Harambeans at Work

In 2019, it took African companies 46 weeks to reach their first billion dollars of raise while in 2021, it took 21 weeks. Predictions for 2022 are at just over 7 weeks. While this highlights that exuberance and fundraising for and on the continent exists, it does not necessarily indicate that we're building businesses or capacity building for this century and the century beyond.

Harvard Business School's Professor Sikochi moderated the plenary session titled ‘Scaling at the Speed of Trust' during the Harambeans Global Summit 2022 held in Franschhoek, South Africa. During this Guild Session, he drew Harambeans into a conversation that focused on stories from their personal experiences in the Alliance and how they had created avenues for them to scale their impact while putting them on a path towards Unicorn status.

Mr. Kingsley Abrokwah H'21 spoke to Channel Africa about KudiGo, a business management app for retailers in Africa.

Arlene Mulder H'21 shares BiB's journey with Smile 90.4FM by Harambeans

Channel Africa helped us welcome the 14th class of Harambeans with an interview of Mr. Giancarlo Beukes H'21, co-founder of Impulse Biomedical. Mr. Beukes is one of 30 new Harambeans selected from a pool of over 4900 applicants who have collectively raised over $130 million to scale their ventures across Africa.

In today’s episode, we feature Melvyn Lubega H'16, University of Oxford, co-founder of Go1.com. Go1 is an online learning platform built on a subscription-based model that makes corporate training content available to businesses of all sizes. Lubega shares insights into the eLearning market, the power of the Harambean community, and his vision for the future.

In today’s episode we feature Dr. William Mapham H’18, the founder of Vula Mobile. Vula gives health workers, particularly those in remote rural areas, a tool to get patients quick and efficient specialist care. The app was initially created for ophthalmology referrals, but it quickly became clear that the functionality provided by Vula was widely needed. A redesign enabled the app to scale and now includes referrals for any number of specialties. Mapham shares the Vula story, which came from his own experience as a rural health worker in South Africa and Swaziland and then as a specialist in public health. This journey, coupled with his tech background, was the catalyst for Vula. The app serves more than 11 000 health workers, growing daily by up to 20 users, becoming increasingly useful for a wider audience and making a difference.

Today’s episode features Harambeans Founder and Chairman, Okendo Lewis-Gayle who is interviewed by Michael Avery on the Classic Business podcast. Mr. Lewis-Gayle comments on the African Innovation Report and highlights the importance of innovators for the development and prosperity of the continent of Africa.

In today’s episode, we feature venture capitalist, Pardon Makumbe, the co-founder of CRE Venture Capital. CRE partners with visionary entrepreneurs who are building category-defining tech companies in Africa. They leverage their capital, relationships and experience to position the teams they work with for outsized success. Makumbe reflects on the power of young entrepreneurs to shape Africa and to see it differently and the value of Harambe as a community for African entrepreneurs. As a loyal supporter, mentor and investor in several Harambean-led ventures, Makumbe has seen these businesses not only grow exponentially but also reap the benefits of being involved in an active community in Africa. The Harambeans at Work podcast series explores the development of Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to enable innovation and scale. This series aims to democratise key insights in order to empower ordinary Africans to do extraordinary things. This podcast has been brought to you by Harambeans

Vatican Radio Interview of Harambeans Founder, Okendo Lewis-Gayle by Harambeans

On today’s episode we feature Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Cisco and Mary de Wysocki, Senior Director of Corporate Affairs at Cisco. Cisco strives to inspire, connect, and invest in global problem solvers to catalyze an entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports progress and inclusive growth - as such, Cisco has established the Harambeans Prosperity Fund – a rule-based, co-investment fund which enables Harambe to invest in high-performing Harambeans and drive Africa's prosperity. Yoo and De Wysocki reflect on the missed opportunities engendered by the lack of early-stage investments in Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Cisco seeks to address this challenge by focusing on developing and nurturing early stage entrepreneurs through its partnership with the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance, giving early stage entrepreneurs a real chance in the market. The Harambeans at Work podcast series, explores the development of Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to enable innovation and scale. This series aims to democratize key insights in order to empower ordinary Africans to do extraordinary things. Harambeans at Work podcast has been brought to you by Harambeans in partnership with Youngpreneur Media.

In this episode we meet up with legendary entrepreneur Jeremy Johnson who is the CEO of Andela which he co-founded with Harambean Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. Andela is a pioneering startup that builds distributed engineering teams with Africa’s top software engineers. They have recently raised $100 million Series D funding. Johnson shares on the journey of Andela from idea to scale, as well as on the principles of entrepreneurship that allow for true innovation and growth.