Akintola Williams, who celebrated his 104th birthday on August 9, is a trailblazing figure in the Nigerian accounting world. He played a pivotal role in placing Africa on the global accounting map alongside a major South African firm led by Howard Pim. The centenarian explained that several factors, including dedicated teachers and a determination to succeed, contributed to shaping him into the accomplished individual he has become.



Akintola Williams, who turned 104 years old on August 9, is a revolutionary figure in the accounting world, both in Nigeria and on the continent. His role alone in placing Africa on the global accounting map, alongside a South African firm led by Howard Pim, has been pivotal and inspiring.



In a 2011 interview, Williams attributed his longevity to moderation in all aspects of his life. He emphasized the significance of simplicity, avoiding controversies, taking ample rest, and engaging in mental, physical, and spiritual exercises.



“The key to my longevity is moderation. In everything I do, I strive to be moderate – a little of this and a little of that, not too much. Whether it&#8217;s what you eat, what you drink, or whatever you do, just be moderate and you&#8217;ll live a refreshing, strong, and fulfilling life,” he told Vanguard News.



Due to his academic prowess, he received a United African Company (UAC) scholarship from 1939 to 1941 for higher education at Yaba Higher College in Nigeria&#8217;s largest city, Lagos. Here, he earned a diploma in commerce. He furthered his education at the University of London in 1944, focusing on banking and finance, and graduated with a bachelor&#8217;s degree in commerce in 1946.



In 1949, at the age of 30, he became a qualified chartered accountant in England – the first Nigerian to achieve this feat.



Williams has explained that several factors, including the dedication from his teachers and a will to succeed, contributed to shaping him into the person he is now.



In various media, he was quoted to have said: “I would say a number of things made it possible for me. First, [there] were masters in the favorite subjects which eventually was necessary for my profession in accounting, namely, mathematics.”



He returned to Nigeria in 1950, working as an assessment officer at the Inland Revenue until March 1952, when he left to establish his own accounting firm, Akintola Williams and Co.



This firm reportedly became the first indigenous chartered accounting firm in Africa, expanding beyond Nigeria to Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Swaziland as well as Ghana, Egypt, and Kenya. As Nigeria gained independence in 1960, his firm developed relationships with significant clients in insurance, utilities, railways, and ports.



Williams retired in 1983 at the age of 64, but he continued to contribute to humanity through mentoring and supporting the growth of other indigenous chartered accountancy firms.



In 2004, his practice merged with two other accounting firms to form Akintola Williams Deloitte (now Deloitte &amp; Touche), the largest professional services firm in Nigeria. While Williams&#8217; leadership contributed to Deloitte&#8217;s growth across Africa, he also made an impact beyond accounting, including his involvement in promoting arts, culture, and music.



Williams held key positions, including President of the Association of Accountants in Nigeria and founding President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). He played a role in establishing the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1960 and remained an advisor to its operators.



The Akintola Williams Arboretum at the Nigerian Conservation Foundation headquarters in Lagos and other honors such as the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in 1982 and Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) in 2001, recognize his outstanding achievements.



In April 1997, Williams was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his services to the accountancy profession and his promotion of arts, culture, and music through the Musical Society of Nigeria.



On May 8, 2011, the Nigeria-Britain Association awarded him for his contributions to democracy and development.



As a pioneer and pacesetter, Williams laid the foundation for numerous institutions in Nigeria. He served on various boards, including the Federal Income Tax Appeal Commissioners, the Coker Commission of Inquiry, and the Commonwealth Foundation.



His contributions have left a lasting legacy, and it’s been said that, even to this day, Deloitte Africa continues to uphold his values and positive impact across the continent.

Akintola Williams, an icon in Nigeria’s accounting world; image supplied

The 104-Year-Old Pioneering Nigerian Chartered Accountant Still Inspiring Many  

Kenyan fashion entrepreneur Ruth Abade uses upcycled materials to create vibrant clothes and accessories with sustainability sewn into them.



&#8220;It was something I’ve never seen. I was like, ‘maybe this is what they mean by the end of the world?’ The sky looked orange. And then it just went really, really dark.”



In June, the New York skies were flooded with apocalyptic color, as Canadian wildfires moved south and the smoke transformed the global center of fashion into a burned sienna hellscape.



Kenyan fashion entrepreneur Ruth Abade is in the city for trade shows, describing by video call this ominous reminder of the consequences of unfettered consumption: the world’s most charismatic metropolis reduced in minutes to incandescent shadows.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000315-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-1024x768.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-59362" style="width:388px;height:291px" width="388" height="291" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000315-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000315-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000315-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000315-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000315-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Photos by Lars Johansson</figcaption></figure></div>


She is the owner of Blackfly Designs, an apparel, jewelry and textile company with practical sustainability embedded in its seams.



Abade and her dozen-strong team, based in Kibera’s Toi Market in Nairobi, use upcycled materials to create one-of-a-kind clothes and accessories buzzing with quirky innovation.



Blackfly’s bomber jackets pop with the vibrancy of re-purposed Indian saris; its shoulder bags are clever, jazzy patchworks of African fabric off-cuts, finished with expertly curated scraps of leather and salvaged metal fittings. The jewelry pieces are geometric alignments of the rough and the smooth, metallic juxtapositions of the polished and the well-traveled.



An industrial designer by training, Abade spent a year in Florence learning leather bag design before her skills coalesced into a business in 2012.



“So I took my industrial know-how into fashion, because I needed to survive! And then when your clientele grows, you harness all these scrap pieces as off-cuts, so I needed to develop another prototype. You have to embody the whole thing as one 



item. So we decided that if you’re going to use scrap pieces, you’re going to use them all the way. You have to always be diverse when it comes to creation, because it never stops.”



The brand grew so fast that the company began buying off-cuts from other tailors, generating a business model that initially presented challenges in how it would grow and become accessible to a wider market.



“When you’re doing one-offs, it’s difficult to sell to big retailers,” Abade says. “It’s also very difficult to sell to small stores, because they need to make a mark-up. And I wanted to create a product anybody can afford. So I had to make a decision. Either I build my own store – or people just come to the workshop.”



The brand now sells directly to its Nairobi base and from its website; it eschews the influencer and social- media-driven demand for the latest must-have, a wasteful production cycle which floods the market with cheap copycats that often end their short lives in African landfill.



“It doesn’t matter to me whether the business expands tremendously or not,” she says. “You have to stay true to the reason why you do it. We started this because of the overflow we had, but it’s also the joy of working with the suppliers who have always had our back, where the person is willing to sacrifice anything for you – because you’ve been with them for 10 years, and never gone away.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000384-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-1024x768.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-59363" style="width:534px;height:401px" width="534" height="401" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000384-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000384-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000384-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000384-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/P1000384-Photo-credit-Lars-Johansson-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 534px) 100vw, 534px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Photos by Lars Johansson</figcaption></figure></div>


Abade has also been careful to shun the economic thirst-trap of the easy business loan, and has instead instituted a solidarity fund within the company to allow employees to contribute to a monthly kitty accessible when any of the team need to borrow without risk. Staff are able to access these contributions when they leave, a structure that encourages an understanding of fiscal responsibility based on mutuality and trust.



