9 years ago

5 on-demand startups going big in Africa

On-demand – think Uber and taxi-hailing apps – is huge worldwide. In the United States, the on-demand economy is booming, with funding for the sector reaching almost US$10 billion since 2010. There is increasing evidence this process is happening in Africa too.

Uber, active in Africa in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, gets most of the attention in this respect. Yet there are a myriad of other taxi apps, notably Easy Taxi, Maramoja, Snappcab and Taxify. Beyond taxis, however, Africa’s on-demand economy is also booming. We take a look at five of the best outside the taxi sector that are making waves.

Safe Motos

Like Uber, but for motorcycle taxis, and with a twist. The SafeMotos app went live only this week in Rwanda, but with US$85 000 already secured in funding, the team behind it is already plotting expansion across the continent.

The SafeMotos app at its core is Uber, allowing users to request motorcycle taxis via their smartphone, after which they pay using automated mobile money or cash. But moving away from the Uber model, the startup has also developed a safety proposition designed to tackle the road safety issues that surround motorcycle taxis in Rwanda and elsewhere.

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Learning from the vehicle telematics industry, SafeMotos uses a driver’s smartphone to track driving habits and register data, pushing bad drivers onto the outskirts of the system. There are 20,000 motorcycle taxi drivers in Kigali, but the startup is already looking wider targeting the likes of Uganda, Benin and Nigeria.

Uganda’s version of Uber for motorcycles, SafeBoda, is also paying off for both customers and drivers.

WumDrop

In South Africa, WumDrop is an on-demand couriering startup. Via web, Android app or iOS app, WumDrop allows users to request a courier. Drivers receive and accept requests, before collecting and delivering the requested item. A user is billed ZAR7 per kilometre, with WumDrop using both professional drivers and students.

As with many on-demand startups, WumDrop has proved popular with investors, raising US$37,000. It is currently live in Cape Town and Johannesburg, but is planning on rolling out across the country.

Yum

On-demand has also made it into the restaurant sector, with hellofood getting much attention across Africa. However, more local versions exist. In Kenya, Yum has been operating since 2012. The startup allows users to order food from any of around 70 restaurants across Nairobi.

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Food is then delivered to the customer’s door and paid for using cash. There are benefits for both customer and restaurant owner. The customer is spared Friday night traffic in Nairobi, while restaurants are given a new marketing angle. Yum is considering branching out into supermarket food delivery as well.

Supermart

One company already active in the food delivery space is Supermart.ng, launched in Lagos, Nigeria. The startup allows users to order groceries from leading supermarkets, such as Park ‘n’ Shop – SPAR, MedPlus, Office Everything, Mega Plaza, 9 – 7 and Chi-Shoppe, with food then delivered to the customer’s home.

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The startup recently rolled out a Prime service, which allows customers to pay a lump monthly sum for their deliveries, cutting down costs for frequent customers.

SweepSouth

In South Africa, SweepSouth is tackling the country’s largely unreformed domestic services industry, offering a platform that allows users to book home cleaning services from their phone, laptop or tablet. The service connects homeowners with a reliable, vetted and insured cleaner within minutes.

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Cleaners on SweepSouth cost USS$3 (R38) per hour, with the startup now active in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria. It too has proven popular with investors, raising a funding round recently to accelerate its growth.

Tom Jackson is a tech and business journalist and the co-founder of Disrupt Africa.

9 years ago

If Africa is rising, why are so many running away?

African migrants stand in a camp under a subway bridge in northern Paris before being evicted by French police on June 2, 2015. More than 350 refugees, most of them from Sudan, but also from Eritrea, Somalia and Egypt, have been living in the makeshift camp below the metro tracks between the stations of La Chapelle and Barbes-Rochechouart in the north of the French capital. (Pic: AFP)

World refugee day was on June 19, and former secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan made a comment on his Twitter handle that was as profound as it was subtle, suggesting that the world must come to terms with a “new normal.”

“It is time to accept the reality that the ebb and flow of human movement cannot be stopped,” Annan tweeted.

