PIVOT25: East Africa’s Biggest Mobile Tech Event from Pivot25 Conference on Vimeo.
The next big thing in African Tech has arrived. Pivot 25 is here! The region’s top 25 mobile tech startups pitch against each other June 14-15 in Nairobi, Kenya at the Ole Sereni Hotel.
Go to pivot25.com for tickets and info.
Video by The ARK
I’m excited to announce Pivot 25, which will happen on June 14-15 in Nairobi.
Pivot 25 is an event bringing together East Africa’s top mobile entrepreneurs and startups to pitch their ideas to an audience of 400-500 people, with a chance of winning monetary prizes and increasing awareness of their work to local and global investors and businesses. In East Africa’s hot mobile market, this is a way to find out “what’s next?“.
The competition is for 25 entrepreneurs/startups to pitch their best mobile apps or services, in 5 different verticals, to the audience and a panel of judges. Anyone who has a new app or service can apply, if they’re from Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda or Kenya.
Pivot 25 is mostly about the entrepreneurs and their pitches, but we’re also sprinkling it with fireside chats with the top mobile industry leaders in the region.
There are a couple of ways to get involved with Pivot 25.
Help us get the word out by tweeting (our handle is @pivot25), blog it, and definitely tell your friends around East Africa to get their startup application in right away.
The mLab (mobile lab) is a new incubation, training and testing space for mobile apps in Kenya. It’s situated directly underneath the iHub, and was created from an infoDev grant to a consortium of the iHub, Emobilis, the Web Foundation and the University of Nairobi.
As the team behind the mLab got together and talked we realized that we needed to solve two problems. First, a good way to create awareness of and access between the mobile entrepreneur community and investors and businesses. Second, that an event could help raise funds for the mLab, making it sustainable.
The Event will not only showcase developer talent in the region but also bring much needed focus to the mLab and the role that it play’s in the mobile application development ecosystem in East Africa. Our goal is to make this truly inclusive, bringing together startups, manufacturers, businesses and operators from every country in East Africa. The mLab is accessible to anyone in any of these countries, and Pivot 25 is as well.
Maker Faire Africa (MFA) is a new event celebrating the innovation, ingenuity and invention within Africa – happening August 13-15 of this year in Accra, Ghana.
We came at this event from a specific angle – we mixed the types of individuals who show up on AfriGadget and Timbuktu Chronicles, and the ethos of the greater MAKE community, all with the blessings of the good folks at Maker Faire. The dates were chosen to coincide with Amy Smith’s and MIT’s International Development and Design Summit (IDDS), which will run for 3 weeks before MFA, also in Ghana.
As Emeka puts it:
The aim of a Maker Faire-like event is to create a space on the continent where Afrigadget-type innovations, inventions and initiatives can be sought, identified, brought to life, supported, amplified, propagated, etc. Maker Faire Africa asks the question, “What happens when you put the drivers of ingenious concepts from Mali with those from Ghana and Kenya, and add resources to the mix?â€
First off, help spread the word! Let people know where and when it will be. Share the link to the site, grab a badge, blog it.
Second, help us find sponsors. If you know an organization or individual who would like to support this amazing event, put us in touch with them. It could be monetary, or it could be donating some cool gadgets, gear, tools or devices for people to hack on while there. (example idea: we’d love to get some LEGO Mindstorm kits for the local high schools).
Third, come. If you have the time and ability, we’d love to have you, your ideas and your gadgets at MFA.
In my role as founder of AfriGadget, I’m part of the organizing team to put together Maker Faire Africa, joined by my an excellent group of people including:
Want to get involved yourself? Get in touch!
I’m starting to compile a list of interesting technology events happening around the continent. If this ends up being useful, I’ll create a page to keep it updated. Let me know if you like it, or if there is someone already keeping a calender of sorts.
Upcoming events to watch (chronological):
West & Central Africom – “The premier meeting place for communications decision-makers to discuss the key issues facing the market.”
Dates: June 18-19, 2008
Location: Abuja Int’l Conference Center in Abuja, Nigeria
Barcamp Nairobi ’08 – A local “unconference” for Kenyan techies, web designers and bloggers. (disclosure: I’m part of this)
Dates: June 21, 2008
Location: Jacaranda Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya
APPFRICA – a new technology conference and thinktank.
Dates: July 31, 2008
Location: Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda
WordCamp SA – For all bloggers in and around South Africa.
Dates: August 23, 2008
Location: TBD, in Cape Town, South Africa
Barcamp Kampala – Another unconference pops up for Uganda – looking forward to hearing about this one.
Dates: August 29, 2008
Location: TBD, Kampala, Uganda
MobileActive ’08 – A conference on mobile technology for social impact.
Dates: October 13-15, 2008
Location: TBD in Johannesburg, South Africa
[If you have a good tech conference coming up, let me know.]
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