selling marmalade in Accra in 1943. She co-founded Women’s World Banking.
From a small gift and a pot of marmalade to the first food-processing factory in the Gold Coast, Esther Ocloo became a pioneer of microlending for…
·2 min read
Folorunso Alakija started as a secretary in Lagos. She became a fashion designer and then an oil-block owner.
From executive secretary to fashion house founder to holder of an offshore oil licence, Folorunso Alakija’s career shows how many chapters one business life can have.
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Uchumi was rescued from receivership in 2006 and relisted in 2011. Why a turnaround is not the end of the story.
Founded in 1975 by three state-owned firms, Uchumi has been through receivership, a government-led rescue and a return to profit. A business lesson in turnarounds.
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How Yaba, a Lagos suburb with a technical college, became the home of Nigerian tech.
Yaba’s universities, fibre connectivity and the Co-Creation Hub helped make it Lagos’s technology cluster, nicknamed “Yabacon Valley”.
·2 min read
Theo Baloyi sold perfume door to door as a student. He built the Bathu sneaker brand from his uncle’s back room in Alexandra.
An accounting graduate who spent time at PwC in Dubai, Theo Baloyi founded Bathu in 2015. It now has more than 30 stores across South Africa…
·1 min read