Friday 24 March 2017

Afro Leo

Geeks On A Plane touched down in Africa on Monday


A group of investors, technology fundis and interested entrepreneurs touched down in Africa on Monday, March 20.

The group, labelled “Geeks on a Plane” (#GOAP), will be visiting four of Africa’s technology start-up hubs over the 13 day visit, which wraps up on April 2.

Organized by 500 Startups, Geeks on a Plane (#GOAP) is a tour for startups, investors, and executives to learn about high-growth technology markets worldwide. We travel by planes, trains, and automobiles to the most exciting international startup scenes with the sole mission of uniting geeks and exploring cross-border opportunities. The result: a lifelong bond with fellow travelers, a wealth of new friends and business contacts in exploding technology markets, and a stronger appreciation for the cultural and economic ties that bind us globally.”

The Silicon Valley “Geeks” hope to ignite conversation with various techno incubation projects, innovators looking for start-up funds and generally get a feel for the emerging industries.

First stop is Lagos, Nigeria, (also often referred to as the ‘Yabacon Valley’), where they will attend a series of events, including a “Nollywood media and tech party night”. The second leg, Accra, Ghana which is fast becoming known as one of Africa’s leading technology centres. The geeks will join the Enterprise Africa Summit as well as get a glimpse of a $200 M business innovation hub called “Ghana Cyber City”.

In Johannesburg, they will be hosted to a panel event led by SiMODiSA.org- a not for profit organisation that gives “hand-ups” to start-ups.

While in South Africa, they will enjoy a three day safari and experience local culture by touring Soweto, the Cape Winelands and Table Mountain. They will also get to meet up with SiliconCape, a community of tech entrepreneurs, developers, creatives and angel investors who are passionate about entrepreneurship. 

The 500 Startup 500.co group is a tech accelerator organisation that operates tours all around the globe for investors to network and identify tech trends the world over.

"The African region is definitely of interest as we continue to look for and source deals from traditionally underrepresented ecosystems," said 500 Startups founding partner Dave McClure.

Afro Leo thinks this is inspiring:

“the future is for geeks”,

“have you ever seen a lion need glasses”

“have you ever heard of a lion seeing through glasses”

Welcome to Africa! Just don’t forget the IP, geeks. Facebook was stolen, there is a movie about it (our post on that here); Snapshot shares have been snapped up because of the IP in its data (Reinhardt Biermann covered it for us here) and well, here is a post from me just for you: Important IP Considerations for Entrepreneurs.

Afro Leo

Afro Leo

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