“You have to sit down with your people and be candid,” she says. “I run my business like a family, so they see the struggles.



When you have a conversation like that with people, they understand where you’re coming from.”



Mindful of the steady international growth in upcycling, and the resultant price increase in scrap material and off-cuts, Abade is now gradually shifting her focus towards printed textile production, using quality cotton fabric made by women and sourced from Tanzania. She believes her prints will open up a new niche demand for a local twist on an African fashion stalwart, with Blackfly aiming to become the leading Kenyan producer of the traditional Indonesian batik prints embraced with such joyful ubiquity in the west of the continent.



“I have a big responsibility to produce a technique that when seen anywhere in the world, people will say, ‘This is Kenyan batik, without a doubt’. Because you can’t train people if you don’t have a specific technique,” she explains.



“I’m experimenting in order to find something uniquely Kenyan – painting more than stamping; using pastel and muted colors, but in very strong combinations. I think the market is hungry for something new. And big brands are starting to really think about organic cottons, so everybody’s giving themselves a timeline to work with. We have to be ready for that timeline.”



As the North American skies clear, Abade looks ahead with hope, the creative fire still burning in her belly. “I have to remember that regardless, I’m an artist, before a businessperson. And working with artists, I think, is a nightmare,” she laughs. “But as long as it feels good – that’s what we’re going to do.”

P1000559 Photo credit Lars Johansson

Upcycling On The Fly: Fashion Forward In Kenya

Nana Kwasi Wiafe’s home country is a prevailing motif in his work that goes from fashion to home furniture to authentic storytelling.



When your name is associated with a Beyoncé production, recognition is in your stars. But Ghanaian Nana Kwasi Wiafe has always been a creative force. He contributed to Beyoncé’s 2020 musical album, Black is King, as part of the styling team that took home an Emmy Award in 2021 for ‘Outstanding Costume’, but his credits also include styling British-Ghanaian actor Michaela Coel in kente prints for the cover of US-based lifestyle magazine, Variety.



Wiafe is recognized for his collaborations with brands like Diesel, Dior, Apple Inc and HBO but it is his own spin on telling authentic Ghanaian stories that led him to his true passion and purpose, Very Ghanaian, a company he launched in 2019.



He describes it as a travel lifestyle brand showcasing his love and patriotism for Ghana, and proof that his country can also produce top-of-the-range fashion.



“As a stylist, I meet a lot of people and they always double-check if I am Ghanaian and I always respond that I am ‘very Ghanaian’. When I decided to create this brand, it was the name I went with. It meant that I am unapologetically Ghanaian and proud of who I am,” affirms Wiafe.



He credits his artistic genes to his dad who used to sell clothes but was also like a sculptor.



“He displayed the clothes like an art installation and people were so intrigued that they would come by and just look at it. So, being an artist was in my blood.”



Wiafe dropped out of university after a one-year diploma in business administration and a chance encounter with the show, America’s Next Top Model that inspired his modeling career.



He also wanted to change the stereotypes around modeling. “For me, it was all about showcasing self- acceptance, authenticity and self-love.”



After working as a model, his course changed.



“I realized that I saw myself as an executive. I wasn’t getting a lot of stylists to help style me for [photo]shoots and I had to pay for them and didn’t have the budget for it at the time,” he remembers. His response to these setbacks was to do the styling himself.



Very Ghanaian is now in four stores across Ghana offering international sales via its website.



“We are also launching a new project called Very Ghanaian Home; focused on Ghana-inspired furniture. Very Ghanaian is going towards a heritage legacy brand and also creating a movement,” says Wiafe, who believes that the key to improving Ghana’s creative space is to foster collaboration between brands.



“Your ability to grow in the space lies in recognizing that no man is an island. When you collaborate, you increase your chances of delivering the best possible outcome for your client.&#8221;



He is also the creative director of THOUARTKWASI, a “high-end styling brand that creates fashion editorial looks for global brands with an African twist”.



“I believe I am sharing the beauty of Ghana and Africa with the world. It feels amazing to be able to inspire the world using Ghanaian culture and heritage,” says Wiafe.

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The Creative And Stylist ‘Unapologetically Ghanaian’

Aisha Shehu is using fashion to shift the narrative of the Fulani people in Nigeria.



Aisha Shehu is on a mission to show the world the beauty of the Fulani culture as a modern Fulani woman.



The cultural detail and distinctive colors of the traditional outfits of the Fulani tribe always resonated with Shehu. Both her parents were civil servants so she credits her entrepreneurial spark to her creative and artistic side, which was a constant during her formative years.



However, her path to becoming the next emerging fashion trendsetter was an unconventional one.



The Fulani tribe is a nomadic tribe of herders who migrate with their cattle in search of land rich with grass and water. Where previously determined by the change in seasons, more recently,



climate change and desertification have led Fulani herdsmen to migrate to lands belonging to sedentary farmers, reportedly resulting in violent clashes between the two.



Despite this negative narrative of the Fulani in the media, Shehu, the founder of luxury clothing brand BABAYO, is looking to change that through the power of fashion. Born in Lagos to Fulani parents from Gombe in north-eastern Nigeria, Shehu grew up wearing traditional Fulani clothing during major public holidays such as Nigeria’s Independence Day. However, knowing her parents would not pay for her to attend fashion school, Shehu opted to go to business school in France instead. She also did a one-year degree in fashion while there. The plan was to start her own fashion business and put the skills she had acquired abroad to work.



“My mother told me to give her my CV so I could start looking for jobs. It took me long to create one not because it was hard to do, but because I did not want to return to the oil and gas sector and a nine-to-five job,” recalls Shehu.



Rather than look for employment, she came up with another plan. With the savings she accumulated teaching English to children in France, as well as money she made from her work experience in the oil and gas sector, Shehu decided to rent a space for her



business, buy her first sewing machine and hire a tailor.



For Shehu, ground zero involved coasting through the fashion business with no real strategy in mind



in terms of how to differentiate herself from the competition. She dabbled in casual, formal and bridal couture to make ends meet. The real turning point for the brand happened by default and not by design.



“Two years ago, when I was going through my closet with my sister, we found our old Fulani outfits that we wore as kids – the traditional ones. I remember saying how weird it was that we could not wear this all the time. And that is when the conversation started. From there, we wanted to find a way to make it modern, accessible and functional.” Before Shehu embarked on the new brand direction, she ran the idea by a few 



people. “They were like, am I sure this is the right time because of the backlash in the media?”



For Shehu, the answer was a resounding yes. The only way forward was to showcase the beauty of her culture.



And just like that, things began to take off. BABAYO began to form its own identity. The outfits became a hit and very soon, Shehu was designing variations of her latest creations, infused with other cultural elements.



The turning point came about through social media.



In 2021, she was contacted by Lagos Fashion Week, Nigeria’s top fashion event, on Instagram.



