Young entrepreneurs are changing the face of Africa. I set out to produce a list of the 30 Africans under 30 years old who are making the most dramatic impact across the continent.
To do so, in November I enlisted an outside panel of 12 judges from across Africa to help identify this group of outstanding entrepreneurs and innovators under the age of 30.
Cut across Real Estate , Financial Services, Manufacturing, Media, Tech , Green tech, Healthcare, Agriculture and Fashion, the 30 young African entrepreneurs, disruptors and innovators featured on this list are impatient to change Africa.
Together, they represent the entrepreneurial, innovative and intellectual best of their generation. They’re solving problems like healthcare and electricity shortages, proffering innovative solutions to waste management, building virtual and physical communities and creating lots of jobs.
A few of them are manufacturing the foods we love, designing exquisite clothing for our women and some are developing some cool apps for mobile phones across Africa. Of course, this list is by no means official or exhaustive, but this is the closest you’ll get to a definitive list.
A round of applause for Africa’s 30 Under 30 – the continent’s best young entrepreneurs, today’s disruptors and tomorrow’s brightest stars:
Jonathan Liebmann, South African
Real Estate developer, CEO of Propertuity
Liebmann, 28, is the Managing Director of Propertuity, a South African Real Estate development company and the brains behind the construction of the Maboneng Precinct, a thriving cultural district in the east side of Johannesburg’s CBD. Once a neglected and deteriorating neighborhood housing abandoned industrial complexes, Liebmann transformed Maboneng into a vibrant urban mixed-use community complete with Art galleries, artist studios, retail spaces, offices and artist studios. Read more about Jonathan Liebmann, Propertuity and Maboneng Precint here .
Patrick Ngowi, Tanzanian CEO,
Helvetic Solar Contractors
Nine years ago, Patrick Ngowi, 28, received a small loan from his mother to start off a business. He started off selling Chinese mobile phones, but when he discovekored that a tiny fraction of Tanzanians enjoyed any access to stable and reliable electricity, he knew he had to rectify that problem. Ngowi set up Helvetic Solar Contractors Limited , a company that is a pioneer in the supply, installation and maintenance of solar systems throughout the Northern Circuit of Tanzania. Helvetic Solar Contractors is the first company in the Northern Circuit to cater for Solar needs. The company did about $3 million in revenues last year. Read more about Patrick Ngowi and Helvetic Solar here .
Lorna Rutto,kenya
Green Tech Entrepreneur, Founder, EcoPost
Lorna Rutto, 28 is the founder of EcoPost , a profitable social enterprise which manufactures aesthetic, durable and environmentally friendly fencing posts using plastic waste, a more environmentally friendly alternative to timber. EcoPost collects this plastic waste (such as polypropylene and polyethylene) and manufactures fencing posts from it. Rutto has earned international acclaim for her efforts in providing an alternative waste management solution to Kenya’s plastic menace. Read more about Lorna Rutto and Ecopost here .
Justin Stanford, South African
Founder & CEO, 4Di Group
Stanford, 28, is a software entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Seven years ago, he cornered the exclusive and lucrative distribution rights for ESET, a Slovakian anti-virus software package. Today, Stanford’s ESET Southern Africa operates the ESET brand in the region and sells ESET’s range of internet security products in about 20 sub-Saharan countries, recording over $10 million in annual turnover. He controls about 5% of the anti- virus market in Southern Africa. Stanford is also the founder of 4Di Capital, a Cape Town-based venture capital fund. Read more about Justin Stanford here .
Rapelang Rabana, South African
Founder, Yeigo Communications
Rapelang Rabana, 28 is the CEO and founder of Yeigo Communications, an innovative Cape Town-based company which develops software for telecoms-related services including Voice over IP, Instant messaging, SMS messaging and push email services. In 2008, Telfree , a Swiss mobile telecommunications firm acquired a 51% stake in Yeigo. Read more about Rapelang Rabana here.
