Afric’up: My call to the Africans sci-tech diaspora

7 min readOct 1, 2019

Africa’s sci-tech is raising. The young generation of sci-tech and entrepreneurs is the power beneath!

The catharsis

During three days in Tunis I’ve been immersed in an incredible and powerful…. reality. There are some non-visible worlds of young Africans inventors and entrepreneurs working hard to build the future of the continent.

I’ve been so delighted and impressed by the level of creativity and maturity of these new generation that I feel the duty to write this short testimonial.

Many of Africans left their countries for many reasons. Each story is different and belong the individual. My self I’ve been working in Europe for many years. I’ve learned a lot being here and all the professional skills I have today come from there.

I’m now an European citizen but I never forgot the place to which I belong.

Full of the experience and knowledge I’ve gathered, I feel the necessity of giving back. I know the disappointment of some of my friends or friends of them had in the past in trying to start some projects in their native countries. They all faced many obstacles (quite the same in any country):

administrative : unclear processes make difficult the enterprises creation.
eco-sytems: lack of data to understand who are the main actors in a given field
politics : instability has been for myself (and many others) the main blocking factor. But now I realize that it’s a wrong reason. Unless there is an open war ongoing, it is always possible to do things…
local support: no special political strategy to welcome the expatriate
partners : making partnerships is not simple. A lack of real events in sci-tech in many Africans countries makes it harder for an expatriate to connect and get acquaintance with the good partners.
internet access* (the actual plans are so expensive! The telcos in Africa should make an effort to reduce the costs… )

etc. A long list… :-(

As said there are many reasons to be discouraged but there are more to be optimistic.

Afric’up has been for me a kind of catharsis. These young Africans creators and entrepreneurs gave me the absolute certitude that it’s now possible to help in building the new Africa.

The call

What we’ve learned outside is a key value for that. Our international networks have to be shared as a leverage for this young generation.

From medtech to agri-tech, from artificial intelligence to digital creation , all the science and technology fields are boiling.

I’ll be focused on gathering the Africans diaspora sci-tech folk in a visible community and after will clarify my vision of the concrete actions we can take to achieve.

There are many other clubs essentially focused on investments, VC, business angels etc but a large part seem there to be there to empower their founders/boards than coming with real solutions. Only few of them are valuable. I don’t want that. Sci-tech is a field where you can see concrete actions.

Even if I respect the humanitarian projects, please don’t come with this mindset. Africa can do better by itself.

In this process I’ll be promoting the immersive and augmented learning as a key tools for the knowledge transfer, because I’m convinced that this approach is one of the best way for that.

Coming back to Afric’up…

Like said Naji Bouchiba a seasoned “User eXperience Researcher” working also with the incredible association 10000 codeurs ,

“Afric’up an event at the top in Africa! , speakers, superb workshops, a fantastic place, Startups as amazing as each other, meetings, exchanges and what about the management team, the young supervisors, all kind and generous!”

History:

During the Heads of States Summit which were held in Kigali in May 14, 2019 at Transform Africa, it was decided to entrust Tunisia to put forward an event, which is Afric’Up, dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship and the promotion of the talents of African Youths to the eyes of the world.
This decision places Afric’Up at the heart of the Smart Africa Alliance’s agenda and strategy, in order to support the emergence of future African champions by promoting skills, creativity and success stories.
Afric’Up — Africa Startup Summit in Tunis, took place on 24 & 25 September, it is the return of the largest event related to innovation and African Tech, under the aegis and invitation of the Tunisian Government, Smart Africa Alliance, GIZ & Make IT.
This year, conferences and workshops led by more than 150 speakers and renowned investors will focus on the theme “Smart Cities & Open Innovation in Africa, what opportunities for startups? ».

This second edition went beyond all the expectations. I’m sure the next will be better!

The enterprises and startups

During these two days I’ve met so many promising Africans science and tech young people with so many valuable projects that I can’t write all in this short article.

Link : https://www.africup.tn/en/startup-stage/

The speakers

The quality of the speakers was at the best level!

The moderators like Léocadie Ebakissé and Farida Akadiri like others were very professional!

https://www.africup.tn/en/speakers/

The investors

Very rare but quite all the investors I saw there were very accessible to to entrepreneurs and that was a real surprise to me!

The best example came from Mr. Tomi Davies who spent his time listening and talking to the entrepreneurs.

I’ve got the rare privilege to meet in a face-face meeting with a brilliant African investor : Abdu Samb.

https://www.africup.tn/en/investors/

SmartAfrica

SMART Africa is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socioeconomic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through affordable access to Broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies.

Led by its Director General Mr. Lacina Koné has been a key factor for the success of this event.

Tunisia!!

#Tunisia is a definitely a leading place for Africa’s digital transformation, trust me! The people I’ve meet there, the companies are really at the top level of their markets!

Like:

Black Dune Studio : a powerful XR studio capable in providing a great quality of XR software.

NetInfo founded by Samia Chelbi (the leading voice of the Tunisian digital creation scene) : is a great digital creation and XR school providing a rare quality of training for all the continent (more than 5000 alumni since its creation) which has organized the “3D African Talents” with the great (and tall ;-)) Maguette Mbow founder of L’Afrique c’est chic World.

And many more!!

There are so many things to say about this incredible event that I recommend to follow the hashtag #africup to see the testimonial of the other participants.

Thanks to my investors and speakers peers

David Coleman Jean-Philippe de Schrevel Arthur C. Chupeau Thierry Barbaut Mareme Dieng Olivier Furdelle Carl Rodrigues Cathrin Frisemo Celine Duros Acheampong Lena Oscarsson Rodrigue Fouafou Africa Connects Daniel Matalon Ido Sum Rishi Raithatha Paul Bougnoux Thibault Verbiest Aboubaker Benslimane Carla Walker Enrique Alvarado Hablutzel Sofien V. SIDHOUM Morgane ROLLANDO

Farida Akadiri Amédée Santalo Maguette MBOW Abdou SAMB Dr Tina Allton — Award winning Mentor Ammin Youssouf Bienvenue Angui Christophe Viarnaud Claire-Anaïs Costa Guerreiro Benoît Martin ahmed mehdi omarouayache Raoul Rugamba Chris Kouassi COKSON

To the amazing team of 10000 codeurs:

Douglas Mbiandou, Fanta Mbiandou, Nelly Chatue-Diop, Olivier BRONZINI 웃⇌웃,

A kudos to Mr. Sidick Bakayogo Founder and CEO at Paradise Game based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, a top leading voice for e-gaming in Africa. #onestensemble ;-)