More than 1 750 migrants, mostly from West Africa and North Africa and some parts of the Middle East have perished in the Mediterranean Sea since the beginning of the year, attempting to seek “greener pastures” in Europe.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), this number is more than 30 times higher than that recorded during the corresponding period in 2014.

As the rosy narratives about Africa’s economic growth and burgeoning middle class are vigorously exchanged at talk-shops, the question begs; what would cause thousands to abandon their homes, families and put their lives at risk at sea, facing the risks potential of shipwrecks and possible human trafficking?

Honest and frank

The answer lies in an honest and frank assessment of what they are running from in their home countries – poverty, war, disease and economic distress, and sometimes most of all, lack of social mobility, or at least the belief that you can make something better of yourself.

For many of these migrants, distant lands across the high seas offer potential comfort and the promise for a better future, not only for them, but also for the loved ones left behind.

But this perception of these “greener pastures” often turn into nightmares, as most of those immigrants from Africa who manage to make it to Europe, particularly in the austerity-gripped south, fail to get jobs, an income, decent shelter and thus have to live in squalid conditions.

Some pay as much as $10 000 for this voyage from Africa to Europe, riddled with uncertainty, and the threat of being defrauded, kidnapped, or shipwrecked. This just illustrates the desperation these migrants have, which drives them to such risky lengths.

Several hundred migrants, mostly Africans but also including many fleeing the civil war in Syria, leave Libya every day on rickety boats hoping to make it to Europe. (Pic: AFP)

Xenophobia in South Africa

Moving away from the boat crises, recently, South Africa, Africa’s most developed economy and second largest after Nigeria, witnessed xenophobic attacks on foreigners who have settled in the country over the years.

Most of these immigrants are from countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Nigeria; attracted by the “bright lights” of South Africa and have sought to make a living for themselves.

And it has not been easy for them; often enduring waves of xenophobic attacks, first in 2008 and more recently this year, attacks so vicious that a man was stabbed to death in full view of cameras in a street.

Still, they choose to stay put even in such hostile conditions and forego the option of returning to their home countries.

In light of these and many more similar unfortunate events, the world has seen how disjointed the global response to the thorny issue of migrants has been. There has been stand-offs between countries that has even put strains on some diplomatic relations.

In effect, the issue of migrants brings to the fore certain truths that may be unpalatable to some, especially, the more advanced economies.

Contagion

Countries now must be concerned with what happens across their borders, as recent events show just how easy crises in one country can be exported to others in the form of illegal immigrants. In severely depressed economies with suppressed democracies, many people are now voting with their feet; deserting their home countries and making abode in foreign lands.

Upon settling in foreign lands, often, migrants are more inclined to accept lower wages for work, to the obvious discontent of natives in their adopted countries. This calls for countries to hold each other accountable for the way leaders manage their countries in a mutually responsible manner, as the problems in one jurisdiction could potentially become another country’s problems too, if recent immigrant trends are anything to go by.

Simply stated, it is in the best interest of the developed nations to help ensure that the less developed countries continue growing in a sustainable manner, offering opportunity for all citizens.

An en masse migration invariably puts a strain on the social and economic structures of the receiving countries, and if unattended to, this could likely be a hotbed for future conflict.

Well-functioning countries which offer an equal shot for everyone to work and earn a living, which also guarantee rule of law and offer citizens suffrage would certainly make headway in addressing the root cause of migrant crisis, not just for Africa, but in the global context.

Speaking in the wake of the xenophobic waves of violence, South African President Jacob Zuma said, “We have to address the underlying causes of the violence and tensions, which is the legacy of poverty, unemployment and inequality in our country and our continent, and the competition for limited resources.”

As European ministers scramble to come up with a holistic strategy to address the growing crisis of illegal migrants, Africa too would do well to take a cue from this and introspect deeply into why many of its children leave its shores for distant lands.

Yes, Africa is rising but is this much vaunted economic growth all-encompassing and inclusive? Judging from the desperation that drives most to put their lives at risk crossing the seas to a ‘better’ future elsewhere, the answer is a resounding no.

This post by Perry Munzwembiri was first published on MG Africa.

