Throughout the last nine months CAD, in partnership with Haiku Media, has supported infoDev’s Creating Sustainable Business in the Knowledge Economy (CSBKE) program to collect lessons learnt and analyze its outcomes and impacts throughout its various activities. The CSBKE project helped to increase the growth of small, innovative and technology businesses –primarily in the ICT and agribusiness sectors. Through the support of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship, this program aims to increase incomes, create and support jobs, improve gender inclusion and launch new products and services that will improve the quality of life of citizens.
As a result of the project, CAD has produced 9 Videos, 46 Case Studies, 5 Reports, and 2 Infographics. Below is the detailed list of 9 videos showing the results of the project.
Produced by: infoDev, The World Bank Group
Directed by: CAD Productions
Akirachix: Inspiring young women in technology by creating powerful networks across Africa.
Akirachix main objective is to promote a new female ICT workforce in Africa. The project also aims to be socially inclusive by bringing access to technology and entrepreneurship to the most disadvantaged. Akirachix, which stands for energetic and intellectual women, offers capacity building through a number of workshops on basic skills development and interdisciplinary trainings to Kenyan women.
Maxcom Africa: Enabling paying bills with a few clicks. MaxCom offers a technological platform that can process any payment option (cash, credit cards, card-less transactions), for supporting bankcard customers, mobile bank customers and mobile money agencies. The technological device provides services for paying electricity and water bills, mobile recharge vouchers or money transfers, TV subscriptions, banking services, or taxes and public service levies. The original model consists of creating a network of agents made up of local shop owners spread throughout the country that are utilized as the point of sale for final users.
Eneza Education: Providing quality education to 50 million kids across rural Africa. In Kenya, with an average of 50 students per class in rural and slum schools, teachers are unable to deliver individualized quality feedback to their students. Chris Asego is the co-founder to Eneza Education, a low-cost mobile platform whose aim is to spread quality educational resources to the most remote schools.
Gometro: Mobile travel solution that improves people’s commuting experience. GoMetro offers the application for free and generates revenue through the sale of advertising space to companies that want to reach commuters with information about their products and services.
Geekulcha: Connecting young mobile developers to their future. Geekulcha’s platform is both a source of updated IT and mobile industry information and a market place where demand for work will be met with a supply of young talents. Young developers will find jobs, resources, and ideas. IT and mobile sector companies and professionals will find a pool of untapped talent to create new value.
Microforester: Working to reduce poverty and unemployment through the planting of trees. Microforester promotes forestation initiatives while generating income for impoverished communities. For a small fee, users remotely plant trees and check their growth through a mobile application. People from rural communities are responsible for planting the trees, caring for them, and reporting back to the users with photos and films sent through the app.
Kopokopo: Dedicated to building software that helps small businesses grow and prosper in Kenya. Kopo Kopo originates from ‘kobboh kobboh,’ the Krio word for money. Ben Lyon and Dylan Higgins created the software company to help small businesses grow and prosper through better use of mobile money. During the first nine months, they used the iHub to incubate their idea; afterwards, mLab East Africa provided Kopo Kopo with the necessary office space and resources from the broader mobile innovation and entrepreneurship community in Kenya.
Paving the Way for ICT Growth through Business Incubation in Tanzania. DTBi is an independent autonomous entity of COSTECH with its own board that promotes the growth of ICT and technology-based emerging companies. At present, DTBi assists early stage ICT companies by lowering the cost of doing business and increasing the chances of survival by providing access to shared resources, facilitating access to finance and markets through credible support, guidance, business management and networking.
Making Mobile Mainstream: infoDev’s strategy to enhance mobile entrepreneurship. Mobile access has been linked with economic growth, and the industry itself boosts local economies by creating high-value jobs. Mobile software applications are becoming increasingly important in areas like healthcare, education, governance and banking. The Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy Program, funded by the government of Finland, and in partnership with Nokia, laid the foundation for the Mobile Innovation program, which piloted a network of mLabs and mobile hubs with full stakeholder engagement. Over 100 mobile applications have been developed as a result. Since 2013, the Swedish International Development Agency also supports activities gearing toward female entrepreneurs and developers in the mobile sector.