“I came home and got an invitation for the next emerging designers and people to look out for, and I was blown away because I didn’t know anyone.”



That invitation was for a digital show. The following year, Shehu got invited again but, this time, she was on the runway.



“I got called again! For a small and unknown brand like us to do a runway show was a big deal because you are walking alongside other established brands who have been around for years. I got to do that for Lagos Fashion Week; I took a bow on stage and that was a breakthrough moment for the brand.”



Since 2017, Shehu has increased her client base organically, with customers ordering her pieces from all over the world, including Qatar, Japan and Australia. She has also made it to the top 12 out of 400 designers to be accepted into the fashion accelerator program created by the African Development Bank. The long-term vision of BABAYO is to become a dominant brand in the luxury fashion sector. But the heart of it will always be the cultural heritage of the Fulani.

narrative

Sartorial Diplomacy: Shifting The Narrative, One Outfit At A Time In Nigeria

The couple bringing cashew butter to store shelves and healthy eating plans in Tanzania.



When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Mohamedhussein and Sabiha Rashid were left with a large shipment of cashews they were expecting to export from Tanzania to the United Arab Emirates, as part of their maiden entrepreneurial venture together as husband and wife. Airports shut down cargo operations, and for weeks, the cashews had to be stored in their apartment in Dar es Salaam.



Sabiha had to find something to do with them.



Having watched numerous episodes of Shark Tank and attuned to entrepreneurial thinking, it struck her that she could convert them to cashew butter. Sabiha had gone vegan for a year while at university in England and had experienced first-hand the benefit of switching her food choices.



“I used to eat cashew butter, but I never thought of why nobody was making these things in Tanzania, although the country is one of the largest producers or growers of cashews globally,” she says.



So, out of her home kitchen, she started making the butter, as well as conceptualizing the product and packaging.



“I was experimenting and made lots of different flavors, made people taste it, but from day one, I said that if I’m starting a business, even if it’s a home business or just online, I need to make sure that what I’m putting out there is really amazing.”



She was pleasantly surprised by the response she received for the Instagram page she started on her product.



“It really caught on… it was the start of a small revolution, a healthy revolution.”



For three months, the small venture operated out of the couple’s apartment – it even blew up several food processors – but the demand grew and they had to soon find a dedicated space to enable production.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
&#8220;PEOPLE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF CASHEW BUTTER – IT’S FOREIGN TO THEM… ALTHOUGH THE RAW MATERIALS ARE THERE, I THINK IT’S AN UNORGANIZED SECTOR THAT NEEDS A LOT OF WORK.”
</blockquote>



Farmers’ markets helped gauge the public need, and it was time to formalize the business.



Three years down, and produced out of three factories, their product, ’rosho, a catchphrase derived from the Swahili word korosho for cashews, has grown.



But it wasn’t easy to get here. ’rosho only uses organic cashews, so processing has been expensive. Additionally, as food production is



largely underdeveloped in Tanzania, as in other parts of Africa, prices are high.



“We’ve really struggled with getting hold of good food technicians, microbiologists and all of these [professionals in different fields] that we require and also expertise in terms of machinery for production, packaging, etc…” rues Mohamedhussein.



’rosho’s conscious consumers have stayed supportive though. Says Sabiha: “There are tons of options imported [to Tanzania], but prices are very high and a lot of times, we get the leftovers, so they’re close to expiry. People are not happy with the quality they’re getting from the imported stuff… We are a better and local option.”



They have also had to ride out the initial skepticism. “People didn’t understand the concept of cashew butter – it’s foreign to them… So, although the raw materials are there, I think it’s an unorganized sector that needs a lot of work,” adds Mohamedhussein.



“I think as a company, for us, there has been so much problem- solving, so much innovation that we’ve had to do,” says Sabiha, “so much independent research, because there aren’t any bodies by the local government that you can reach out to for advice, although the government has been supportive. There have been



a number of trials and working with local engineers to innovate and be more efficient.” ’rosho also exports and within Tanzania, is popular among tourists for its local appeal. The company hopes to have a better impact on smallholder farmers. The founders say the factories currently employ only women and pay them 80% more than the minimum wage.



“That’s what we’ve tried to do, to give our customers a different sense of fulfillment when they’re buying from us,” says Mohamedhussein. “And to also sort of pave the path for other organizations and companies to come and do something more innovative

tanzania story

From Raw To Reward: Bringing Cashew Butter To Stores In Tanzania

Time is money for London-based luxury watchmaker William Adoasi, and he is now using it to support quality education in sub-Saharan Africa.



William Adoasi grew up in one of the roughest council estates in London and for as long as he could remember, wanted to get out. His parents emigrated from Ghana to the United Kingdom (UK) before Adoasi was born and, being the first of seven children, he saw first-hand the chaos that surrounded his estate in Peckham, South London.



A social housing project built by local authorities to provide shelter and other amenities like schools and shops, council estates in the UK have become notorious as breeding grounds for various social problems over the years.



This prompted two former prime ministers, David Cameron and Tony Blair, to advocate for the redevelopment of these estates citing their propensity to entrench poverty as well as create an environment for criminality to thrive, as the core reasons.



To shield Adoasi from the negative elements of the estate, his parents encouraged his education. Adoasi did well enough in school to secure a scholarship and move into a private boarding school in the midlands, and finally, out of the council estate.



“One day a fight broke out in a rugby game between my team and another team and I heard some of my teammates calling the other team ‘council estate scam’, not knowing that I grew up on a council estate myself. It really shaped the way I am in terms of my drive because there is always a part of me that wants to disprove the myth of a council estate boy who does not amount to anything in life,” says Adoasi.



Initially the drive was simply motivated by his need to create a luxury life far away from the tentacles of poverty that always gripped his childhood. His determination to succeed led him to drop out of university to start a sports academy, with which he made a six-figure income by the age of 19.



“I [ran] that for two years until the government pulled the funding, which meant that it wasn’t viable anymore,” says Adoasi.



After that stint, he worked in London as an insurance broker and recruiter. During this time, he went back to school and finished his education and, very soon, began to think outside the confines of his nine-to-five job for a way to make more money.



He was always interested in watches and by the time he was in the city, Adoasi was making enough money to upgrade his taste to the high-end brands, the likes of Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. That was when his light bulb moment happened.



“I wanted to find a middle ground of a watch that was super premium and has a high-end aesthetic, made with high-end materials but with a price point that wasn’t wild… I started speaking to multiple factories and haggling prices down between the factories until I perfected my sample batch,” says Adoasi.



At the age of 26, he quit his job and became the founder and lead designer of Vitae London.



“I felt that working in the city was a drain on me and that I had to do something with a bigger purpose where I wake up everyday and my motivation was not just money. Vitae means ‘lives’ in Latin. Our mantra from the get-go was to be the watch brand changing lives,” says Adoasi.



After launching the brand, Vitae London got shortlisted by Richard Branson to receive a startup loan of £20,000



(approximately $25,000 today) out of 10,000 applicants. To date, the brand has raised a total of $190,000 from the likes of US-based venture capital firm, Backstage Capital and, with that, total sales revenue to date is around £1.3 million ($1.6 million).



