The ‘techie’ archetype is the mascot of our age. Generally imagined and depicted as a youth, most often male, wearing a casual sweat-shirt, and carrying a backpack that contains the tool of his trade—the laptop. The techie dreams of building… Continue Reading
Good news: my dissertation on African technology innovation hubs is now complete! The permanent digital record (incl. a pdf for download) is here, and the hardbound copy will shortly be deposited with Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries as well. Friederici, N. (2016,… Continue Reading
With tech entrepreneurship on the rise across Africa, efforts to support the agenda are evolving and diversifying. There has been quite a bit of debate—sometimes of the heated kind—about whether incubators, hubs, labs, and other support organizations work. In my… Continue Reading
Use of the term “hub” has certainly been inflationary in discussions about innovation and entrepreneurship support. I believe that innovation hubs are a genuinely new (and exciting!) organizational form, but at the same time, “hub” has become a misnomer for… Continue Reading
During the interviews I conducted in Zimbabwe last October, many participants asked me: “Why pick Harare as a case study? Why not Nairobi or Lagos?” Indeed, Harare’s “ecosystem” is nascent, and the few tech startups that exist are hampered by… Continue Reading
Click here to view this post as it originally appeared on VC4Africa. We all know that early monetization and revenue generation are crucial for digital startups in Africa. Entrepreneurs in pretty much any African city find it impossible to… Continue Reading
Tech entrepreneurship is definitely on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, actually, this rise is not evenly distributed across Africa’s vast geography. Leaving aside South Africa, we can observe that the emergence of content and application startup activity has so… Continue Reading
“Ecosystem” has become one of the most common terms in tech innovation. It rolls easily off the tongue, probably because it has a communal connotation, and evokes ideas such as “collaboration” and “multi-stakeholder.” Where “innovation system” sounds like a technocratic… Continue Reading
If you go to Rwanda and you’re interested in ICT and tech, chances are, you will soon pass through kLab, Kigali’s tech innovation hub. And so it was for me two months ago, when I started data collection for my… Continue Reading