B is for Building Event Recap
The weather forecast was spot on; it was a wet day indeed!
And to make things more inconvenient, the heavens opened up again — at precisely the wrong time. The ‘wrong time’ because on a Friday, 5:30 pm is prime time to make that perfect escape from the office to an event which was billed to kick off at 6 pm.
However, the rain did little to dampen the spirits of BTNG community members, who like Bruce Willis of Die Hard, still manage to find a way. Slowly but surely, the hallway of our venue for the evening — Google Campus London — filled up.
The knock on effect of the elements meant the evening started a bit late, however, we had an interesting game to fill the time and get to know each other. Plus unlimited drinks courtesy of our hosts to keep us refreshed. Soon it was time to kickoff:
Bunmi Aworanti was our first speaker of the night and she talked about Cocoabean Projets. With successes such as speaking at Edinburgh Fringe festival, Bunmi explored how she came about her project which is best described as drama + tech + storytelling. And what her next evolution steps for Cocoabean Projets (we especially liked her target of performing in Nigeria next in the nearest future).
Next was Dayo Akinrinade of AfricIick who spoke about her African and Caribbean focused dating & Networking app. Dayo walked us through the peculiarities and social cue that makes the dating experience of her focused niche different.
And it’s all the little things like tribe, religion, blood group, etc carefully built into Africlick’s approach that makes this one of the most anticipated launches. Sign up here to register your interest.
Stephan Eyeson of Survey54 which aims to be the destination insight for Africa was our last speaker of the night. Stephan spoke about the struggles of balancing a demanding job and juggling with his side project.
One interesting highlight of Stephan’s time was how he dissected the steps he took to get his founding team (LinkedIn works magic!).
As it’s usual for all our speakers series events, the community members had loads and loads of questions.
Then it was time for Lightning talks, we had the following:
- Ozo one of BTNG’s organising members spoke about Hackathon 2019 which happens to be our next event. Register here
- Tobi spoke about AgriTech and sustainability of grain in particular
- Onyeka who runs nlist an African movie and casting database is interested in contributors.
- Jennifer a project manager for a Essa non-profit is looking for technical leads. Reach out to find out more.
Thanks to all members of our community, and for all new members that showed up — we look forward to seeing you again.
Special thanks must go to Google for Startups for being such gracious hosts. And gratitude to Bayo of Do it Now Now (DiNN) for all your help.
Like BTNG, DiNN is working to support Africa tech startups. If you have any questions about the Startups for Africa initiative and how Do it Now Now and Google for Startups are supporting Africa tech startups in London, get in touch — bayo@doitnownow.com
Finally, we close this event with an invite for our biggest event for the year — The BTNG annual Hackathon at Microsoft Reactor.