Adoasi has also kept his promise – 10% of everything the company makes goes back to empower children in sub-Saharan Africa to receive quality education. Through a partnership with charity organization, House of Wells, he has supported over 10,000 children with school uniforms and finance.



Vitae London is also currently stocked in leading US retailers, Macy’s and Nordstrom. The partnership with billionaire mogul Branson also helped attract other celebrities to the brand.



As Adoasi reflects, two things stand out for him.



“Firstly, entrepreneurship is about creating something much bigger than yourself… Secondly, money is a great motivator but if it is the only reason you get out of bed, then you have an unfulfilled life.”<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="15" height="14" src="">His next milestone is to be able to go to his parents and tell them they no longer need to work, and from the looks of things, time is on his side

peace11

Time To Tell: The London-Based Watchmaker Supporting Education In Africa

Isaac Oladipupo, the CEO of Afrilearn, co-founded the edtech startup with Gabriel Olatunji-Legend in 2019 with a bold vision: to provide affordable, world-class education for Africans anywhere.



For millions of children and young people in Africa, access to quality education is often limited by factors such as poverty, conflict, distance, and lack of infrastructure. To address this challenge, Afrilearn CEO, Isaac Oladipupo and co-founder Gabriel Olatunji-Legend drew inspiration from their own experiences to create something innovative.



According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 98 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are out of school, and many more are enrolled in schools that fail to provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in life.



Revolutionizing education in Africa with a gamified learn-and-earn feature, Afrilearn provides curriculum-relevant class notes, exam practice, animated video lessons, and a personalized learning dashboard that enable elementary and high school students (ages 6-18) to study easily and “achieve exam success in a single sitting”.



The inspiration behind Afrilearn came from the founders’ personal experiences of the educational challenges faced by students in Nigeria and across Africa.



“Imagine a world where every child, no matter their background or location, has full access to quality education and the tools to prepare them for lifelong success. That vision is what inspired the birth of Afrilearn,” Oladipupo tells FORBES AFRICA.



“When my exceptional co-founder Gabriel Olatunji-Legend and I struck out to build Afrilearn in 2019, we observed that for most young Africans, quality education is largely unaffordable, inaccessible and boring. Having personally witnessed the severe educational challenges faced by students in Nigeria and across Africa, resulting in high level of illiteracy, poor school grades, and failed dreams – we recognized the need for an urgent solution. We realized that technology offered the best opportunity to solve this challenge for generations to come, and Afrilearn was created to bridge this gap,&#8221; says Oladipupo.



One of the unique features of Afrilearn is that it offers both free and subscription-based accounts for its users. This means that students can access most of the platform’s content without paying anything.



However, if they want to enjoy exclusive benefits such as downloadable class notes, instant homework help with detailed explanations, coding lessons, live classes, personalized learning plans and much more, they can opt for a paid subscription.



“Our commitment to inclusivity led us to introduce free accounts, ensuring that no child is left behind due to financial constraints. Today, Afrilearn is widely renowned as the free, fun and effective app for the best school grades, uniting learners from top private schools, public schools, underserved communities, and even homeschoolers. We have evolved into a driving force for educational equity, turning learning into a joyful journey and transforming lives one lesson at a time.



“Revenue generated from subscriptions helps us continuously improve and expand our offerings, ensuring that Afrilearn remains a sustainable and impactful platform,” says Oladipupo.



Support from notable organizations, including United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the African Union (AU) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, has enabled Afrilearn to further develop its content library, ensuring that it aligns with the national curricula and meets the highest educational standards globally.



“It has facilitated partnerships with schools and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), enabling us to reach even more students in need,” says Oladipupo.



He adds: “Beyond financial assistance, the backing of these organizations has also bolstered our credibility and reputation, attracting more educators and experts to collaborate with us. This network effect has elevated Afrilearn’s influence in the education sector, amplifying our mission to provide free, world-class education for Africans, anywhere.”



However, more support is needed to introduce more advanced courses and specialized subjects to cater to the diverse interests and career aspirations of students globally.



Oladipupo envisions the platform’s role in shaping the future of learning: “Every child deserves the opportunity to experience Afrilearn and our ultimate goal is to serve the world. We will continue to expand our content library, covering a broader range of subjects and topics.



“To this end, we are actively seeking collaborations and partnerships with educational institutions, governments, and organizations. Through strategic alliances, we aim to reach more students and expand our impact on the education sector. We envision a future where access to quality education is no longer a privilege but a fundamental right for every child.”



Oladipupo recalls with fond memories, some success stories of users, including students, teachers and parents: “I remember Adeola, who cleared her West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in one sitting and is now pursuing her dream of becoming a software developer. A teacher, Abdullahi, shared with us how he experienced improved classroom engagement and student performance after using Afrilearn’s resources. The Osagie family, homeschooling their children, consider our platform a valuable educational partner tailored to each child’s learning needs,” he says.



“The joy and transformation we witness in the lives of students, teachers, and parents motivate us to push the boundaries of educational innovation further. Afrilearn’s impact extends beyond the classroom, empowering individuals to realize their full potential and become agents of positive change in their communities.”

Isaac Oladipupo; image credit Afrilearn 1

Beyond The Classroom: Nigerian Edtech Entrepreneur’s Aim ‘To Serve The World’

Earning the support and trust of the community surrounding the Malaika school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was vital in its early days, and still is today, says the non-profit’s founder and philanthropist, Noëlla Coursaris Musunka.



In the heart of Kalebuka – a village in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – the Malaika school, which opened its doors in 2011, has just celebrated its first graduation.



Empowering girls through education has been a key focus of the grassroots non-profit organization and founder, model and philanthropist, Noëlla Coursaris Musunka tells FORBES AFRICA that having the support structure that she has, has been vital.



“It has been challenging to help the community recognize the value of girls’ education when it has been a part of their culture to prioritize boys’ education and expect girls to do domestic duties only.



“When we gather the community to play sports we teach them about equality, social cohesion and the value of education. This has helped them to recognize why girls should be educated and to be supportive of this,” she says.



The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated that the out-of-school population in sub-Saharan Africa reached 98 million in 2021.



However, the organization noted that “important data gaps have been filled in countries that have large out of school numbers but where no administrative data of good quality has been available for over a decade”. This included the DRC (5.9 million).


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-59153" style="width:662px;height:440px" width="662" height="440" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ROB3606.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 662px) 100vw, 662px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"> Noëlla and a student. Image Supplied. </figcaption></figure></div>


Since its establishment, Malaika has developed into a primary and secondary school, and a community center and organic farm has been added, along with the refurbishment of 30 wells in the area.



“It has been extremely important to earn the trust and support of the community. Our mission is to empower girls and their communities and if community members were not interested in taking part then our work would have had minimal impact,” Musunka says.



“Our school, and our community center that provides vocational education and training to youth and adults, have been better because of the community’s help and support.&nbsp;Having their buy-in with our community center where they come to play sport and learning together has been wonderful to see and when whole families come and benefit from education, the girls at our school benefit even more.”



