Kenya’s start-up scene in Nairobi is booming

africa mobileKenya, along with South Africa and to a lesser extent Ghana, is positioning itself as one of the continent’s tech hubs.

Nairobi this week was host to the Mobile Web East Africa event, a two-day conference that brought together the Kenyan ecosystem from operators to advertisers to start-ups to developers… and where I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak.

Inspiring people everywhere, the event was epitomised by who I thought was somebody’s teenage daughter, but was in reality a 21-year-old entrepreneur who was determined to bring her start-up to market. I’ll write about her at another time, but she was amazing.

Africa, of course, is defined by the mobile phone and some stats this week that told of 991 million phones, both dumb and smart, by 2016 were stunning. Moreover, the data from M-Pesa that 70% of Kenya’s 26 million adult users have a m-banking account beggar belief.

I’m out of Nairobi at 4.30am, back to London via Cairo, a ten-hour pit-stop at home, and then straight back out to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where there will be more than 75,000 delegates.

At this show, there were less than 200 people, but I know there was more energy, vitality here than I will ever expect to find in Barcelona.

Come to Africa, come to Kenya.

Monty (709 Posts)

Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.


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About Monty

Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.