Timbuktu Chronicles

Spore reports:
viaEstablished in 2015 by Irene Ikarede Etyang, Akimaa Africa blends locally-produced ingredients together, resulting in highly-nutritious snacks. Its Tasty Millet Meal Bar is high in protein, as well as several key minerals, including calcium, iron, phosphorus and zinc. “Obesity is on the rise in Kenya, and Africa at large,” Etyang explains. “My Tasty Millet Bar is therefore a good replacement for the sweet foods people like because it is low-fat and highly nutritious. The bar is also gluten free and has no added sugar, making it good for diabetics.”More here

From Africa News:
Kenya, a country that is innovating in wool production, with a sector that is currently expanding rapidly.

With more than 10,000 tons of wool produced each year, Kenya, which already relies on the massive export of its avocados, wants to make the sector a source of employment and an economic pillar. More and more farmers are engaging in sheep farming to boost local production...[more]

Face2face reports:
One of the highlights of the first China International Import Expo is a $2 million business deal between one of Africa’s youngest entrepreneurs and China.

Rwanda’s Diego Twahirwa, the owner of Gashora farm, inked the deal with China’s Kai Jiang Xian zi Wei Food last week that will see him export chilli to the Asian nation starting November 2018 until May 2019 reports The New Times...[more]

The BBC profiles the work of Samasource:

A post about a partnership between Honey-Treat Trade Academy and the Bosch Artisan Empowerment Program

Spore reports on The Mutasa Auction Floor (MAF):
To resolve the ‘disconnect’ between smallholders and markets, and reduce transport costs and produce losses for farmers, an efficient and transparent online auction system has been established in Zimbabwe...[more]

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A post shared by livestock247ng (@livestock247ng) on Oct 8, 2018 at 3:07am PDT

The vision of Livestock247 is to mitigate the spread of zoonotic diseases through the provision of fit-for-slaughter and traceable livestock to our customers.

DiagnoseMe was conceived by the Stack Diagnostics team as a way to provide difficult-to-access testing services to both doctors and patients in Africa in a way that overcomes the healthcare infrastructural problems that many countries in Africa experience. Our founders have a wealth of experience in this space and have worked in the leading medical research institutions and healthcare organizations in the US, UK and Nigeria. DiagnoseMe is changing the way healthcare in Africa is done. Now, take charge of your health!

Ventures Africa reports:
Emmanuel Ezenwere is the founder of Arone, a Nigerian startup that is changing the personalised drone delivery system in Nigeria, particularly in the area of healthcare. Ezenwere conceived the idea for Arone once he visited Lagos and met Temie Giwa-Tubosun, the founder of Life Bank, a startup working to improve access to blood transfusions in the country. “I started thinking about the impact it would have if we were able to assist them by using drones to deliver blood much quicker to people that need it so desperately. So that was when the idea came,” he told This Is Africa(TIA)...[more]

Esha Chhabra reporting for Forbes:

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A post shared by Vava Coffee (@vavacoffeekenya) on Apr 9, 2016 at 1:48pm PDTIn 2009, Vava Angwenyi returned to her native Kenya, after completing her studies in Canada and Europe, with the ambition of changing the African coffee industry to include more Africans like herself. Nearly a decade in, she’s finally figuring how to make a dent in the chaotic world of coffee trading, which, she argues, has for too long been dominated by foreigners...[more]

A clip from the BBC's Money Dail

From the Sowetan:
Traditional healer Ephraim Mabena has been able to use his knowledge of indigenous medicine in collaboration with science to create products that could soon be commercialised.

“Having our knowledge written down and archived is an acknowledgement of our medicine and our traditions,” he said...[more]

From Quartz Africa:
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu has a dream: that everyone should one day taste hand-roasted Ethiopian coffee.

Widely acknowledged as the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia is one of the world’s largest coffee bean producers and Africa’s top grower of the plant. Coffee is also brewed and drank in the Horn of Africa nation in elaborate ceremonies, often using crafting techniques passed down from generations over centuries. As an entrepreneur, Alemu always wanted to replicate this dynamic experience—what she calls “the magical process”—to coffee lovers worldwide...[more]

An upcoming workshop from Harry Akligoh from the forthcoming re-publica  2018:
Short thesis

Using 3D printing innovation, we will hack and build simple low-cost DIY open science lab equipment. Description

Basic science and biotech research are driven by top-notch instrumentation. Unfortunately, the lack of instrumental access in labs in Africa affects how research is done. DIY Biohacking and Open science hardware, a movement that embraces the use of maker culture and open science, enables scientists from low resource backgrounds to use open manufacturing protocols and biology principles to build their own lab equipment. This workshop will re:connect DIY Bio lovers, tech makers and students...[more]

from Money Daily

Jake Bright writes:
Africa’s VC landscape is becoming more African with an increasing number of investment funds headquartered on the continent and run by locals, according to data from Crunchbase...[more]

From VentureBurn:
Two years ago after graduating from nursing school in Cameroon, a helpless Melissa Bime watched as a five-year-old patient of hers died — because she could not get a blood transfusion. The tragic event inspired Bime to seek a solution.

It’s when she decided to start Infiuss. The Yaounde-based startup offers an online blood bank, as well as a digital supply-chain platform that helps connect those hospitals that do have blood banks to those that don’t.

“I wanted to be able to solve this problem of access to life-saving blood,” says Bime (pictured above), who was last month selected as the winner of this year’s Anzisha Prize, walking away with $25 000 in funding...[more]

Moustapha Cisse writing in Nature:
If AI is to improve lives and reduce inequalities, we must build expertise beyond the present-day centres of innovationArtificial intelligence (AI) is changing society as profoundly as the steam engine and electricity have done. But unlike past technological revolutions, the AI revolution offers a unique chance to improve lives without opening up and exacerbating global inequalities.

That will require widening of the locations where AI is done. The vast majority of experts are in North America, Europe and Asia. Africa, in particular, is barely represented. Such lack of diversity can entrench unintended algorithmic biases and build discrimination into AI products. And that’s not the only gap: fewer African AI researchers and engineers means fewer opportunities to use AI to improve the lives of Africans. The research community is also missing out on talented individuals simply because they have not received the right education...[more]

Mutesi profiles the founder of RIDE Ethiopia
“I am always obsessed with identifying (the) gap in our day-to-day lives,” she says. It is was such ambitions that drove her into setting up Hybrid Design Plc., a software and applications developing company with a capital of less than US$ 2,000.

Three years down the road, Hybrid Design is now behind RIDE—a mobile App aimed at modernising the country’s out-dated transport system. Fikru conceived the idea of RIDE app after experiencing a transport problem when she was hired as a developer in software developing company. Mor here

From AgriBusinessTV: