East African startups travel to Silicon Valley with SAP fellowship programme
Summary
Kenyan mobile medicine verification service Sproxil and Ugandan renewable energy startup SolarNow were among the East African startups that travelled to Silicon Valley recently as part of the SAP Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship programme. The selected enterprises, which represent a variety of sectors including energy, agriculture and education, all take innovative approaches to addressing the problems of poverty, and have proven business models with the potential to scale and replicate across multiple markets. “Social enterprises can accelerate innovation, create jobs, and spur economic growth,” said Andrew Waititu, managing director at SAP East Africa. The SAP Social Entrepreneur Fellowship gives these CEOs the opportunity to learn from business and technology experts, so they can take their business to the next level while driving sustainable growth in their countries.” Ashifi Gogo, CEO of Sproxil, said his team had taken the learnings from the fellowship to create a common language and synthesize our ideas. “It can be lonely as a entrepreneur when you’re discovering these new growth frontiers, so it’s important to find like-minded people to reinforce our beliefs and trigger collective success.