She also emphasizes that the support of the community was vital in getting the girls to school in the early days, and that many have been volunteers and helped to maintain the premises and land over the years.&nbsp;



Students at the school receive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education and can learn concepts like VPL, Blockly and Scratch languages as well as other basic and advanced computer skills.



Along with this, the school teaches sustainable farming practices and ensures that the community has access to basic needs, like clean drinking water, all of which can give the community what it needs to uplift itself in the long-term.



“I would like to see more investment in education and community development. Malaika is a sustainable ecosystem that can be duplicated in any context and we have created a toolkit in order to support others to create a similar provision in their communities.



“I would also love to see more focus on sustainable development. There also needs to be a holistic emphasis, including focus on infrastructure and health needs. There needs to be provision that can empower a community with lasting change,” says Musunka, who lives in the United Kingdom with her husband and children, and was named one of the BBC’s 100 Most Influential &amp; Inspirational Women in 2017.



As a mom, a feminist, and a believer in the right to access to education, health, and opportunity, her advice to young girls and women on the continent is to bet on yourself and aim high.



“Keep working hard and don’t give up even if things don’t seem to be going your way, just keep following your passion.”

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Pushing For Change In The DRC: School-Founder On The Challenges And Rewards Of Prioritizing Girls’ Education

Former The Apprentice star Samuel Brooksworth is capitalizing on the remote working revolution by getting young skilled people to work from Africa for organizations around the world.



The market for remote workplace services is set to grow from $20.1 billion in 2022 to $58.5 billion by 2027, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets, a sector research and growth advisory firm in the United States (US), and Samuel Brooksworth, the CEO and founder of Remoteli is here to seize it.



The savvy London-born Ghanaian businessman is also famous for being on The Apprentice reality TV series on BBC One in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2016.



He got to sell his ideas and display his sales skills, which he has been honing from a young age, on the show. He started young.



At university, with his twin brother Andrew, he revitalized the African &amp; Caribbean Society, growing it from just 15 members to over 600 people. They then went on to launch a t-shirt business, JC Range, featuring Christian-themed messages and sold at youth events and major gatherings across the UK.



Their t-shirts did well and they quickly realized they had a knack for sales. After graduation, Brooksworth joined Enterprise-Rent-A-Car, a UK car rental service where once again his skills were put to test.



“At Enterprise, there was a culture called Elite Club where the top sellers in the organization are [rewarded] for their hard work. In my first eight months at the organization, I made [it to the] top five consistently out of about 500 people in the region. To put this in context, most people only make the Elite Club once or twice every one or two years and some sales people have never made it to the club. So when I [accomplished] that, it put my name at the top of the organization and I got the attention of area managers and different regional individuals,” recalls Brooksworth.



It was not long after that his wife, an avid fan of The Apprentice, insisted he too apply for the show. He did, and a week later, he received the call. For Brooksworth, getting on the show was not to win. It was to leverage the platform to gain visibility for his latest business idea.



“I felt I got the exposure and after the show I was able to connect with people I didn’t have access to beforehand. When I went on the show, the business idea [I presented] was similar to what I am doing now. On the show, they rejected the business idea but years later it has actually become one of the most successful businesses of any candidate. It’s a beautiful moment that what they didn’t see has grown to be as big as it is now,” says Brooksworth.



It came with a lot of hard work.



In a 2019 article in The Guardian, he writes: “I was taught by my parents that I needed to work 10 times harder than my white friends in order to be seen as equal. As a child, this made no sense. I thought education was very black and white. If my answers were right, they were right; if they were wrong, they were wrong. Why then would I need to work harder just to receive the same grades?”



&nbsp;His big business opportunity came during the Covid-19 pandemic.



“I was speaking to various senior executives, business leaders and C-Suite individuals [about] the challenges during the pandemic and a lot of them were struggling. They were paying huge bills [for] offices that were empty,” says Brooksworth.



However, it was a trip to Ghana with his wife that solidified the idea for his business, Remoteli.



“There were so many young people who were unemployed but were sharp and on the ball. But when I spoke to the adults, they would say the young people are lazy and don’t want to learn. I thought that was not true, rather there were not enough opportunities and if you give them the skills, I believed that they would thrive.”



Brooksworth decided to get these skilled young people to work remotely in Ghana for organizations around the world.



His company, Remoteli, is a tech-led on-demand staffing organization providing remote workers for companies and individuals worldwide offering a range of services – from virtual assistants to web developers and social media managers. The company has not raised any money yet and has grown rapidly by bootstrapping and word-of-mouth referrals.



“We are helping combat the rising graduate unemployment rates in Africa by providing opportunities for unemployed youth,” says Brooksworth.



The organization has grown rapidly from two employees to over 100 staff and they are currently in the business hubs of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria.



The pandemic has changed the way organizations work forever and for Brooksworth, the time to capitalize on this is now and in doing so, he is making a tidy profit and helping fellow Ghanaians get high-paying jobs with global companies whilst working from the comfort of their homes in Africa.

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The Ghanaian Capitalizing On Remote Working

Old woman walking with her dog and her wares through the streets of Makhanda, Eastern Cape, in 2021

Cityscapes: Snapshots Of South Africa’s Thriving Informal Economy

Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli on her passion for equipping and investing in the continent’s future game-changers and also changing the food narrative on the continent.



Why can’t a continent with over 60% of the world’s unused arable land grow enough food to sustain itself? For as long as she can remember, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli has pondered this serious question about Africa.



Nwuneli, an entrepreneur, philanthropist and expert on agriculture and food ecosystems, fondly recalls growing her own avocados in the backyard of her family home in Enugu, Nigeria, and selling them at wholesale prices to women in the market. From that experience, Nwuneli knew she would always work, in some capacity, in the agriculture sector.



Her mother has been a staunch supporter of Nwuneli and her four siblings pursuing their passion. To help Nwuneli hone her business savviness, her mother would constantly share annual company reports with Nwuneli when she was an undergraduate student at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.



“That helped me with business and I enjoyed going into the social impact side of business. When I started school, I was passionate about Africa and Nigeria; [this was] when I moved to the United States,” says Nwuneli.



Her love for Africa led her to co-found the African Business Conference when she attended Harvard Business School which is now the largest student-run conference focused on business in Africa.



“The theme was reversing the African brain drain in 1999 and, at that time, no one was trying to come back to Africa. But we were already focused on that,” says Nwuneli.



After brief stints with McKinsey &amp; Company where she worked on numerous projects, including the transformation of the South African Police Service, Nwuneli joined the Michael Porter project in the Middle East to help Palestinian entrepreneurs scale and access their markets. That is when a conversation changed things.



“While I was there, a Palestinian asked me, ‘Why are you helping our country when yours is such a mess?’ I was like, it is one thing for Nigerians to say Nigeria is such a mess but for a Palestinian to tell me that my country was a mess, that was a wakeup call and this is one of the reasons I started working on initiatives back home.”



