[ad_1]
These seven African entrepreneurs all studied or labored within the United States however recognised the enterprise alternatives back home.
1. Nigerian Uber-for-trucks firm Kobo360 not such a loopy thought in any case
Nigerian entrepreneur Obi Ozor relocated to the US throughout his highschool years and obtained levels from the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton Business School. He may have stayed within the US; “I would have been fine. But, working at JP Morgan at the age of 23, I was unfulfilled. I did not feel it was what a sharp young man from Nigeria should be doing.”
Ozor co-founded Kobo360 in 2016. The firm gives an e-logistics platform that hyperlinks truck house owners with purchasers requiring cargo transportation – an Uber for vehicles. Read Obi Ozor’s Business Growth Story.
2. Entrepreneur faucets into worldwide marketplace for Ethiopian-made leather-based merchandise
Ethiopia has the most important livestock inhabitants in Africa, measured at round 53 million cattle by the Ethiopian Investment Commission. However, solely 50% of the disguise and pores and skin potential is at the moment being utilised.
Ethiopian-born entrepreneur Abai Schulze noticed this hole available in the market on a visit home from the US, the place she grew up after being adopted on the age of 11. Following the conclusion of her research in economics at George Washington University, Schulze realised her beginning nation was getting the quick finish of the stick. Ethiopia was exporting uncooked leather-based, just for it to be made into luxurious leather-based gadgets with an unlimited mark-up in European international locations.
Schulze crafted a plan to provide high-end leather-based items – equivalent to purses, backpacks and clutch luggage – below the model title ZAAF Collection utilizing native expertise and assets in Ethiopia and to export it to the remainder of the world. Read Abai Schulze’s Business Growth Story.
3. Ghanaian entrepreneur returns home from the US to commercialise the moringa tree
Born and raised in Accra, Kwami Williams emigrated to the US after his household received the variety visa lottery. He spent his center and highschool years in Baltimore.
“I studied aerospace engineering at MIT and interned at two NASA space centres thinking that would be my future. Through two trips back to Ghana during university, I got to see rural poverty up close for the first time. These experiences gave me a complete change of heart, igniting a journey from aerospace engineering to agriculture. I packed my bags and moved back to Ghana in 2013 to start building what would become MoringaConnect.”
Today Williams is the CEO of MoringaJoin, a Ghanaian firm which manufactures meals and private care merchandise from the moringa tree. Its manufacturers embrace Minga Foods and True Moringa. The enterprise additionally provides bulk moringa oil, tea and powder to manufacturers internationally. Read Kwami Williams’ Business Growth Story.
4. Selling lemonade in Nigeria by way of an revolutionary distribution technique
Seyi Abolaji moved back to Nigeria in 2007 after dwelling and learning within the US. After acquiring his diploma at Stanford University, enjoying skilled soccer and settling into a brand new job at McMaster-Carr (a provider of business supplies and tools), he introduced he was returning to his home nation. “It was a big surprise for everybody, it was never really the plan.”
Abolaji was keen to affix a member of the family’s palm kernel oil enterprise however found the enterprise was not what he thought it was. Starting from scratch, he ventured into promoting hand-squeezed lemonade at a neighborhood college. Today, Wilson’s Lemonade is accessible in three totally different flavours and stocked in a number of supermarkets. Read Seyi Abolaji’s Business Growth Story.
5. Liberia: A model of well being and sweetness merchandise created from oil palm grown by small-scale farmers
J-Palm is an agribusiness firm based by Mahmud Johnson in Liberia in June 2013. Johnson, who grew up in Liberia, got here up with the concept for J-Palm throughout a Christmas break when he was back home from learning within the US.
The enterprise helps smallholder farmers who harvest the fruits from naturally rising oil palms of their communities for oil manufacturing, buying each the palm oil in addition to the kernels left over as a by-product. It then processes the kernels into palm kernel oil for its vary of client life-style merchandise – soaps, moisturisers and hair conditioners – below the model Kernel Fresh. It additionally aggregates the crude palm oil bought from the smallholder farmers to promote on to retailers. Read Mahmud Johnson’s Business Growth Story.
6. Sailing uncharted waters in Nigeria
Esigie Aguele had a cushty life working as a senior supervisor for a expertise firm in Washington, DC. After spending virtually 20 years within the US, Aguele was searching for a possibility to return to his nation of beginning, Nigeria. “I was inspired to come back to Nigeria because I felt the expertise I gained in the States would have more impact at home. The society there was more developed, and whatever solution or idea you could come up with was probably already done. In Nigeria, I felt I could bring my experience and knowledge to provide a solution that would help build the economy.”
Aguele went on to co-found VerifyMe Nigeria, a digital id and verification companies firm that provides companies equivalent to id, deal with and employment verification. Read Esigie Aguele’s Business Growth Story.
7. Health-tech entrepreneur believes the sector’s untapped potential is ‘incredible’
Adegoke Olubusi is a co-founder of Nigerian-based health-tech firm Helium Health, which supplies healthcare suppliers a complete suite of expertise options devoted to managing each facet of healthcare supply, from digital medical information and telemedicine, to administration and monetary administration.
Olubusi moved to the US after finishing highschool, enrolling at Morgan State University in Maryland for laptop science and electrical engineering. In 2014, after he completed his diploma, he helped create the communication app KingsChat. Then it was on to Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering the place he acquired his grasp’s diploma in engineering administration.
He nonetheless remembers the second the issue assertion in healthcare grew to become a enterprise thought. Whilst travelling in Nigeria to analysis telecommunications expertise and connectivity as a attainable future enterprise, Olubusi and one of many co-founders visited the workplace of the then Speaker of the House of Assembly in Lagos, a physician by career. “After listening to our pitch, he said: ‘That is nice and cool, but let me tell you about an even bigger problem that no one wants to take on.’ He then highlighted the pain point of an inefficient healthcare system where it was impossible to find and trace medical records for patients.” Read Adegoke Olubusi’s Business Growth Story.
Related articles
[ad_2]
Source link