9 years ago

Uganda’s ‘Uber for motorcycle taxis’ shows it pays to be safe

The SafeBoda app. (Pic: AFP)

When Silver Tumwesigye, a sharply-dressed Ugandan motorbike taxi driver known by his nickname ‘Silverstone,’ had an accident six years ago it was a double blow.

First he had to pay for surgery for his head injury and weeks of hospital treatment, then he suffered months of no income as he recovered at home.

Motorbike taxis, known as “boda-bodas” in Uganda and elsewhere in East Africa, are an affordable and effective – but dangerous – way of cutting through the traffic clogging Kampala’s streets.

Now a startup, dubbed “Uber for motorcycle taxis” after the popular ride-sharing company, hopes to make them safer and more reliable.

Silverstone survived his accident but the loss of his daily income of around 20 000 shillings ($5) threatened his family with destitution.

“I was so worried – not about me, but about my children, my wife,” said the 36-year-old father-of-four. “I struggled to pay the rent and school fees.”

Close to 40 percent of trauma cases at Uganda’s main Mulago Hospital are the result of boda-boda accidents, according to a joint study in 2010 by the hospital and the country’s Makerere University.

Like similar services in other developing world urban hubs like Jakarta, SafeBoda hopes to ease traffic in the Ugandan capital connecting customers with a registered driver nearby with the tap of a finger.

The company has enlisted 75 drivers at 20 “stages” – the boda-boda version of taxi ranks – since its launch in November. Each receives driving lessons, motorcycle maintenance and customer service training, and a first aid course taught by the Uganda Red Cross Society.

Drivers pay a membership fee of 10 000 shillings a week and are given a smartphone, a bright orange reflective vest and helmet, and a spare helmet for customers.

“The boda-boda industry got a bad name,” said SafeBoda’s 28-year-old co-founder Ricky Rapa Thomson.

“We want to say we are safe bodas. We should create a good reputation that will lead to more business, so we make more money and become more successful,” said Rapa, who has been a boda driver for four years and also runs motorbike tours of the city.

Rigorous vetting

It was on one of his tours that a visitor from Britain suggested meeting 30-year-old Belgian social entrepreneur Maxime Dieudonne, to help him develop an app to increase safety and provide better service.

Rapa teamed up with Dieudonne, Scottish development economist Alastair Sussock, 29, and the Rwanda-based mobile tech company HeHe Labs to create SafeBoda.

Sussock said the start-up conducts a “very lengthy process of driver training and multiple interactions and recommendations for drivers”.

“The recent issues in India with Uber, with one of the drivers accused of raping a passenger, shows the challenges on background checks or lack of any checks,” he said.

Sussock said that while this made SafeBoda different from Uber, Lyft and other apps which allowed drivers to sign up very easily, it ensured a “higher quality of drivers”.

Rigorous vetting means there are now 250 boda-boda drivers on the SafeBoda waiting list. Silverstone plans to join up, saying that his accident taught him the hard way that safety pays.

The SafeBoda app is also evolving and will soon add another Uber-like touch, allowing customers to rate drivers.

The company hopes to have at least 1 000 boda-bodas across Kampala by the end of the year, before expanding regionally, and perhaps even farther.

“There’s a couple of other countries like India that could be really interesting,” said Sussock.

For the last six years Juma Katongole, 32, has ferried passengers around Kampala’s notoriously potholed roads. He joined the SafeBoda programme soon after its launch.

The father-of-four has gained three new regular customers and reckons he takes home an extra 10 000 shillings a day.

“In the future I’m planning on building a house because I’m still renting,” he said. “I’m happy and customers are also happy with SafeBoda, they appreciate it,” he said.

9 years ago

The Rachel Dolezal fiasco: Are we all just playing at race?

Rachel Dolezal. (Pic: AFP)

I am a Puerto Rican Jamaican of Chinese decent. Well that’s not technically true but in a post Rachel Dolezal world it could be.

The recent ‘outing’ of the ex-NAACP Washington branch president who’s been accused of falsely portraying herself as a black woman has the world once again grappling with notions of race, culture appropriation and to what extent Elvis and Eminem stole black music.