At 25, she joined investor and entrepreneur, Fola Adeola, and his FATE Foundation initiative, where she served as the pioneer executive director, to help empower Nigerian entrepreneurs.



“From an early age, we understood the reality that what is going to save our continent is not poverty alleviation but wealth creation. We had to create jobs for ourselves and others and, at the time, unemployment rates were still high. At the time the stats were saying 70% of our youth were unemployed and when young people are unemployed, they are seen as liabilities, not assets. The challenge was how can we transform this into positive change and wealth creation,” says Nwuneli.



Part of her initiatives involved organizing the first business plan competition for Nigeria as well as an investment forum and incubator to help young people create and scale their business.



Through working with the FATE Foundation, Nwuneli realized that it is one thing to teach young people how to make money, but another to instill the importance of creating businesses that are steeped in values, ethics and succession.



To help address this gap, she founded LEAP Africa. LEAP is an acronym for leadership, effectiveness, accountability and professionalism.



“The vision was to inspire and empower the next generation of African leaders. LEAP is 21 years old today and we work in eight African countries. I was the founder and on the board until this year.”



In 2007, Nwuneli’s husband suffered from a gunshot to his knee, which led the family to relocate to Senegal.



“He took a job with a private equity fund in Senegal. I have always wanted to make an impact in the food ecosystem and I thought this was a good opportunity to solve the food problem. My first project was with Oxfam [International], who needed a West African strategy for the food crisis and from then on, I started writing a lot of reports in and around Africa. That is what has birthed what we call Sahel Consulting, which now works across Africa, and our head office is in Abuja. I am the chair of the board.”



Nwuneli believes Africa can feed itself and the world. Through her consultancy work, she advises various institutions on how to improve the food scarcity issues plaguing Africa. That was when she moved on to her next venture, Aace Foods.



“I came up with Aace Foods because I realized so much of the food in Africa was imported and, as a continent, we had a high rate of malnutrition. Aace Foods processes food from local African farmers like spices and snacks, and our vision is to displace imports and also nourish our people,” says Nwuneli.



She has now come full circle when it comes to agriculture. Through her not-for-profit organization, African Food Changemakers, Nwuneli provides a platform for food and agriculture entrepreneurs in 37 countries to scale their business and change the food narrative on the continent.

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‘What Is Going To Save Africa Is Not Poverty Alleviation But Wealth Creation’: Nigerian Entrepreneur On What Can Drive Positive Change

Zuwaira Isah-Ikharo is endeavoring to meet the needs of new moms in the West African region by providing products that are natural and non-toxic.



Mothers shouldn’t have to choose between what works and what is good for their children. This is reportedly the premise behind American A-lister and self-made entrepreneur, Jessica’s Alba’s Honest Company. During her pregnancy in 2008, the actor realized that she couldn’t find affordable natural baby products. Her response was to fill that gap. In 2015, the Honest Company was valued at about $1.7 billion.



Here, on the African continent, Alba’s success story resonated with another new mom–Amal Botanicals’ founder, Zuwaira Isah-Ikharo.



Born in Kaduna State in Nigeria, Isah-Ikharo was surrounded by entrepreneurship. Although her mother and father worked as a lecturer and immigration controller respectively, they both dabbled in side hustles. Isah-Ikharo’s mother opened a provision shop while her dad co-authored a best-selling book on small business and food processing. Isah-Ikharo, however, took an unconventional path towards realizing her entrepreneurial prowess.



Her early career was in the accounting field where she worked as a chartered accountant for various organizations, including the Federal Inland Revenue Service in Nigeria. Her specialism was taxation as well as forensic accounting. The plan was to build her career in the accounting field and perhaps rise to the top with her own firm. That is until she got pregnant and, like Alba, her maternal, protective instincts for her unborn children kicked in.



“I had my triplets in 2013 and that is when my entrepreneurial career started. My children were born premature and, even when I was pregnant, I had a high-risk pregnancy and I was told to stay away from some products and cosmetics. All the products I had bought for my children, which were conventional baby care products, were not suitable for them. I needed something more natural and toxic-free to use on them because they were in the incubator and they were still receiving therapy,” says Isah-Ikharo.



According to a report by news distribution platform, GlobeNewswire, the global baby care products market is estimated to reach $26.84 billion by 2030. In recent years, the term ‘baby products’, which broadly denotes all products made for infants under the age of three, has become increasingly popular.



In Nigeria, in particular, market and consumer data provider, Statista, estimates that the baby and child market segment is expected to grow annually by 19.15% (CAGR 2023–2027).



The problem for Isah-Ikharo was that there were no products on the market that she felt she could trust. That is when she began to do her own research and, with the help of her personal Instagram page, she started sharing how she dealt with taking care of the triplets and the experimental products she was using.



“I was getting response[s] from people asking me what I was using and this was coming from all over Africa. I also discovered that there were other mothers on my page and they needed to hear more from me.”



To help her formulate her products, Isah-Ikharo took a course with a cosmetic science formulation company in London, with a special focus on children. Once she got her certification, she began creating her own unique formulation, which she shared with family and friends.



“They kept demanding it and I needed to put a price on it to help restock my raw materials because I was giving it [away] for free for a while. And that is how Amal Botanicals actually started,” says Isah-Ikharo.



Her first products, which included a moisturizing cream, soothing shea oil, bubbly bath wash and African black bar soap, were immediate best-sellers.



“When I started, I only had the vision. No one understood what I was trying to do and they thought it would not survive. Starting a business for a delicate niche like babies was risky because people are very careful about what they use on their children. So, trust in [the] brand I was building is very important.”



Today, Amal Botanicals is still self-funded and has grown organically with products being shipped to all 36 states in Nigeria as well as to Ghana. But the growth has not been without its challenges.



“One of the difficult challenges we have had relates to sourcing raw materials and we all know how the exchange rate has impacted businesses globally. Right now, most of our packages are still imported because we want to be able to compete with the global brands out there and hence, there is [a] high cost of importation. Our packages are imported from China and the back and forth from our manufacturers can become very tedious,” says Isah-Ikharo.



With minimal barriers to entry in Nigeria, Isah-Ikharo has her vision cut out for her–of becoming one of the biggest suppliers of quality natural baby care products.



“The beauty industry in Nigeria is plagued by people with substandard products. Because it is easy to enter, we have people with no certification mixing products together without following the due process of formulation and this can be dangerous to customers, and harms our industry,” says Isah-Ikharo.



But like Alba, Isah-Ikharo is determined to build a leading baby care brand in Africa and with sales of her products consistently selling out, the future certainly looks bright.

Zuwaira Isah-Ikharo of Amal Botanicals, image supplied

More Than An Infant Business: How This Nigerian Entrepreneur Is Getting Baby Care Right

<h3 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center" id="h-spencer-hornefounder-and-ceo-cloudlinesouth-africa">Spencer Horne Founder and CEO, Cloudline South Africa</h3>



Savoring the mild nippy weather in New York City, a far cry from South Africa’s autumn sun, Spencer Horne seems to have come full circle.



