VARIOUS-GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT ADVANCER Budding entrepreneurs pitch to mobile start-up investors ahead of global summit

Record ID: 149370

  • Title: VARIOUS-GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT ADVANCER Budding entrepreneurs pitch to mobile start-up investors ahead of global summit
  • Date: 24th July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF AFRICA FASHION CO-FOUNDER GRAYSON JULIUS USING AFRICA FASHION MOBILE APP
  • Embargoed: 8th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9MKYBHTQMJKLQVF1EJBI4ZJ71
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Grayson Julius and Jackson Twalipo give their presentation at the Pivot East conference, an annual event that seeks to nurture entrepreneurs in East Africa by promoting mobile start-ups.
    Julius is a graduate of Computer engineering and together with Jackson Twalipo, they are the founders of Africa Fashion mobile App. Using inspiration from simple everyday problems, they have created a Mobile app to help fashion lovers spot the latest trends and connect with their favorite African fashion designers.
    "My sister loves fashion very much, she is a fashion admirer but she never knew where to see new African fashion. So me and my friend saw this problem and we decide to come up with the solution on how to get these African designs together. So we created an app that brings all these fashions from all over Africa to a single place so she could easily embrace and see what is trending out there," said Twalipo.
    The app provides a platform for users to embrace African culture by sharing their outfits, hairstyles and ornaments.
    Grayson and Jackson are some of the contestants taking part in Pivot East 2015, a pitching competition aimed at bringing together mobile entrepreneurs from across the East African region.
    The competition requires participants to pitch their idea to a panel of judges and a crowd of influential investors and tech enthusiasts in a fifteen minute session highlighting the uniqueness and business viability of their mobile app.
    Various entrepreneurs have gathered in Nairobi ahead of a visit by U.S. President Barack Obama to the east African nation this weekend.
    Obama will co-host the Global Entrepreneurship Summit with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
    Obama's visit has been touted by Kenya as global recognition of the economic strides Kenya has made in the past decade.
    "Participating in this challenge got us to learn more and do more research that it is not about coding, it's not only about software engineering, you have to know a lot of stuff about business development, how to develop your start-up from the ground, how to bring it to be alive for other people to get to know about your product." said Julius.
    Still in its infancy, the start-up is incubated at Buni hub, a tech incubator space in Dar es Salaam where its founders have been receiving mentoring and capacity building. They came to Nairobi hoping to convince venture capitalists at the event to invest in their start-up.
    Kenya's start-up community is comprised of accelerators/incubators and venture firms, most of which are based in Nairobi and have regular initiatives such as workshops, exhibitions and pitching competitions.
    Venture capital firms are typically looking for good returns on their investment and evaluate start-ups by their market readiness.
    Andreata Muforo is a member of the judging panel and is a venture capitalist at TLcom holdings in Nairobi.
    "Some of the start-ups that I have seen so far are quite focused on their market but there are some that you could scale within Africa because just one market is not enough, we are 54 countries so the markets are very small. Interesting businesses are ones that you can scale regionally and scale across the continent," she said.
    Africa has nearly 90 technology hubs and research spaces often funded by international firms such as Microsoft, Google and Intel to incubate early-stage firms.
    Dubbed the 'Silicon Savannah' of Africa by newspapers and magazine editorials, the tech scene in Nairobi has attracted tech entrepreneurs looking to develop their innovations and scale up their business.
    There will be 360 million smart phones on the continent, according to McKinsey consultants and with the increasing number of mobile phone owners, software developers are seeing a potential market in building applications for mobile technology.
    Winners of the competition will receive up to one year of free services from Kenyan public cloud computing and solutions provider, Angani.
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