After being ‘exposed’, Rachel Dolezal has said that she identifies as black. ‘I definitely am not white’. She has said that she’s always seen herself as black to the extent she used the ‘brown skinned crayon ‘ when drawing herself as a child. However, her parents refute this claim, saying she probably had not even met any black people during this ‘artistic period’ of her youth.

Her past as a little white girl who possibly knew no black people did not stop her from becoming a pretty prolific ‘black woman’ who went on to lecture about the Black Power movement, release statements on movies about black history and hold a leading role in one of America’s top advocacy groups that champions the rights of African Americans.

Debate has raged on about what it is that can make a person change race – rather than what makes one engage in a gross act of appropriation. What does it mean to be x race? When Micheal Jackson changed skin colour, was he still black?

When we speak of ‘white trash’ or ‘black excellence’ who is it that are included in these and other racialised categories?

We cannot ignore the fact that to some extent race is very superficial in nature: it is how you look. As much as I may want to be a pretty white blonde girl I cannot be because people will take one look at my mocha skin and be like ‘sugar honey bear you are not a white girl’. I may be able to possibly pull off blonde, but not white.

However, one must also consider the performative aspects of race, the behavioural aspects that are supposedly indicative of a race. For example, when Julius Malema once lashed out at a BBC journalist, saying ‘don’t come here with that white tendency’, many people instantly knew – or thought they knew – what he meant. Of course, not everyone would have the same ideas but the notion of a core group of ideas remains. Personally, I always think of white tendencies as the ability to go from zero to call your manager in five seconds flat, but this could be a side effect of having lived in Cape Town for too long.

Back to the Dolezal matter. What does having the ‘right criteria’ to belong to a certain race entail when there are so many ideas that come with it? To her credit, Dolezal embodied what it is to be a black woman to such an extent that no one called her out on it for over a decade. Her track record is quite impressive. She studied at the traditionally black Howard University and did her Master’s thesis in Fine Art as a series of paintings presented from the perspective of a black male, focusing on the journey of what went on inside the mind of a black male.

Not to mention she kept her hair game on fleek, as the youth like to say. One friend went on record saying that ‘she would have fooled you too.’

(I haven’t managed three years without being called out on something that would qualify me as being a ‘white girl’, having only now been saved by my dreadlocks and love of smooth jazz.)

However the deeper question is: has this need to keep the notion of racial traits pure left us with something lacking nuance and depth? For example, to say something is black in nature is somewhat tricky because is it African American or African? Is it Nigerian in nature or Rwandese or North African? Or does it have a Bob Marley Jamaican feel to it?

The Dolezal fiasco makes me question what it means to be a certain race. What does it mean for these fixed categories when some can blur the lines to such an extent? For all intents and purposes Dolezal had all the makings of a black woman: the integration into a community, the family, the academic credentials and the lived experience by being at the heart of the black struggle movement. Heck, she even had the hair and we all know how important hair politics are to the average black woman.

Thus in light of all this, did she lie by saying that she was black?

What we should be focusing on is not the way in which race can sometimes be ‘put on’ or ‘taken off’ but the way in which there are consequences to ‘wearing’ this supposedly ‘non-existent’ identity. Race, like any other identity, does not exist in a vacuum as something one can simply don and or take off with no consequence or context. It exists within a larger framework that works to create a hierarchy, privileging some over others.

The Dolezal case has exposed the fundamental discomfort we all feel: the notion that some people can cross this line, and manoeuvre within this structure at their own ease whilst others remain chained to it, unable escape the consequences of racial societal forces.

When people talk about how race does not really exist they discount the reality that has been borne in notions of racial identity. To do so is to deny the historical and contemporary structure that makes skin bleaching a multibillion-dollar industry, the history that made slavery, apartheid and colonisation possible, and how this history plays out today. It is to deny occurrences such as #BlackLivesMatter and debates that stem from #JeSuisCharlie (or JeNeSuisPasCharlie). It has the possibility of discounting the fact that when millions of Africans die they are simply a number, but when one French couple is murdered it is international news.

