On August 15, 2011, Africa House and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation hosted a lecture and luncheon with Mellena Haile, a 2011-2012 Kauffman Foundation Fellow.
The event focused on the intersection of information technology and entrepreneurial innovation in Africa. Dr. Yaw Nyarko, the director of Africa House, began the event by discussing the relationship between the Kauffman Foundation’s projects and Africa House’s own multifaceted developmental work, from political debate to economics to IT innovations and the arts.
Ms. Haile then discussed the Kauffman Foundation’s seminars in Lagos, Nigeria, that brought together on-the-ground entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and foundations for networking, grantmaking and consultations. By the end of the seminar, at least half of those present secure funding, she noted.
The program, however, needs to expand, and there are many unanswered questions about the entrepreneurs the Foundation was working with. Some of the questions Ms. Haile asked herself after participating in the conference were, “Where are these entrepreneurs? Where are they located? What are the daily challenges they face?”
“We’re talking about over 50 African countries,” she noted. But given the distances and cultural differences between these countries, how could the Kauffman Foundation accurately collect and analyze information about entrepreneurs, information that would be of value to the entrepreneurs themselves once it was distilled and available through a single source? “What if I can send out text messages to an entrepreneur in, say, Ghana and ask him or her what industry they’re involved in, what are the realities of your journey?” as Ms. Haile put it.
The solution, she said, is to take advantage of the “Mobile Revolution” in Africa. Even the most small-scale street vendor has a mobile phone these days, so why not obtain information from the entrepreneurs that way? So, in order to obtain this data and ultimately process so that the entrepreneurs themselves can access it, Ms. Haile is developing the “E-Pulse” program.
The E-Pulse program will use “IT innovation to maximize networking options for entrepreneurs and illustrate the relationships among different entrepreneurs, markets, companies, official agencies, and the nonprofit community.”
Ms. Haile originally had an engineering and architectural background, but, she said, “I caught the entrepreneurial bug in 2008. I need to move to understand entrepreneurship with the economy collapsing all around us.
The Kauffman Foundation focuses on “expeditionary economics,” or ExpECON, in Africa. The focus of ExpECON, outlined in an influential Foreign Affairs article by Kauffman Foundation President Carl J. Schramm, falls on developing indigenous entrepreneurship in spurring economic growth in developing and post-conflict countries.
Kauffman’s role is to set up the framework for the partnerships they create with entrepreneurs. A program called SourceLink will collect data on the entrepreneurs’ businesses and provide “just-in-time” entrepreneurship information for them and the Kauffman Foundation
Ms. Haile is already in talks with Vodafone to help co-develop a technology to develop a mobile survey, a technique first piloted by organizations conducting public health surveys in African countries. An initial entrepreneurial survey, that is, a fact-finding mission, is already being put into practice.
In the long-term, the results of the surveys will contribute to the development of the Kauffman Global Founders Network, which focuses on the Foundation's next steps to developing entrepreneurial ecosystems around the world. It will, as Ms. Haile put it at the start of the event, track the evolution of entrepreneurship in Africa
Distinguished faculty from Stern, Steinhardt and the Medical College attended the event, as well as representatives from Indego Africa, the Africa Travel Association, Human Rights First and the United Nations.
During the question and answer session, Dr. Mark Foran of the NYU Medical College discussed his experience with the aforementioned public health surveys and offered his advice on marketing, scaling p and making E-Pulse accessible. He suggested sending blanket survey questions to the entire market, and then asking those who response send the phone numbers of up to 3 people you know who are also interested in entrepreneurship. He also suggested that “by capturing GIS coordinates of the SMS replies to the survey, a map could be created that would list people, their activities, and could be sorted by type, such as government official, business owner, by industry, etc. This map could be open access on the internet, or people with only SMS or smart phones could access parts of it via phone.
Although there are still many specific details to be worked out regarding the program, the project design has been carefully thought out and will be modified once the data collection starts delivering information that the Kauffman Foundation, and specifically, Ms. Haile, can analyze.
Africa House is very interested to see how E-Pulse will develop, and what it can tell us about free market growth and innovation in Africa.
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