At GITEX Africa in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh this week, innovations in remittances and healthcare that meet the continent’s demands highlighted the booming sector.
African startups, responding to overlooked needs, are shining a spotlight on a growing tech scene, despite challenges such as inequality and limited digitization.
At the GITEX Africa exhibition in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh this week, innovations in remittances and healthcare that meet the continent’s demands highlighted the booming sector.
One of those at the show, Jean-Charles Mendy, launched an app with his business partner three years ago, giving people working abroad better control over the money they send to their families back home.
“The market for Africans sending money to the diaspora is huge,” the 40-year-old Senegalese businessman told AFP on the sidelines of the gathering that brought together some 1,500 start-ups, companies and banks.
The app, currently only available in the Senegalese diaspora, allows immediate payment of bills, including electricity or telephone costs, or conversion to vouchers for supermarket purchases.
Remittances to sub-Saharan Africa reached $50 billion last year, according to the World Bank.
People in the diaspora “find that they are sacrificing too much for their money to be used,” Mendy said.
“If you’re not Senegalese, you wouldn’t imagine that this is a problem that people face,” he said.
“All the solutions we have put in place are a combination of European solutions used to meet African needs, thanks to technology.”
Rapid growth
The International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, says Africa’s startup ecosystem, particularly in mobile payments, is the fastest growing in the world.
However, significant inequality plagues the continent, which is characterized by a widespread lack of digitization and a difficult economic environment.
Private equity firm Partech Africa says the continent’s tech ecosystem was valued at $3.5 billion last year, down 46 percent from 2022, with half of its active investors missing out.
Bennie Mmbaga, chief investment officer at Maua Mazuri, a biotech startup aiming to boost banana yields, said that when it was founded in 2020, foreign investors “didn’t understand the need” for its innovative approach.
“In East Africa, bananas are used for everything,” and although Tanzania has some of the largest banana plantations in the world, yields are far behind other countries, partly due to a virus that is particularly rampant as of 2020, he added.
Today, his startup helps 1,000 farmers with resistant seeds and brings in up to $655,000 in revenue annually.
“Investors are now realizing that there is a need,” he added.
Healthcare technology is another growing sector in Africa, where more than half of the 1.4 billion people today live in poverty and lack medical coverage, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, or UNECA.
“Governments spend only 6% of their GDP on healthcare,” said Mactar Seck, head of innovation and technology at UNECA.
“We have to do something. Half of Africa’s population does not have health care coverage.”
Health Care
Renee Ngamau founded CheckUps, a company that provides “tech-enabled” medication and delivery services in remote areas of Kenya and South Sudan.
Through the mobile app, patients find access to affordable medical coverage without age or medical record criteria, get small loans from a partner bank or get in touch with the nearest nurse instantly.
The company also provides services to relatives of the principal beneficiaries.
“We understand the ecosystem we’re in,” Ngamau, 53, said. “The African family is structured differently, so we allow our beneficiaries to share their benefits with their parents, their neighbors, whoever is important to them.”
In Kinshasa, doctor and entrepreneur Ulrich Kouesso launched LukaPharma, an app with a map of nearby pharmacies where medication is available in the DRC capital.
Queso said the app solves three problems: wasting time looking for pharmacies in the city of 15 million people, the phenomenon of “fake pharmacies” operating without a license, and finding much-needed drugs, especially cancer drugs.
“People don’t know the possibilities that technology can provide in solving their problems,” Queso said.
“Knowing that the population of Congo is about 100 million, imagine the potential lives that can be saved with such an application,” he added. “And also the possibilities in business activity.”
© 2024 AFP
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