It denies the nuances, inequalities and hierarchies in existence that affect people’s lives daily, that mean the difference for some between life and death, being afforded humanity or not.

The Dolezal case not only shows us the ghostly nature of the racial structure but also to what extent many of us are unable to escape this ethereal jail that we have built ourselves. This is what scares us the most. We have realised we are trapped in something that fundamentally does not exist, but still we have no real way of escaping it. Those who sometimes attempt it do it extremely badly (here’s looking at you, Iggy Azalea) while those who succeed in blurring the lines are met with scorn and suspicion.

Kagure Mugo is a freelance writer and co-founder and curator of holaafrica.org, a Pan-Africanist queer women’s collective which engages in activism and awareness-building around issues of African women’s identity, experiences and sexuality. Connect with her on Twitter: @tiffmugo

9 years ago

Bringing museums into homes: Benin’s Wakpon app

A man tries out Wakpon, a new smartphone application that allows people to view pictures and works of art. (Pic: AFP)

Admiring paintings or photographs by Africa’s greatest contemporary artists is a luxury in Benin, where museums are scarce and most people lack money to travel farther afield.

But a new application developed by a foundation based in Cotonou, the largest city in this West African state, is seeking to bring art to the masses by allowing anyone with access to a printer and smartphone or tablet to turn their place into a museum.

“For 10 years, the Zinsou Foundation has been striving to bring contemporary art to people who don’t have access to it because we think culture is a right, not a luxury,” said Marie-Cecile Zinsou, the Franco-Beninese head of the foundation that created the “Wakpon” app.

Budding art enthusiasts need only print out colourful images available on the app’s website onto pieces of A4 paper and hang them on the walls of their home, school or government building – just like paintings in a museum.

Visitors can then aim at these images with their smartphones or tablets using the app, and a painting by Benin’s voodoo artist Cyprien Tokoudagba or a photo of Nigerian hairstyles by J.D. Okhai Ojeikere will pop up, alongside information on the work of art.

All in all, 44 pieces by 10 artists are available on the app, all taken from the foundation’s collection.

Low visibility for African art

Zinsou said she convinced her father, who has just been named Benin prime minister, to set up the foundation after she realised that like many other African countries, there were no museums in Benin to showcase the continent’s contemporary art, despite its growing popularity elsewhere.

Leading African artists were virtually absent from art sales just a decade ago but now contemporary works feature strongly in several international auction houses.

Bonhams in London recently described the continent as “one of our hottest properties on the art block”.

Since 2005, the foundation’s show room in Cotonou puts on free exhibitions of Beninese and foreign artists, and once showcased US legend Jean-Michel Basquiat – a first in Africa.

In 2013, it opened a museum in an old building of the former slave trade hub of Ouidah, some 40 kilometres away from Cotonou.

All in all, nearly five million people have visited both places in a decade – most of them them children who often come the first time with their schools, return on their own and then bring their families.

Zinsou said the Wakpon app – which once downloaded does not need to be connected to the Internet – aims to widen access to a broader population.

‘Tomorrow’s museum’

Mobile phone penetration has been low in Benin, particularly for smartphones, because of poor infrastructure.

But competition from international mobile operators and under-sea cables is increasing take-up, as prices come down for both handsets and Internet services.

“This application is amazing,” said Beninese artist Romuald Hazoume, whose work has been showcased abroad and is also available on the app.

“African people will be able to have access to their culture, to their artists who are known around the world but whom they cannot see due to a lack of exhibition sites, of money or visas.

“It’s like a bait. People will know works of art, their story, and they will want to see them for real. It’s tomorrow’s museum and it’s what all big collections should be doing.”

In the Cotonou showroom, those who visit are given a Wakpon demonstration at the end of their tour.

“Wakpon” means “come and see” in Fon, the most widely spoken local language in Benin.

“It’s great. My cousin has a good telephone, I’m going to plead with him to activate the application and our entire district will take a look,” says Obed, 15, who came with his class.

Zinsou said people in Africa had a tendency to think that culture will emerge only once their countries are developed.

“But no, culture is essential for development,” she added.