Tech hubs and incubators in Africa are growing on an almost weekly basis and to our concern, this won’t probably stop. In September 2015, a mapping exercise done by the World Bank listed less than 120 tech hubs in Africa and as of July 2016, a research that was done by GSMA suggested there are 314 active tech hubs in 93 cities in 42 countries in Africa (a number aligned with Disrupt Africa’s prediction in this March 2016 article).
The World Bank uses a narrower definition of tech hubs and tech incubators for its count. GMSA mapped active “physical spaces that fall under the broad term of tech hubs: incubators, accelerators, co-working spaces, fab labs, maker-spaces, hacker-spaces and other innovation spaces.”
GSMA in one of its research stated that, in Africa, although 50% of the tech hubs are concentrated in 5 countries (South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco). However, almost each of the other African countries have at least one or two active tech hubs. When it came to identifying some leading countries by sub-region when it comes to tech hubs: Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt were found in North Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal in West Africa, Kenya and Uganda in East Africa, and South Africa in Southern Africa.
Today, the goal of leading tech hubs is not only to offer space and services to startups but also to create a large community of stakeholders (partners, start-ups, investors etc.)
Notably, Uganda has 12 tech hubs and incubators including; Outbox Hub, Hive Colab, Innovation Village, WITU Hub, NFT Mawazo Innovation Hub, and so forth.
As of today, one new Hub ‘TechBuzz Hub‘ located in Ntinda at Najim Mall joins these pioneers. The Hub is focused on strengthening and attracting more partners ready to improve the social and economic position of Ugandans today.
The Founder of the Hub; Kenneth Twesigye says the Hub is a Technology and Business development hub that aims at bridging the incubation gap in the country and to create ways to overcome the barriers to employment, business sustainability, and social development caused by the immense gap underlying between innovation and investment in Uganda.
“As a business and technology hub focusing on collaborative working environment, youth capacity building and startup development, we believe we have much to offer for the survival of the majority of dying or struggling startups,” TechBuzz tells PC Tech Magazine.
The Hub as told to PC Tech Magazine says its primarily target now are the youth who are passionate in entrepreneurship and technology startups. In addition, offering two services; Consultations and Mentorship freely because in their research showed its the core knowledge every startup need to realize their potential.
The Hub also mentioned to us that it plans on having a financing system in place so that startups get powered up whenever launching is set, being a supplement on their financial capacity resources for expansion.[related-posts]
TechBuzz Hub also plans to have locations in major Ugandan towns where there is enough targeted human resource so as it can reach these youths.
Some of the achievements the hub has so far, says they have worked with two startups so far; East African Turkeys and Pro Chicken Uganda that have raised funds of worth $10,000 Dollars from the Tony Elumelu Foundation located in Nigeria.
Kenneth said the Hub is looking forward to working with more other startups on the Ugandan market so they can see a greater and developed business and Technology Center in Uganda.
The Hub is also offering very affordable startup support services like web hosting, web design and Graphics Design, Bulk SMS and Training, Computer courses, Internships, to name a few.
Editor’s Note: Founder of the hub says the hub isn’t officially opened though its currently active at the moment.
