Boom! We made it to Uganda after not wanting to leave Kenya, was so much fun over there. Thanks to everyone that made sure of that, you all are the real MVP!
Now we are in Kampala Uganda, “the red city” I choose to call it because everywhere seems reddish or a “red shade of brown”. Well, I assume every country has its own color lol. So far it has been great, still no “pepper in the food” but chili on the side, and we are having a great time nonetheless. On the road with the tour, we’ve had to visit few awesome spaces to see the awesome stuff built here.
I must say, I never imagined there was this much going on here, one problem “how do they get it out of here”. Because of the “not so large” population unlike in Nigeria. Market reception is usually slow and takes a lot of convincing in Uganda as i’ve noticed so far. Well that only ensures marketing is aggressive. On the first day of the tour, we visited Hive Colab located at 90 Kanjokya St, Kampala.
We were well received by our hosts Africa’s Talking as usual, fixed a little bug in a prototype I’m working on with their awesome USSD service, you would see that soon! We got shown around the space and that I’ll talk about next.
Hive Collab
Sitting on the 4th floor of Kanjokya house, Hive Colab is an awesome co-working space in Kampala where “idea-creators” can come collaborate and bring that idea to life. Who knows, you could find your co-founder there! It features shared working spaces, individual offices, a boardroom, meeting rooms and an amazing view of the city. I could see my street from across the city! You can reach out to them on twitter with @hivecolab
While in Hive Colab, we had the opportunity to meet some amazing creators, let’s look at few of them.
The Student Hub
I found this one particularly interesting, what do they do? They help students decide a career path right from junior high school and walk with them through it to successful careers. I remember getting into “junior secondary school” with a goal to become an engineer, which one? I didn’t know. Just throw me some engineering course and I’m good lol. Ended up a Web developer 11years later with a Chemical Engineering degree yikes!
At The Student Hub, they “connect the dots for the student”, and I go, “I think we need this in Nigeria” since we are talking Africa now, “you should scale this across Africa” and how do you do that?
First, get a .africa domain from Gigalayer (because their service is awesome), think payments across Africa with Flutterwave and you have a huge dev community in forLoop to ensure your product becomes and stays world-class and there are so many other platforms not mentioned here that are key to scaling.
I believe there are ways businesses can expand across Africa through strategic partnerships with other innovators across the continent. Also, from secondary schools to tertiary institutions, all can play a role in moving us forward through systems like this. Pick a thing or two from this? Let the founder know by reaching him on twitter with @cymonkaweesi
Also, he is one of the new members of the forLoop community and is looking to actively participate in growing the community, stopping by at the forLoop-Kampala event on Saturday? You meet him there!
Neza Reservation
One time I was to attend an event in Abuja, registered for the event and all then came finding a hotel, obviously, hotels.ng have that process all simplified now but then I had a hard time doing that with all the abstractions in-between. With nezareservations all you need do is find the event, on the platform, register, still on the platform, get accommodation of your choice, still on the platform, then pack your bags and travel (not on the platform now). Kinda makes everything simpler and it’s in Rwanda already, and expanding across East Africa. Think this is cool and you’d like to be a part of it or work with them, ps- the founder, Watson is a really cool guy. Reach out to him on twitter with @watsonila.
On community involvement, he is also a member of the forLoop community in Kampala and I look forward to seeing him on Saturday.
Soon after the chat at Hive Colab, we moved to the Innovation Village at Ntinda Complex, Ntinda road which is the venue for the Kampala Innovation week. Had the opportunity to catch a session of a talk about intellectual property and protecting them.
From the talk I picked out something interesting. Sometimes you may not be the one develop your idea to its full potential, rather than hold on to it if your collaborators or co-founders are not forthcoming, sell it, yes sell it for a really good amount though, now you got money, you can build upon another idea you got. It’s risky but it could be worth it.
Lastly, Solomon kitumba you are the man! Thanks for the time so far!
We’ll be at the Kampala Innovation week for the remaining days and also at forLoop Kampala on Saturday. Feel you are working on something great we should know about, there is also just so much to talk about, reach out to me or Christian Nwamba and watch this space!
Adios, for now.
