East Africa’s Startup ecosystem players in Nairobi to design the future of Africa Tech

Leading startup ecosystem players in Africa have today kicked off a two-day workshop to design solutions for challenges that the startups in the region are facing.

Dubbed Empowering the Startup Community, the workshop has been put in place by Garage48 and Pangea Accelerator with support from the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Development Cooperation Fund. 

Aiming at boosting the local startup ecosystem, the two are hosting at least 25 representatives from incubation hubs, accelerators firms, and other entrepreneur support organizations from among other countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia, and Tanzania.

Commenting on the workshop, CEO of Garage48 Mari Hanikat, noted that the idea of the workshop is to bring together different startup community ecosystem key players, create additional synergy between them and see how each of these organizations could contribute to the lifecycle of the East-African startup.

During the session, participants are expected to brainstorm ideas and solutions that will contribute to a stronger, smarter, and more connected startup ecosystem.

“Having this opportunity to cooperate with a leading East Africa ecosystem player is a big opportunity for us, specifically now that we need to focus on economic recovery from the effects of Covid 19. Besides, it is exciting to partner with a key player in the Estonian ecosystem. Estonia is by far a global leader on e-governance and innovation, hence the need for us to learn from their experience”. said CEO and Co-Founder of Pangea Accelerator Jonas Tesfu in his keynote remarks.

Further, the workshop hopes to birth fresh, innovative solutions by integrating IT skills to different industries; enabling future trendsetters by facilitating networking among participants and letting them have a better understanding of each other’s strengths.