The Spencer Horne who was born in the small community of Kales River, Cape Town.



The Spencer Horne who, from an early age, developed “an obsession” for engineering fueled by his love for trains.



The Spencer Horne who grew up as a dreamer and has always been keenly aware of this rhetoric of structure versus agency; what determines outcomes for individuals or communities?



The Spencer Horne who is in New York, a long way from home, ready to answer this question with regard to his business, Cloudline.



This should be a full circle moment for him, but it is not.



“It doesn&#8217;t seem like it because I feel like the work is only just beginning,” Horne chuckles in a Zoom interview with FORBES AFRICA.



Using battery- and solar-powered propulsion to deliver carbon emission-free flight operations, Cloudline is an aerospace company building a network of autonomous airships that delivers goods and services across the globe. According to Horne, air is an “underutilized resource”. Getting anything into the air in general is difficult as also expensive. “[For conventional aircraft], putting those aircraft in the air comes at a high capital cost and keeping them there comes at a very high energy cost,” Horne elaborates. &#8220;That&#8217;s expensive in monetary terms; it&#8217;s expensive in carbon terms. And we are at the heart of the technology that we&#8217;ve developed to address those two major barriers to more widespread use of the air for getting things done.”



When Cloudline started out, they identified the infrastructural gaps that exist within African regions and saw a massive opportunity.



This is the key role that Horne plays in the agricultural space. Although he does not constitute Cloudline exclusively as an agritech, their business contributes significantly to farmers.



“I think in the agricultural sector, in particular, we&#8217;ve seen the role data has played in transforming the way in which precision agriculture is being done.”


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="665" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DSC02238-1-1024x665.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-58472" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DSC02238-1-1024x665.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DSC02238-1-300x195.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DSC02238-1-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DSC02238-1-1536x998.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/DSC02238-1-2048x1330.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">&nbsp;Horne with Mbali Gushu, chief operating officer, and Anton Erasmus, chief engineer.&nbsp;</figcaption></figure></div>


Precision agriculture is a part of the larger conversation around the green revolution. According to experts, this way of farming uses data from multiple sources to improve cultivation for farmers, whether it is used for crop yields and/or to increase the cost-effectiveness of crop management strategies including fertilizer inputs, irrigation management, and pesticide application.



Afgri, a South African agricultural services company, thinks of this type of farming as “site-specific and information-specific”. 



“If you think about Cloudline in the context of the way in which data is gathered today, that&#8217;s against the backdrop of satellites…so this is one of the big places where Cloudline plays a role in that agricultural revolution. And to tie it in with more mainstream applicability, and lowering costs, we can think about the ways in which that grows these markets. From just the top-tier largest commercial farms, it makes it more accessible to more people. That is the kind of thing that makes both business sense and development sense.”



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Improving yield, efficiency and profitability in agriculture comes down to the harvesting of technology. At its forefront are the agritech innovators bringing transformative change to the continent’s green economy. FORBES AFRICA profiles some of Africa’s biggest agripreneurs, inventors, and agribusiness leaders changing the way we think about farming, food security and climate resilience. They have cultivated a passion for smart agriculture and are leading the charge for social change not only for the sector but for the continent – and for humanity’s sustainable future.



<a href="https://shop.forbesafrica.com/shop/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read about all the innovators in our June/July issue by getting your digital copy </a>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/twitter-banner-agri-1024x341.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-58451" width="592" height="196" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/twitter-banner-agri-1024x341.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/twitter-banner-agri-300x100.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/twitter-banner-agri-768x256.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/twitter-banner-agri-1536x512.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/twitter-banner-agri-2048x683.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 592px) 100vw, 592px" /></figure></div>

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Africa’s Green Economy: ‘AIR IS AN UNDERUTILIZED RESOURCE’

Gaurav Dhar, a tech investor and second generation fintech entrepreneur in Dubai, has a keen eye on the sector in Africa, saying the continent will see larger and larger funds coming into enabling environments–and there are also some key lessons from the Middle East.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
“THE CONTINENT OF AFRICA HAS ITS OWN PATH OF ADOPTION FOR TECHNOLOGY, INFRASTRUCTURE AND THE DIFFERENT ECONOMIES… THERE IS HUGE POTENTIAL BUT THE UNLOCKING OF IT HAS TAKEN DIFFERENT TRAJECTORIES…”
</blockquote>



At the Dubai Fintech Summit in May, Gaurav Dhar is outside the lavish Madinat Jumeirah hotel where the event is being held, walking out of the venue into the afternoon sun in a dapper blue suit. Like the weather by this chic coastal property, he is warm and welcoming, referring to our chat a few weeks earlier.



As the Group CEO of Marshal Fintech Partners, these are the events you will typically find him at in the spiffy Middle Eastern emirate, those that focus on investments, fintechs, startups, venture capital, entrepreneurship and innovation.



Just like Dubai, the city he was born and raised in, his specialties too are as dynamic and diverse. 



Like any third generation expatriate, Dhar says he has a great sense of pride locating his activities out of the glistening emirate, yet doing business for the world, even for Africa.



“I consider myself an ambassador of the UAE. I have Indian roots, but for all intents and purposes, I consider myself an honorary Emirati. Because there is this pride when you [have been] part of the story of building this country in some way, shape or form.” Dhar’s grandfather came to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the early 1970s to become the General Manager of General Motors, when the country had just been carved out as seven emirates from its hitherto existence as the Trucial States.



Dubai was still a dusty city being developed around a port, bringing in tidings and tidy profits from the sea.



“The UAE was its own little paradise, and now is this behemoth global player… Our business evolved along with the country–it was a very side-by-side story,” says Dhar about how after his grandfather, his father, Anil, too followed in the late 1970s and took to “the landscape that was fresh, exciting, mixed and new”.



He worked at Unilever and Texas Instruments before “manifesting his own destiny” and deciding to go his own, turning around an office furniture and supplies company, slowly implementing it also as a technology-focused enterprise, incorporating typewriters, photocopiers and fax machines, as more and more businesses in the region started looking for ways to formalize and store work.



“My father wanted to follow the next trend…and understand the space where again, he could control his own destiny, as opposed to waiting for Xerox or Microsoft to tell him what to do, how to build or what his revenue could be,” recalls Dhar. Called Marshal Equipment and Trading LLC, the company started in the UAE, expanding across the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Africa. “It has been profit-generating for over 35 years and consistently growing,” says Dhar, speaking from his new office on Dubai’s ritzy Sheikh Zayed Road, also home to the almost-kilometer-long Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower. When his father started his business, it was in a small office in Deira–a historic district bursting with character, old forts, wind towers, the legendary Clock Tower and the shimmering waters of the creek.



As a curious child growing up in this space, watching the business evolve, Dhar’s answer to questions while studying at Doon School in India was always that the family was in “payments technology”. His mind was already on the job.



The business grew from one country to another and so did the public penchant for payments technology slowly gaining currency in the boardrooms and bourses of Dubai as “people also started understanding the blocks that make up the fintech system”.



