"We can change Africa in our lifetime." This is the mantra that drives everything we do. We know that Africa's unique problems can only be solved efficiently by Africans. Over the years, Africa's Talking has grown to become a company that is community driven, innovative and not afraid to go the extra mile to offer more value to software developers.
We believe that they play a crucial role in helping Africa take its rightful place in the Tech revolution. This is why we sought out to accelerate our growth and bring more like-minded individuals along on this journey.
Mid 2018, we closed our series A funding round with investors who share the same vision we have for developers in Africa. Our objective for creating these partnerships is to expand Africa's Talking in a way that not only impacts more software developers in Africa but also creates an environment that we can offer mentorship so that they succeed and scale across the continent.
To achieve this, we incorporated Africa's Talking Group whose goal is to create a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem for Africa through equipping developers and businesses with what they need to be successful.
This initiative was started by Samuel Gikandi and Bilha Ndirangu and they will drive its mission. This umbrella corporation will house two companies, Africa’s Talking and Africa’s Talking Labs (AT Labs), that will respectively actualize its goals by:
- Lowering the barriers for access to communications, payments and cloud infrastructure to software developers and businesses across Africa.
- Providing an environment where it can co-create value with partners within its network and accelerate the path to market for technology startups.
This change in structure also called for a shift in leadership as each of these companies is currently working on different strategies. Africa's Talking’s next frontier is to expand its reach to all 54 countries in Africa, creating partnerships and impacting developer communities. So as to effectively achieve this, Bilha Ndirangu, who was Chief Commercial Officer, Africa's Talking, steps up to be CEO, Africa's Talking.
We will be tapping into her experience in building organizations by creating partnerships with different stakeholders and scaling them to new markets. Seeing that AT Labs is still a new entity with a few startups who need help in growing to fully-fledged businesses across Africa, it needed the expertise of someone who has walked this path before.
Samuel Gikandi, previous CEO and co-founder of Africa's Talking was a natural choice for CEO, AT Labs. His vision for this entity is to equip more people with skills involved in creating profitable businesses with as little hurdles as possible.
We believe that this new structure will help us concentrate on our common goal and create environments that foster success for Africa's current and future generations.