As we draw closer to the 2018 Kampala Innovation Week, focusing on “Financing Uganda’s Innovation Ecosystem”, we are profiling the top speakers at the event.
The Kampala Innovation Week will take place from August 20 – 24 at The Innovation Village and across other hubs in Kampala including Outbox Hub.
Like we told you earlier, this year’s Kampala Innovation Week will thus focus on bridging the existing funding gaps. This is in addition to building awareness and linkages, which was last year’s goal.
Since the event focuses on financing the innovation ecosystem, the figures we are profiling are primarily into investment.
Takuma Terakubo
Takuma is the founder of Leapfrog Ventures Inc., a venture capital that focuses on seed stage East African startups in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.
In a joint venture with Samurai Incubate, a Tokyo-based startup incubator that Takuma previously worked for, Leapfrog recently launched a $4.5 million fund aimed at investing in 80 startups in Kigali, Rwanda.
The first beneficiary of the fund is Exuus, a fintech startup offering credit infrastructure for unbanked people in Rwanda.
In an interview with WeeTracker, Takuma shared his vision of a better Africa. He wants "to create entrepreneurs and utilize technology to solve human race issues and unite the world.”
Zachariah George
Zachariah is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Startupbootcamp Africa, a multi-corporate backed venture accelerator program. He doubles as the founder of Cactus Advisors – a specialist corporate finance, Angel investment and business advisory firm.
A former head of Africa Investments for U-Start, he is a mechanical engineer and an ex-Wall Street Investment Banker who holds an MSc in Management Science from Stanford University specializing in Corporate Finance.
Sapna Shah
Sapna Shah serves as an Investment Director of Novastar Ventures Ltd. She is a former Portfolio Manager at Acumen East Africa in Nairobi, and also co-founded Naked Pizza, a customer-focused, pizza delivery business in Nairobi.
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Sapna also worked with Lloyds TSB in the UK, Europe and the US, and HSBC in Jordan. She graduated from the London School of Economics with a Bsc (Hons) in Government and Economics.
Adedana Ashebir
Adedana is a regional manager at Village Capital. A role she assumed after three years at the African Leadership Network (ALN). It is at ALN that she built and managed the Africa Business Fellowship.
There, she linked young American business leaders to African corporates and startups for short-term work placements across five countries.
Adedana holds a Master in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a Certificate of Chinese Language and Culture from Beijing Normal University, and a BA in Environmental Studies from Yale University
Liz Muange
Liz is a Deputy Director for Investment at the East Africa Trade and Investment Hub. She has more than ten years of experience in areas of investment and development projects.
A global shaper of the World Economic Forum running projects in Entrepreneurship development in Nairobi, she holds a masters in International Relations from the Catholic University of Milan and a bachelors from the University of Nairobi.