When Dhar–who studied law at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and calls himself “a second generation fintech entrepreneur”–first started exploring fintech, it also took a little convincing to get Dhar’s dad, who is 70 this year, to get on board.



“When we started talking in 2015 about the concept of nonprofit generating companies that are pure valuation-based, you can imagine his reaction, as a businessman, it was initially to say this is not going to fly, this is not going to work as a concept, because it’s very easy to spend money, but it’s very difficult to make money.”



Dhar started spending time in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India and other places to understand more of what was happening in the “high-risk, high-return, high-failure-rate” venture capital space in this regard.



About seven years ago, Dhar, in his personal capacity, started investing in fintech in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the United States, and three years ago, the company’s name changed to Marshal Fintech Partners–as it got acquired by a sovereign wealth fund in the Middle East.



With over 19 years of experience under his belt in various aspects of business, Dhar now has a well entrenched interest in fintech ecosystems and solutions.



“It’s very exciting to be a part of this evolution, where the ecosystem from a startup or investing point of view has started maturing and we were part of that as it started again…



“If I were to have an intellectual conversation in detail about payments technology with my father, he is extremely wellequipped, because he was there as it was being written, assembled, and literally adopted by all parts of the ecosystem in the Middle East, so he’s extremely capable,” smiles Dhar.



The business growth has been organic, as the entire ecosystem works mutually on codependency and reciprocal relationships from a technology, landscape, business and venture capital perspective. Along the evolution journey, through these collaborative interactions, Dhar says he has also formed networks and friends with “tangible value exchange” and “a genuine desire” to drive economic growth and create job opportunities in the Middle East and Africa.



The Middle East has historical ties with Africa, and Dhar continues to build connections on the continent, often featuring founders of African fintechs and Web3 startups on the podcast series (on Spotify, Apple, YouTube) he hosts every week. “The continent of Africa has its own path of adoption for technology, infrastructure and the different economies… there is huge potential but the unlocking of it has taken different trajectories…



“Let’s not forget that the Middle East has a lot of sovereign wealth, and they have been engaging in investing internationally for decades…So along with that wealth comes access to knowledge, learning, and exposure, so it has been much faster.



“I think the African continent again has it in pockets, but it’s not been [able to] move that timeline faster to have the whole continent benefiting from the influx of capital. So these are very separate ecosystems with different outcomes,” he says.



But there is no doubt there are massive opportunities and synergies between both regions.



“What you’re going to see is larger and larger funds in Africa, either pooled from Europe, or within Africa itself. Entrepreneurship still needs funding and fueling.”



“Whoever is going to be the most-friendly regulator is going to win, then the most-friendly telco operator is going to gain massively; and then the third is with the government allowing people to understand subsidized ecosystems to spark long-term talent staying in those ecosystems, and the understanding of educating properly what is happening in that ecosystem.” Effective partnerships between the government and the private sector is one thing the Middle East has done extremely well, he adds. 



“They have written the playbook for this essentially–the marriage between the government or the federal ecosystem and the private sector has been very close. They talk to each other and push each other to do bigger and better things. And one of these things in the UAE is the venture capital space. And that perhaps is something that needs to happen more in Africa.”



Also a board member of the MENA FinTech Association, a trip to Africa is on the cards soon, but when Dhar is not spending his time on advisory boards and “giving back” to the entrepreneurial community, he dabbles in his other interests: F&amp;B, collecting vintage cars and hosting vintage car rallies every year, where all roads eventually lead to Dubai.

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Guru Of Fintech: The Dubai Entrepreneur With An Eye On Africa

Reitumetse Kholumo, the 25-year-old founder of Kwela Brews, is working to ensure that indigenous knowledge systems and makers of homegrown alcohol (umqombothi) earn their rightful place in South Africa’s formal economy.



In apartheid-era South Africa, it was popularly known that if women could not find domestic work, they would turn to brewing beer in their backyard – even though it was illegal– as a means of making ends meet. Eventually, alcohol was supplied at scale that largely supplanted these traditional brewers.



While women from all walks of life are no longer excluded from working in the formal alcohol market, monopolies such as pay disparities continue to reign.



This is something 25-year-old Reitumetse Kholumo hopes to change.



She was in her second year of chemical engineering at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, when on a field trip to one of the top brewers in the country, what stood out for her was the lack of representation.



She was studying bioprocessing and curious about indigenous African beverages, sought lessons in brewing from her grandmother.



Later on, she did a humanities elective about how engineering affects the broader public, specifically with a lens on how the profession was used to engineer apartheid. “I then looked at things a bit differently, being conscious of the fact that if I become a brewer, I’m just one brewer, but there are so many African women who are brewing on the ground, and the engineering solutions that exist do not address their problems,” she says to FORBES AFRICA.



Kholumo entered the informal industry from a bio-engineering perspective, believing the challenges to be efficiency and safety. 



While these are valid concerns, once she met the women making beer, she found other more pressing issues.



“When I met more women, their issues were more related to the market itself – they don’t have consistent buyers.”



Part of the reason was the prevalence of low-cost tier beers competing with traditionally-brewed beer.



“The women that brew authentic traditional African beer, they know how to brew safely. Efficiency is something that we are building on in a way that will complement their indigenous knowledge and how they usually brew.”



As the founder of Kwela Brews, Kholumo isn’t going to impose her ideas but rather collaborate with the women to assess the process, and see what they can adopt in their daily practices.



Kwela Brews became a distributor to solve the main problem: finding regular buyers in their relevant low-income communities.



“So, what we do is we pay the women for the brews, and we also supply them with the ingredients that they like. They’re my bosses, if anything,” she laughs.



In 2022, Kwela Brews began testing the market with products – going to Jazz in the Native Yards, a concert hosting South African musicians, primarily held in the Gugulethu township of Cape Town.



They have also now partnered with a local restaurant in Stellenbosch that sees traffic from international students and tourists, so they are widening their reach. 



“In the near future, we’re going to be doing tastings and collaborating on events just to de-risk it for them, but also so that we can learn what the market requires.”



Still completing her master’s degree in chemical engineering at Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, Kholumo’s broader interests are the beneficiation of indigenous bio-products when it comes to nutraceuticals and therapeutics. “What I want more than anything is to create a space where indigenous brews are appreciated, as they come from the indigenous knowledge-holders.” 



She says each batch of her brew tastes different because it will have different micro-organisms, which are good for people’s gut microbiomes. 



“Different women from different tribes will have different ways of brewing, and this is all over sub-Saharan Africa. So I feel like there’s a lot of potential there.”



While she received R20,000 ($1,100) in funding from the University of Cape Town’s student pitch competition, hosted by Akro, along with UCT InvestSoc and UCT Entrepreneurs Society in 2021, she quickly used the startup money. In 2022, she was on the Mastercard Foundation program that gave her another R120,000 ($6,500). And even though it’s an alcoholic product, she wants to eventually get certification about benefits for gut microbiome. She’s raising the bar for homegrown alcohol to be distributed and sold at scale. After all, as they say in South Africa, local is lekker (good).

Category: Entrepreneurs

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

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