Loren Treisman is Executive of Indigo Trust, a grant making
foundation which supports technology-driven projects in Africa. She shares her thoughts ahead of her participation to AfricaCom, where she will speak on the role of foundations in supporting technology innovation hubs, and on innovative mobile services for rural communities.
"
I’m the Executive of a UK based charitable foundation, the Indigo Trust. We’re part of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts who have
made over a billion pounds of donations
to charitable causes over several decades, representing one of the leading
examples of sustained philanthropy in Britain.
Indigo focuses its funding on technology-driven projects which bring about social change, largely in
African countries. Our theory of change
stems from a belief that if people have the ability to access, share and create
information, then they are empowered to make positive changes in their own
lives and communities. We have a
particular interest in innovation, transparency and citizen empowerment but
support projects across a whole range of sectors including the health,
education, human rights and agricultural spheres.
It
may seem unusual for a charitable organisation to be featured at a business
focused conference. However, we believe
that technology driven projects have the potential to contribute towards sustained
positive social change whilst generating an income. By adopting social enterprise models, where
commercial strategies are applied to maximise improvements in human or
environmental well-being, we believe that social projects are more likely to be
in a position to scale and sustain over time, thus maximising their social
impact. This can best be achieved when
the private, public and third sector collaborate effectively.
We believe that the best
solutions to Africa's challenges will be devised by those affected by them. African entrepreneurs have a better
understanding of the complex local context.
Moreover, having encountered the frustrations impacting on their own
lives and communities first hand, they have the passion required to drive a
project or product forward.
Therefore, we are
supporting nine technology innovation hubs across the continent. By providing access to desk space, high speed
internet, training, mentorship and high profile events, technology hubs are
able to galvanise the tech entrepreneur community, having a catalytic effect on
the number of projects being developed in-country. They’re springing up across the continent:
there’s Co-Creation Hub in Lagos,
Nigeria, KINU in Tanzania, Activ Spaces in Cameroon, Klab in Rwanda, Hive Colab in Uganda, Jokko Lab in Senegal, Nairobi’s
famous iHub, Bongo Hive in Zambia and Rlab in Cape
Town. Some have even sprung up in
unexpected places like the iLab in Liberia and Rlab in Somaliland.
The RLab in Cape Town,
the brain child of the inspirational Marlon and Rene Parker is an unusual but
fascinating example. Through supporting
those in society that many have already given up on, they have transformed drug
addicts and ex-gang members into social entrepreneurs. Their Jamiix mobile counselling
platform now has over 50 million users and an incubator, which they established
less than a year ago, employs 13 people.
Collectively, the businesses it’s supporting serve more than 300, 000
users.
As
funders, we believe that it is necessary to support these spaces at the early
stages before they are able to achieve financial independence. We can then shift our support towards
supporting the innovative social projects arising from them, rather than
importing Western models. In the same
way, we can support social entrepreneurs until their projects become
financially sustainable. As grant
funders, we are able to provide small grants and to move fast. We are also able to take relatively high
risks. This encourages entrepreneurs to
innovate and gives them room to experiment and test new ideas and concepts.
The pool of angel investors is
small in most African countries and investors often require prototypes to have
been developed and lengthy impact assessments to have been carried out before
making investments. It can also take considerable time before start-ups begin
generating an income. Philanthropic organisations can fill this gap by
supporting early stage start-ups, giving the projects a chance to
succeed, secure private sector investment and achieve sustainability.
In Kenya, the inspirational Su Kahumbu of iCow has developed a mobile application which provides timely information to
dairy farmers by voice or SMS in a range of languages. Farmers can also
identify agro-experts, monitor disease outbreaks, sell and purchase livestock
via the application. Whilst this project
currently requires grant funding, it is hoped that the project will be
self-sustaining in the future as farmers are happy to make very small payments
in order to access services as using the service has improved their income
through increased milk yields. When we came across them only a year and a
half ago, we were their first funder, providing a grant of £10, 536 and now
they have plans to scale across Kenya and beyond.
At
Indigo Trust, we also support projects which are unlikely to generate an
income, predominantly in the category of public goods and services, a sector
which hasn’t traditionally attracted private investment due to market
failure. In sectors such as transparency
and accountability, organisations often require on-going funding to sustain
projects which support good governance.