Kimiti Wanjaria & Ian Kahara, Kenyan
Founders, Serene Valley Properties
Both in their late 20s, Kimiti Wanjaria and Ian Kahara are part of a group of four co- founders of Serene Valley Properties (SVP), a Real Estate development company in Nairobi that constructs and sells residential properties to Kenya’s ever-growing middle class. SVP is behind the development of Sigona Valley project , a KSh350m (US $4.2m) gated residential community outside Nairobi. Read more about Wanjaria and Kahara here .
Evans Wadongo, Kenya
Chairman, SDFA Kenya
Wadongo, a 26 year-old Kenyan engineer designed a solar-powered LED lantern called MwangaBora (Swahili for “Good Light”), an invention which is fast replacing smoky kerosene lamps and firelight in rural Kenya. Wadongo has been distributing thousands of these lanterns throughout rural Kenya where there is little or no electricity. His organization, Sustainable Development For All (SDFA) sponsors an empowerment initiative that teaches poor Kenyans how to reproduce these solar lanterns and sell for profit. Read more about Evans Wadongo here.
Ludwick Phofane Marishane, South African
Founder, Headboy Industries
Marishane, 21, is the founder of Headboy Industries, a South African company which developed and owns the patent for Drybath, the world’s first germicidal bath- substituting skin lotion/gel. Read more about Marishane and Headboy Industries here .
Cosmas Ochieng, Kenyan
Founder, Ecofuels
Kenya Cosmas Ochieng, a 26 year-old Kenyan entrepreneur runs Ecofuels Kenya , an East Africa firm which produces environmentally friendly, green biofuels and organic fertilizers from renewable indigenous sources such as the croton nut. Read more about Ecofuels here.
Eric Muthomi, Kenyan
Founder, Stawi Foods & Fruits
The 26 year-old Kenyan entrepreneur is the founder of Stawi Foods and Fruits, an innovative start-up which procures bananas from smallholder farmers in rural Kenya and processes them into banana flour. Read more about Eric Muthomi and Stawi Foods here.
original article: forbes.com
Everyone knows that starting companies — and investing in startups — is a risky way to earn a living. But few people appreciate just how risky it is. Thanks to a recent tweet from Paul Graham, the founder of "startup school" Y Combinator, we now have a better idea. Graham says that 37 of the 511 companies that have gone through the Y Combinator program over the past 5 years have either sold for, or are now worth, more than $40 million. Most entrepreneurs would probably view creating a company worth more than $40 million as a success (unless the company raised more capital than that). And, on its face, the "37 companies" number seems relatively impressive. In fact, however, the number tells a scary and depressing story. This number suggests that a startling 93% of the companies that get accepted by Y Combinator eventually fail. (Not all companies that sell for less than $40 million are "failures," obviously. Assuming a company hasn't raised much capital, a sale between $5 million and $40 million could be considered a success. But a high percentage of Y Combinator companies likely end up being worth zero. And for companies that are hand-picked by very smart investors, the 93%-below-$40 million rate is still surprisingly low). A company accepted by Y Combinator, therefore, has less than a 1-in-10 chance of being a big success. More alarmingly, the companies accepted by Y Combinator are only a tiny fraction of the companies that apply. Some have estimated that Y Combinator's acceptance rate is 3-5% . If we use the 5% rate, we can estimate that Y Combinator has received about 10,000 applications for the ~500 companies it has chosen over the years. Assuming Y Combinator has even a modest ability to pick winners, therefore, the odds that a company applying to Y Combinator will be a success are significantly lower than the odds of success of the companies accepted into the program. If only 37 of the companies that have applied to Y Combinator over the years have succeeded, this is a staggeringly low 0.4% success rate. Put differently, only one in every 200 companies that applies to Y Combinator will succeed. The reality is that Y Combinator probably misses a few winners, so the actual odds are probably slightly higher. But in case any entrepreneur or angel investor is deluding themselves into thinking that startups are an easy way to cash in, they might want to think again. UPDATE: Paul Graham points out that it takes time for a company's value to grow, so including Y Combinator graduates from this year and last year is unfair. If we use, say, 300 companies instead of 511, the odds of success improve slightly. 37 success stories out of 300 graduates produces "success" odds of just better than 1 in 10. also read: the guy paying you $100,000 to drop out of school
