By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
South Africa leads the field with 59 tech hubs, accelerators, and incubators; followed by Nigeria (55), Egypt (34), and Kenya (30); in a budding sector that spans all the four corners of Africa.
From Senegal to Uganda, and from Tunisia to Ghana, over 130 new tech hubs have opened on the continent since 2017, bringing the total to 442 at the moment.
But many have been little more than “community centres” that provide stable power supply, internet access, workspaces, and help with grants to tech entrepreneurs.
On existing models, some hubs service clients in Europe and the United States, and make some dollars, but others like Nigeria’s Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) are scaling up to innovate, design, and develop original input – to remain truly competitive.
Funds are coming in from Direct Foreign Investments (FDIs), the World Bank, and aid agencies, including France’s $76 million African tech fund.
Microsoft has earmarked $100 million to open an Africa Technology Development Centre (ADC) with sites in Nigeria and Kenya over the next five years to 2024.
Nigeria’s tech startups raised $178 million in funding rounds in 2018, according to a report by Techpoint Africa.
And for tech rigour, a camp for 200 computer engineers and scientists from Nigeria, South Africa and seven other African countries has been arranged by IBM for December 2019 in Johannesburg to brainstorm on quantum coding.
IBM’s Q Network will collaborate with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to give African academics and researchers access to quantum computing.
A shift to innovation
However, as Quartz Africa reports, while innovation has been at the heart of discussions on African development over the last decade, the focus has been on the benefits and impact of digital technology as internet penetration rises.
That type of digital innovation has relied on the fast-growing crop of startups in tech hubs in Nairobi, Cape Town, and Lagos, led by young entrepreneurs with ideas and young businesses that hope to change industry sectors and even entire countries.
One element of the discussion not often highlighted is the importance of design in helping these innovative businesses differentiate themselves and develop original products and services that have an impact way beyond their own shores.
In the early days of local tech hubs, many startups recreated African versions of existing U.S. businesses or business models.
CcHUB in Kigali
Co-Creation Hub (CcHub), based in Lagos, home to some of Nigeria’s best-known startups, is focusing on building a design culture from scratch on the other side of the continent.
In February 2019, it opened a design hub and innovation centre in Kigali, Rwanda.
Bosun Tijani, Co-Founder of CcHub, says the new centre aligns with the original vision of CcHub to leverage on technology to meet Africa’s challenges in education, health, and governance “while unlocking social and economic value.”
“Africa cannot remain as consumers, we need to grow into producers of solutions,” he says.
“With the design lab, we are looking to deepen our work, to allow us support the smart application of technology especially for prosperity across multiple countries.”
Techies have realised the need for specialisation at some of these hubs to train and build a knowledge base from artificial intelligence and hardware to robotics and design.
There are few specialist hubs, like Gearbox in Nairobi, which focus on hardware or the “maker” sub-genre.
CcHub’s design lab in Kigali includes a research and development unit made up of a multidisciplinary team of researchers, product engineers, and designers.
Unlike its hub in Lagos, where startups are incubated at various stages of growth, the lab is a space for collaboration where solutions for social impact are created.
Design hubs as mini R&Ds
“A design hub is a mini R&D centre. This is a huge need for the African continent where there is a lack of R&D investment,” says Rebecca Enonchong, who chairs Afrilabs, a pan-African network of around 90 hubs across 30 countries.
She believes the success of the design lab in Kigali will lead to more specialist hubs springing up. “I really hope that we will see a multiplication of these innovation labs across the continent.”
Aaron Fu, Managing Director of MEST Africa, adds that “a key advantage African startups have when competing with global players is their keen awareness of the specific design elements that work well in the unique commercial ecosystems and cultural environments.
“Design labs help crystallise that awareness into actionable insights that have the potential to drive competitive advantage.”
MEST Africa is an incubator programme for technology entrepreneurs.
Investors also want to see more specialisation across the African startup landscape, not just in disciplines and knowledge but also in certain hubs focusing on different maturity levels of startups.
“We want to help angels decide which level of startup to invest in by developing a taxonomy,” says Tomi Davies, a Co-Founder of Lagos Angel Network, a collective of local angel investors.
“I’m expecting you’re going to see an increasing number of partnerships between hubs and angel groups this year.”
CcHub aims to use its lab in Kigali for design approaches to generate ideas, test and prototype solutions that will create value for people and their communities, including areas such as healthcare, education, and governance.
For now, the new lab is looking to solving problems in public health, especially in digital epidemiology by collaborating with scientists, researchers, and developers to help accelerate the adoption of local solutions for better detection and surveillance of diseases.
Tijani acknowledges the deficit in tech specialisation on the continent and the hub is pioneering a distributed innovation system.
“It lets us draw knowledge and capability from partners all over the world in our bid to further support innovation beyond start-ups,” he says.
“Our lab will build on an extensive network of partners to solve and execute practical projects that will solve African social and business challenges at scale.”
As this adoption presents an opportunity to track and defeat disease outbreaks, the possibilities are endless.
“We can’t wait to see more specialist programmes and spaces rise on the continent,” Fu adds.
Expansive landscape
The continent has an expansive digital innovation scene, the components of which are intersecting rapidly across Africa’s 54 countries and 1.2 billion people, according to TechCrunch.
When measured by monetary values, Africa’s tech ecosystem is tiny by Shenzen or Silicon Valley standards.
But when you look at volumes and year over year expansion in venture capital (VC), startup formation, and tech hubs, it is one of the fastest growing tech markets in the world.
In 2017, the continent also saw the largest global increase in internet users – 20 per cent.
If you are a venture capitalist or founder in London, Bangalore, or San Francisco, you will likely interact with some part of Africa’s tech landscape for the first time – or more – in the near future.
TechCrunch put together this Extra-Crunch deep-dive on Africa’s technology sector.
Prominent tech hubs
A foundation for African tech is the continent’s 442 active hubs, accelerators, and incubators (as tallied by GSMA). These spaces have become focal points for startup formation, digital skills building, events, and IT activity on the continent.
Prominent tech hubs in Africa include CcHub in Nigeria, Pan-African incubator MEST, and Kenya’s iHub, with over 200 resident members.
Apart from IBM and Microsoft, another bluechip company, Google, is also providing money and support.
And in 2018, Facebook opened its own Hub_NG in Lagos with partner, CcHub, to foster startups using AI and machine learning.