We’re excited to see governments across Africa, exemplified by the
Kenyan government,beginning to open up data.
This has created an influx of citizen led initiatives which contribute
towards transparency and ultimately improved service delivery.
The
Co-Creation Hub in Lagos, Nigeria, the brainchild of Bosun Tijani and Femi
Longe is supporting a wide range of projects in this space. A Nigerian Constitution App has been
downloaded more than 150, 000 times, more than any democracy focused App in the
UK. Budgit is creating infographics and
stimulating discussion around Nigeria’s budget whilst iWatch Live enables citizens to monitor
government projects and hold them to their promises. In Kenya and Tanzania, citizens are able to
report challenges in service delivery through a platform called Huduma.
Right on your doorstep in South Africa, the Lungisa project by Cell Life is being piloted in Khayelitsha with
a similar aim, whilst miGox enables
community members to access government information in the form of stories,
stimulating discussions and interactions by the public.
As
mobile based technology and even internet based services become more widely
available across Africa, we expect to see a broadening of the market and a
widening and diversification of the consumer base. For example, iCow targets subsistence dairy
farmers in Kenya, whilst the SHM Foundation’s Project Kopano provides
SMS based support to women diagnosed with HIV during pregnancy in South
Africa.
In
order to ensure that projects are well targeted towards remote and often
marginalised communities, entrepreneurs need to ensure that end users are
consulted at all stages of development, that the technology is appropriate (for
example interactive voice response or SMS based services on basic feature
phones), that end users have sufficient capacity to utilise projects (and training
is provided if necessary) and that utilising technology is actually the best
approach to tackling a particular issue.
These projects also require new business models, which take into account
the low incomes of the majority of the end users which they support. This can include generating revenue through
advertising, cross-subsidy models or low profit, high turnover approaches.
It
is also crucial to ensure that techies collaborate with social activists and
civil society more generally to ensure that their tools tackle a genuine
need. Civil society organisations can
also help to raise awareness of projects and products and provide training to
end users. Technology tools also need to
be integrated into well-devised programmes, rather than being viewed as a
panacea to all social problems in their own right.
The
private sector can greatly contribute to this sector by supporting core costs
such as rent and internet for technology hubs in exchange for branding. Mutually beneficial business models can also
be devised to support social projects.
For example, mobile operators could host such projects on their network
and assist in marketing as a way of expanding their user base, generating
revenue and contributing towards their public profile. They could also offer reduced data costs to
such ventures.
There
is much work to be done to ensure that the right ecosystem is created to
support upcoming entrepreneurs. This
includes creating an appropriate regulatory framework and policy environment,
where governments actively encourage innovation. Entrepreneurs also need to be provided with
sufficient mentorship and support in areas such as marketing, business planning,
software development, regulations and legalities and communications and to
ensure that they increase their visibility and speak widely about their
work. As always, access to finance also
remains a challenge, even more so in Sub-Saharan Africa.
At
Tech Innovation Hubs, there is also still work to be done to encourage
collaboration and build a sense of trust amongst entrepreneur. There is also a need to establish the best
way to reach marginalised or under-represented communities and those living
outside main cities. Initiatives which
support collaboration between hubs are also likely to achieve impact. Many of the hubs also have initiatives which
aim to attract women to the technology sector and there is a need to build upon
these.
Whilst
the tech for social change sector in Africa is relatively new, I’m always
amazed to see how much it has achieved already.
I look forward to watching this space evolve and grow, thus stimulating
economic growth and contributing to social change across a range of sectors
throughout the continent.
I’m
excited to be participating in AfricaCom, where I look forward to gaining
insight into the role of the private sector in stimulating economic development
and providing new services to consumers in this rapidly changing space. I’m also excited to meet some of the sector’s
leading players and to share best practice and experiences.
If
you’d like to find out more about our work, check out Indigo’s blog here.
You can also read a recent viewpoint I recently wrote for the BBC
entitled ‘Do Africa’s technology entrepreneurs need charity?’ and watch a clip
of me being interviewed on this issue here."
AfricaCom will take place on 13-15 November 2012 in Cape Town. For more information on the event and the conference programme visit our website.
